Dean Jacqui: Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Rugby World Cup 2015 Extended Trading Hours) Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDean Jacqui: Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Rugby World Cup 2015 Extended Trading Hours) Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 26 August 2015. Volume:708;Page:6206. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): This is a bill that is not so much about the drinking of alcohol. This is a bill that is very much about watching rugby down at the pub with your mates or in any licensed or club premises. My ideal circumstance is probably watching one of the All Blacks games in my home town of Ōāmaru probably in Fat Sally’s I would imagine and it will be an event organised by the rugby club of which I am the patron so it will be—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.JACQUI DEAN: When I started my contribution before the dinner hour my opening comments were that this bill is not so much about the harms created by alcohol—and I will go into that in a bit—but rather the ability for licensees to televise Rugby World Cup games outside their normal licensing hours.The reason I talk about the opportunity to watch rugby on live television outside of licensing hours is that throughout the consideration of this bill in the Justice and Electoral Committee it was brought to us that we needed to be very precise about just what it was we were proposing to legislate for. Perhaps I should say what we are not legislating for: the ability for licensed premises to take advantage of the provisions in this member’s bill which will become part of the principal Act simply to extend their licensing hours for a bout of all-night drinking. This bill is not about that.There are provisions in the bill to ensure that for example if a Rugby World Cup game commences more than 2 hours outside of the licensee’s normal trading hours then that premises has to close and it may reopen under the terms of this bill an hour before the scheduled game. This is not about extended drinking opportunities. Rather this is a bill that is about the opportunity for New Zealanders who are passionate about the All Blacks and that is all of us I think having the opportunity to get together and celebrate whichever team they are supporting whether it is Samoa Namibia South Africa or the mighty All Blacks. It gives New Zealanders and everybody else the opportunity to watch in a social setting a game of rugby on a licensed premises.If we look at the bill there is helpfully at the back in schedule 4 I believe a list of all the games. One will see that the games run from 1.30 in the morning right through until 9 o’clock. So the latest game that is scheduled is 9 o’clock in the morning. I think it would be stretching it a bit to think that that is a recipe for all-night drinking particularly under the provisions of this bill. However I do acknowledge the concerns that have been expressed to the select committee through submissions and also in this House that there is harm associated with liquor licensing. That really underpins the reasoning why although this was a member’s bill that was a stand-alone bill it is now proposed to become an amendment to the principal Act which is the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act with an expiry date by the way.There was one member in the House who did not sit on the committee terribly many times and I do need to put on record that this bill does in fact expire. It is explicit in the bill and in the commentary on the bill that this is a bill that gives effect to licensees being able to trade outside their normal licensing hours for the purposes of televising live Rugby World Cup games. We were very careful in the select committee to be explicit about that point so that there would be no mistake.I want to turn my attention a little to the word “televise”. Of course these days many people will follow Rugby World Cup games on Twitter Facebook and other means like live streaming but this bill although not excluding that is explicit in that it is intended to enable licensed premises that have a large TV screen available to most of the people in the bar to televise that rugby game for the enjoyment of the people who choose to go and watch it.I was watching the telly in the break as one does and I saw one of the 7 o’clock programmes—we call them news programmes loosely—which did a story on this bill and put up the proposition that it is perhaps not needed because we do have the ability to grant special licences. Yes it is true we do—“we” as in licensees—but there is the genesis of this bill because what has been found is that district licensing committees can put very onerous conditions on special licences which then have to be appealed as has happened many times and can put onerous licensing conditions upon the applicant. “What’s the problem?” one says. “There is nothing wrong with onerous mitigating measures to mitigate the harm from alcohol.” So this is where the provisions of this Rugby World Cup licensing regime come in.When notifying police or a district licensing committee that a licensee wishes to be open for the All Black versus Australia semi-final within 7 days that licensee has to provide the police and district licensing committee with a notice that sets out the measures they will take to reduce the harms associated with being open. Although that is not appealable which is a little unusual in itself there are three brightline conditions that must also go with that notification and those are: no dumping bottles in dumpsters in the early hours no use of outside courtyard facilities and nobroadcasting of loud music. Furthermore because this bill has been made an amendment to the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act for as long as it lasts that enables section 259 of the Act to apply. That section deals with variations in hours and transgressions against licensing conditions. So there is protection for citizens and there is the ability for the police and licensing inspectors to step in and act if there is a transgression.I just wanted to be very clear about the provisions of this bill—it is stepping in where a gap is left with special licences. Whether this Government and this Parliament deals with special licensing in the future is a matter for another debate but this bill fills that gap. This is the bill that is going to enable New Zealanders like me who only ever support one team to be able to go down to the pub and watch the rugby. I will able to go down to Fat Sally’s on Thames Street in Ōāmaru—and I started to say this before dinner—as a guest of the North Otago Rugby Football Union of which I am a patron and watch one of the games in the bar. I will probably have something to drink I will definitely have something to eat and I will cheer my heart out as New Zealand and our mighty All Blacks go forward to win the Rugby World Cup. Thank you.