Catchpole Brent: Sale of Liquor Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Catchpole Brent: Sale of Liquor Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:12352] 
BRENT CATCHPOLE (NZ First) 
: 
 I would just like to express my disappointment in Rick Barker for suggesting that the House vote against my amendment. New Zealand First feels that the threshold for a poll should have been lowered. It should have been made easier to call for a poll. I take the point that there are several different figures within this bill and we note that yes when a licensing trust has decided through its board of trustees to reconstitute it does have to tell the public. The bill is quite clear that the trust must notify the public and its trustees. But the bill then opens up a situation whereby the trustees and the public have to call for a poll themselves in order to be able to overturn the ruling of the board of trustees. We believe the threshold for that is too high and therefore we requested a lowering of that figure. I do express my disappointment that the Minister without allowing the debate to go forward has already signalled that he would like to see that amendment thrown out. I am disappointed in that. 
It all comes down to the basis of a licensing trust converting to a community trust. This bill allows that process to happen. The licensing trusts were set up with a definite restricted area in which they controlled every aspect of the sale of liquor excluding liquor sold by any supermarkets that moved into those areas. There was a case in Auckland during the last election where the supermarket chains set out to try to overturn the licensing trust. They regarded the financial disclosure requirements of the trusts as inadequate because they could not identify exactly what was the financial part of the liquor sales. So they wanted to separate that out. I am pleased the Minister did not allow that to happen because it would have set up a process whereby the supermarket chains would target trusts where they saw there were substantial gains to be made in liquor sales. That is an area we feel was important. 
I would now like to touch on the subject of wine being sold by wineries on a Sunday. This measure is just a means of bringing the situation back into line with what was the case prior to the 1999 amendment of the principal Act. We are in favour of that measure. It is to do with tourism. A large body of tourists moves around the country and has the opportunity to try our world-class wines. If tourists are in the country from a cruise ship for just a day or two they do not get that opportunity and it would be a sad moment to realise that New Zealand had lost a golden opportunity to promote its world-class wines. I would like to highlight a survey that was done by New Zealand Winegrowers. It surveyed 459 of its members from which it received 149 replies which is quite a high percentage when we consider that other surveys consider 1 or 2 percent to be a pretty good response rate. This was a very high response rate and of those wineries 138 agreed with allowing wineries to open on Easter Sunday. That is a clear indication that the wineries want that measure.