Street Maryan: Alcohol Reform Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Street Maryan: Alcohol Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 30 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:5024. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 Alcohol was not a big feature of my growing up. My parents drank very sparingly and when they did drink they were terribly careful because they did drink very sparingly. I was not in Parliament when this issue was last raised and put to the vote. As an outsider at that time watching parliamentarians vote on the issue I was firmly of the view that what was needed was education around drinking. Education was required and I thought that a lowering of the drinking age would provide the opportunity for that education so that we could get away from what used to be the 6 o’clock swill so that we could get away from immoderate drinking and so that we could learn to drink as other countries drink. I thought that this with a bit of time and a bit of education over time would alter our attitude towards drinking. 
I still believe in education as a critical component of addressing alcohol-related harm. I still consider education to be a critical component in turning round our dreadful behaviour in relation to alcohol consumption. I would love to think that education programmes could bring about more sensible drinking and somewhere inside me because I was an educator to begin with I still believe that. So my first preference in this instance is a split vote. I reject the argument that says it sends mixed messages to young people. Young people are entirely sophisticated enough to discern the difference between messages. So I do not accept the mixed message argument. 
What I do think is that licensed premises are more controlled environments or ought to be more controlled environments. We should be able to police them better we should be able to enforce the law better and we should be able to ensure that publicans and people who run cafes and nightclubs and so on do what is required of them as responsible hosts under the law. It is with pleasure that I have seen public restaurants and bars and so on punished in Nelson for serving under-age drinkers or for serving people who are intoxicated. It hurts them when they are punished and it does tune them up. If they lose 1 or 2 days’ income it hurts them. So when the law is enforced it can work. So I still prefer a split age as my first preference. However I have had to think long and hard about what I would do if that option failed. 
As the health spokesperson for the Labour Party I have been wrestling with this quite substantially. I cannot find a health professional or a health organisation that recommends anything other than raising the age to 20. I want to quote from a letter that the Royal Australasian College of Physicians sent to every member of the Health Committee: “Voting to raise the purchase age to 20 could in conjunction with other evidence-informed decisions regarding alcohol reform make a significant contribution to changing the culture of alcohol consumption in New Zealand.” 
On the basis of health reasons—and health reasons alone—should the split age fail I will vote for 20. I think that if I were to become the Minister of Health I could not look any health practitioner in the eye and say that I did not do everything I could to curb the harm that alcohol does. 
I do not think this is an anti - young person position to take; quite the contrary I think it is a pro - young person position to take. I could not in all conscience take on the health portfolio regardless of what the current Minister says—his conscience is not my problem; my conscience is my problem—look any health practitioner in the eye and say that I had not done everything I could.