Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): Well look it gives me great pleasure to speak on this bill. I've been waiting for this day; for the bill to be drawn. Because as Mr McKelvie as the bill's sponsor made mention I had a little bit to do with the drafting of it and I'm very happy that it's now in his hands.But let me give you the brief background to how this came about. In 2017 Winston Peters was the Minister for Racing and he turns up to select committee—sorry 2018. He turns up to select committee and kind of out of nowhere he says The big problem with the racing industry is these bureaucratic shiny bums down in Wellington who are stopping races and racecourses from holding their traditional BYO events." I thought "That's very interesting."Now knowing the Rt Hon Winston Peters I knew he would do nothing about it. Let's remember: he was the racing Minister. So OK. So I gave a series of written questions to him and I asked an Official Information Act (OIA) request and said "What are you doing about it?" What he did was after I made the request to him he went to the Racing Board and said "You'd better do something about this. Can I get some advice?" Bear in mind it was after I asked him about it.So he got the advice and the Racing Board wrote him a really good report and it went to Winston Peters and I asked him a written question and he refused to tell me what it was and then I OIA'd the advice and I got the advice. The advice was "You need to sort out section 235 of the Sale and Supply of Liquor Act." It even gave him the legislation. It gave him the bill.So I said "What are you going to do about it?" He said "Oh well not a lot. I'm too busy stopping Auckland light rail and you know stuffing up the Government and jamming things up for the coalition Government." He didn't say that: I'm interpolating from what he actually said.Anyway I thought "Well I'm a guy who's in Opposition. I like to make sensible changes to the law. I like a beer. I like a racecourse. Let's put a bill on the ballot." So I drafted up the bill based on the official Racing Board advice chucked it in the ballot wrote to Winston Peters and said "Come on mate. You should support it." He took about five months to write back to me and he said—I'm quoting directly—"The coalition Government takes members' bills very seriously." He said "You've got to wait for the Messara report which has disappeared off into the bureaucratic ether like so many reports that have been compiled into racing over the years and nothing's happened." The bill's been in the ballot and now it's been pulled out and we've got an opportunity to sort it out.Now Arena Williams made mention of section 235. She is right: it is outdated and outmoded. It's anachronistic. It's basically from my read of the law a hangover from the old Sale of Liquor Act 1989 and basically it stops alcohol being served—or its original purpose was to stop alcohol being served—at dens of iniquity; at brothels.That's the original background to it but the way it's used now is to stop racecourses having summer picnics in the middle of the racetrack like when we used to do in the good old days at Trentham Racecourse in Upper Hutt or at the Kumara Races or down south—Joseph Mooney: Roxburgh.CHRIS BISHOP: It stops at Roxburgh—my good colleague Joseph Mooney says Roxburgh Winton. It stops those events from happening.Now Emily Henderson says "Is there like a widespread swathe of race cancellations?" No. There isn't. There isn't and I'm not going to pretend that the problem is absolutely massive.Ginny Andersen is quite right that special licences can already be issued and for most parts they are. But there's big parts of the country where they aren't. They're small rural regional racetracks run by volunteers and they can't afford to go through the long and expensive process of getting a special licence. So what this bill says very simply is section 235 should not apply to race meetings to make it explicitly crystal clear for the police and it basically says that police can't object to these liquor licence applications—because that's what they're doing.Ginny Andersen was right about one thing but she was wrong about how the police decline these licences. The police don't decline licences. The district licensing committees consider the licences. What the police do is strongly object and put these race clubs through time and expense and move heaven and earth to try and just run a simple race meeting.In terms of protections—and I do regard it as important that we don't have people turning up and getting pissed and then driving away and you know long long drives home. What it says is section 235 doesn't apply when the race club holds an on-licence or an on-site special licence that applies to an area within the premises for the duration of the race meeting.What does that mean? Typically what happens is you'll have a bar—an on-licence—operating with security and very nicely run and all of the normal rules that apply. What it will also mean is that at the same time as you have the bar running with the security you can also have a BYO.So in terms of the police and the terms of the security guards and all the rest of it all of that can apply as well. This is a common-sense change I hope members support it. I'm so excited to have it in the House and I'm looking forward to Kieran McAnulty's speech."