Andersen GinnyGINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. Look it's an interesting bill and look it's nice to have also a debate on a conscience issue when you get to look at a bill and really examine it in terms of where the good strengths lie and where the concerns might lie for the community. So thank you Mr McKelvie for bringing the bill to the House.My main concerns with the bill—we'll have a talk about what it does but my two main concerns are first of all if an organisation has applied to their local council for a special licence and that has been declined by police then there's a reason for that. So the reasons in the past I understand would be along the lines of excessive drinking; implications in and around underage drinking; implications particularly in rural areas in and around driving on rural roads under the influence when there's no police able to police those areas. So my concern would be: does this bill undermine the ability of police to do their job within rural communities to keep young people safe to keep our community safe and to keep our roads safe?The second point I would make is that while I don't have a racetrack in my electorate I have talked to MPs who do have racetracks and they get special licences and they're quite happy. So you've got a bit of a hit and miss that if you've got central government making a unilateral decision in and around one rule applying to every racetrack when this issue isn't occurring in all racetracks from what I can understand.So the bill provides an exemption from section 235 in the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act meaning that when you hold your meeting you can have an on-licence or an on-site special licence that applies. This would allow the consumption of BYO say in the middle of the track or around the edges of the track. Under the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act the only allowance for bringing your own alcohol would be consumed on licenced premises for restaurants or holding a licence with a BYO endorsement. However the Act also regulates the hosting of BYO events in unlicensed premises. And this is where section 235 of the Act marks the line between lawful but unlicensed gatherings and the kind of gatherings that require a licence. So under that section it's an offence for a person to allow for their unlicensed premises to be kept or used as a place of resort"—as the Act refers—for the consumption of alcohol for the general public. And this is the exemption that Mr McKelvie's Act is seeking.So while I completely understand what the case is and I sympathise with how race meetings are a Kiwi tradition and I think Mr McKelvie captures it very well when he says "a glass of wine or a beer in the sun with some chips and a dip is a Kiwi tradition." some race meets have allowed BYO for more than 135 years. The law should target the real harms and problems areas caused by alcohol rather than family-friendly events. My concern Mr McKelvie is that the way New Zealand drinks has changed. We drink more and we binge drink more. There are issues in and around those areas and we need our police service to be able to object when we have unhealthy or unsafe behaviours occurring.So recently police have begun to object to BYO alcohol during clubs' applications and it'd be really interesting to take a look at a couple of those applications to understand specifically why. I'm sure if this bill makes it to select committee they're the sorts of things that submitters will be looking at as to why those special licences in those instances were declined. But this bill does make it clear that those racetracks are not subject to section 235. And here's my other point where I've got a problem: why racetracks? What about I don't know roller derbies? We could BYO a 6-pack of Woodies to the Upper Hutt roller skating rink. So why is it just racetracks we need to be specifying why this should be the case.So the problems that have been identified by officials so far are pretty good. I think there needs to be consistency and what this bill introduces is a lack of consistency across the same types of venues within New Zealand. I know that the racing industry have argued and also the former member of Parliament Winston Peters has also argued that allowing patrons to bring their own food and drink to the course is a common method used to increase attendance and get people along and get more people there. But the same thing I think it's kind of sad that if you've got to rely on alcohol to get people to a family fun day out I think that's—you know what's wrong with a bouncy castle there's some good fun there. It takes the power away from local government to make decisions locally.But interestingly—I thought this was quite interesting—the Ministry of Justice said that the bill the way it was drafted was likely to increase alcohol related harms and to undermine the current licensing regime. Look there are faults with the current licensing regime. You only need to look at local alcohol policies and how they haven't worked as well as they could have. We can do a whole lot better. We should be empowering local communities to think safer and work collectively to figure out how we combat these harms that particularly affect our young people. So I don't think using this Act is going to address some of those.They also consider that the proposals might require quite a substantial shift in the current licensing framework potentially creating unintended consequences for other parts of the alcohol industry and communities. Ministry of Justice have also consulted with New Zealand Police and the Health Promotion Agency and advised that they are also likely to have considerable concerns with the bill—particularly concerning increased intoxication as I've already mentioned. Most recently some of the provisions under the BYO alcohol were included in the development for the Racing Industry Act in 2020 but they were withdrawn because the need was to look at an overarching approach. And I think this is where we're heading that contentious issues like alcohol a legalised drug in our community that does cause harm we need to have an overarching framework in the way that we look at those harms and how we mitigate those harms and how we encourage people to make more healthy decisions around how they're using alcohol whether it be at the race club a bouncy castle or a roller skating rink.The proposal and the bill would apply regardless of whether the gathering had a high risk of alcohol related harm and it prevents that ability to ascertain what that risk might be. And quite frankly I just think it disempowers local police from being able to act responsibly. Many of the large racing events are often associated with high levels of intoxication and harm which may be exacerbated by attendees bringing their own alcohol. In addition for smaller rural events where attendees travel to the racecourse there are concerns that this could increase issues around drink driving. And if you have a small police service in your rural area it also limits police to police the roads safely after a major event if there has been drinking going on at the racetrack.So my view is I'm going to be voting against this bill. Police still have the ability to stop gathering under its general powers but it's not clear whether they would be able to retain the ability to hold someone accountable under this proposed legislation. Furthermore it's not clear who is responsible for the consumption of outside the licenced premises when you have things happening outside that venue. The provisions intend to enable police and other regulatory bodies to take action when necessary and appropriate to mitigate alcohol-related harm. And the bill seeks to address the concerns that police have.Look I think the member has addressed an issue that's important however I think on issues such as alcohol where we have some significant harm that is ongoing in our communities that we take an overarching and consistent harm minimisation approach in terms of how we address these issues. My concern and the reason I won't be voting for this bill is it disempowers local police. It may encourage excessive drinking and it may make our roads more dangerous than what they already are. I don't commend the bill."