Salesa JennyHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. The Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012 was a notoriously difficult piece of legislation to get through this House. It came out of the Law Commission's 2009 report Alcohol in our Lives and its supplementary report Curbing the Harm which came out in April 2010 with over 150 recommendations for changes to our alcohol laws. And most of those recommendations the National Government supported—some it supported in part and others it did not support because it didn't believe that it would actually reduce harm and improve our regulatory framework for the sale and supply of alcohol. Now I think Ministers Power and Collins did an outstanding job in navigating through all of those recommendations and coming up with what was a very good piece of legislation. Despite the many criticisms that came of the previous Government most of those criticisms were that it didn't go far enough or fast enough. But it's worth keeping in mind that that 2012 Act was the first material constraining of alcohol regulation for nearly 80 years and there's no doubt that it had a positive impact—the degree to which it has is open to a bit of debate and certainly our alcohol use and misuse is quite lumpy as was indicated in the supplementary analysis report which I'll come to in a minute—but it did certainly reduce the per capita consumption of alcohol in this country—that was probably happening a bit anyway. What's also happened over the years is that while we may be drinking less overall there are pockets of our community that do drink hazardously and harmfully and for some of them—particularly our young—that hasn't been perhaps as effective as we would've liked. Page 7 of that supplementary analysis highlights that lumpiness: around 20 percent of New Zealanders drink hazardously; that rate remains stable over six years; males are twice as likely to drink hazardously than females; 18- to 24-year-olds; and Māori and Pacific people—Pacific people are less likely to drink but if they do they're more likely to drink hazardously so it really is a complicated picture. Now one of the number one principles that underpinned that legislation was the idea that communities would have more control of the nature number and location of alcohol outlets through these local alcohol policies. And I strongly supported that even though I wasn't convinced that it was going to work. Paragraph 11 of that supplementary analysis says that alcohol-related harms fall disproportionately on New Zealanders living in the poorest neighbourhoods who are 1.3 times more likely to report drinking hazardously than those living in the wealthiest. Now that implies that the nature and location of liquor outlets is actually driving that harmful drinking and I wasn't convinced by that in 2011 when we were considering the base bill. But in actual fact we had a small number of live laboratories around the country to test that theory—Invercargill was one of them. Invercargill has been under alcohol licensing for generations so the licensing trust in Invercargill does just that: it controls the nature number and location of alcohol outlets. One cannot go and buy a bottle of wine at a supermarket in Invercargill; there are liquor stores but they are controlled as to where they are—and of course the profits from those liquor stores actually are poured back into the community and a lot of the sporting and cultural assets in Invercargill are funded by that trust. It's a very good system I think. But one would think that if there was control of alcohol outlets that harm in Invercargill would be lower than the national average. Now I haven't looked at it recently but I do remember in 2012 when considering this that actually the opposite was the case. Hazardous drinking alcohol harm alcohol-related road accidents and violent crime was higher than the national average. So it does not follow that by simply controlling the location of liquor outlets harm will necessarily reduce.All of that said I'm a strong supporter of communities being able to choose whether or not they have a certain number or type of alcohol outlets; that's an important principle I think. I should say from the outset that National's opposition to this bill—and we will oppose it at first reading—is not an indication that the local alcohol policies framework is not in need of improvement—Anna Lorck: All you're doing is opposing—the whole time all you do is oppose oppose oppose.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Pipe down Ms Lorck and maybe we'll have an interesting and sensible conversation for once about bills we debate.Anna Lorck: You just never—you just oppose the whole time.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: That's why they call them debates Anna Lorck! People have different views; it's called free speech—although we've just had a bit of a conversation about that as well.So the fact that we're not going to support this bill at first reading is not an indication that the local alcohol policy (LAP) framework is not in need of improvement; it's an indication that this is not the solution. This is not the way we should go and essentially what this bill is doing is picking favourable and unfavourable submitters on a local alcohol policy and I don't think that's right. Actually in the explanatory note of the bill on page 2 it says—and this is really interesting—DLCs" (district licensing committees) and the "ARLA" (Alcohol Regulatory and Licensing Authority)—under this bill—"[will] have [the] provisions available to manage the volume of objections and appearances before licensing hearings". That's picking winners but that's consistent with a Government that when the number of submissions on bills and things gets a bit unwieldy for them they just ignore them—they try and control the ability of people to submit. Now I accept without question that competitors have overly slowed down the process of getting LAPs through but the solution is not to prevent that; the solution is to expedite it in a more timely fashion and we have a considerable problem in this country with civil delay and it's gotten worse in the last five years. The solution to civil delay is not to curtail people's democratic right to make a submission on a bill or a policy; it's to streamline that process and make those voices heard but not get bogged down in it. So we understand the problem—we don't believe this is the right solution. Now there are many good elements I think in this bill and I look forward to the select committee process actually fleshing them out and it may well be that there is a place we can get to where National can support this bill—but curtailing people's ability to contribute is not the answer. Now the Minister in her first reading speech actually made a comment that I wanted to touch on in my conclusion and that is the number of councils that haven't actually adopted a local alcohol policy. That concerns me greatly because what we're trying to solve is a problem where the policies are being usurped but actually councils have it within their power to work with their communities to create the local alcohol policies that are appropriate to them and that has not happened in many cases.Arena Williams: No they're being repealed.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Perhaps—well no that's not what the Minister said. That is happening that's true but there was a separate comment which they hadn't even got going in the first place and I think it behoves those councils to work harder. In my own home city of Dunedin we had the opposite problem where the alcohol policy—according to the mayor of the time the late Sir Dave Cull—was not sufficiently robust to stop a liquor outlet going in on the corner of Princes Street and Moray Place right in the heart of where hazardous drinking occurs particularly by our young; and he threw his hands up and said "Oh well we couldn't do anything about it". That is wrong—he had the power through the local alcohol policy for him and his council and the licensing authorities to do something different. So I think we need to make sure that the councils use the powers that they do have and then support them with a more expeditious process for finalising that does not involve curtailing the right of people to have a say on those policies. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that the motion be agreed to."