Dalziel Lianne: Sale and Supply of Alcohol Bill Local Government (Alcohol Reform) Amendment Bill Summary Offences (Alcohol Reform) Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dalziel Lianne: Sale and Supply of Alcohol Bill Local Government (Alcohol Reform) Amendment Bill Summary Offences (Alcohol Reform) Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
[Sitting date: 11 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7350. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 In early 2009 I attended the ministerial meeting on the drivers of crime and I was so impressed with the quality of discussion that occurred there that I went back to the Labour caucus and asked if we could offer to work collaboratively with the Government on these issues that were the drivers of crime. Obviously there are distinct differences across the House in terms of how we might address crime but the drivers of crime were just so blindingly obvious as one of the National Party Ministers is wont to say. We said that the area that needed commitment from Governments of all colours across electoral cycles was the question of agreed policies around 0 to 12-year-olds. We stopped it at 12 because we felt that some of the policies that National was bringing forward like the boot camps and things like that were not evidence-based. At least on the 0 to 12-year-olds we could get agreement. National was not prepared to go down that path but what it did agree to do was to undertake some “initial cooperation on the alcohol issue”. Unfortunately if what has occurred is cooperation then I would really hate to see what the alternative was. 
As the former Minister who introduced an alcohol reform bill before the 2008 general election and announced the Law Commission review I have been hugely disappointed in the lack of progress from this Government. I have been even more disappointed in the misrepresentation of the current debate around the Alcohol Reform Bill. The first thing that I just want to address is the conscience vote. Parliament had a conscience vote dating back to the days when we had a triennial referendum on prohibition continuance or State-purchasing control—and yes even I am old enough to recall voting in one of those. But when the referendum ended so should have the conscience vote. It was at that point that we should have realised that it was no longer going to be a justice issue but really ought to have been a health issue in terms of regulating the sale and purchase of what is a drug as we do with pharmaceuticals legislation as we do with the Misuse of Drugs Act. So we actually could have had that chance then but we did not. 
The Law Commission said that the conscience vote can “reduce the quality and effectiveness of the alcohol laws that Parliament enacts.” and that “The resulting statute can lack coherence and structural logic.” What the Law Commission did not anticipate when it wrote those words was that it could also lack teeth. It could also lack teeth. And the reason is that when the Law Commission wrote its report on the conscience vote it was absolutely crystal clear that it had the role of drafting the legislation that would come before this House. It was the National Government that took away its opportunity to actually draft the law. So it did not anticipate National preventing it from completing the task that it had been given. 
National of course gave up the conscience vote except for age. I have to say that was a very clever move on its part because all of the public focus then went on the remaining conscience vote on the age and all of us got rung up by various parts of the media to ask us how we were voting on this one issue. That was the tactic. That was the strategy: have all the public attention on the age so we cannot see what the real issues are. And that is how it got agreement. The rest of the bill did nothing controversial—nothing controversial. In fact it delivered to many of those who were arguing for nothing controversial to come to the law or no substantial change to be made. This is National’s bill. It is not a shadow of the law the Law Commission would have written and that is why I have been saying throughout this debate that it is a travesty. 
The Law Commission spells out exactly what is required and I say to all of the people who stood up in this House and said they want evidence to go and read the Law Commission report. That is the evidence. It has all the evidence we need. And the evidence says increase the price of alcohol increase the purchase age for alcohol decrease accessibility decrease marketing and advertising increase drink-driving measures and then on top of that increase treatment options for heavy drinkers. So who has dominated this debate out there in the public arena and who has actually dominated the debate in this House? I would say that there are two interests. On one side there are the private interests and on the other side there is the public good. I just want to describe who has been mounting the argument for the private interests because it is not just the alcohol industry that we have heard about it is not just the breweries and the makers of distilled spirits and it is not just the wine industry and the hospitality industry although many of them have different views on different matters because there is not a level playing field out there in terms of who can do what. 
The real winners the real private interests that have dominated this debate are the Food and Grocery Council which has actually continued its ability to sell dirt-cheap alcohol through our supermarkets thereby driving down the cost of takeaway alcohol that is drunk away from supervised premises where there is no host responsibility beyond the door. So as soon as somebody walks out the door with the bottle of whatever the host responsibility goes out the door with them. Who are the other private interests that we have dominating this debate? It is the advertisers and the marketers but most important it is those who receive the advertising dollars—the media. I am afraid they are the true influencers of public opinion and they have sought to influence public opinion on advertising and marketing pushing that private interest over the public good and I am going to come to the public good in a minute. 
When I introduced the original bill that National threw out I remember that there was a headline in the  
New Zealand Herald.  
What it said was that I was putting a guy out of business who had run his dairy for 24 years—that my bill was going to put him out of business and he had been running this dairy for 24 years. But then read the story because the headline tells the story and not everyone reads the whole story. But when you read the story he has not had a licence to sell alcohol for 24 years; he actually had the licence to sell alcohol—beer and wine—for only 3½ years. And guess how much that alcohol made up of his turnover in that dairy—30 percent of his turnover in 3½ years was selling alcohol from a dairy masquerading as a grocery store. That is the problem. We are not debating the real issues because we are not seeing the real issues actually being put in front of the public in terms of the public good. 
 Who represents the public good? Who has been speaking on behalf of the public good? It is the police and the people who operate our courts our hospitals the emergency departments ACC health groups NGOs and not-for-profits working on areas in terms of public health right the way through to domestic violence and communities struggling to deal with hard issues finding alcohol promotion being really a major part of their concerns that they are having to confront as a community. But they are fearful of speaking out. And why are they fearful of speaking out? It is actually not because they do not want to be challenged on their views; it is because they are fearful that they will lose their charitable status. They are fearful that they will lose Government funding if they speak out against Government policy. The truth is that the NGO sector the not-for-profit sector the health sector and our police are not participating in what is being described as political advocacy. They are in fact representing the public good and it is their interests that we have sought to prevail in this House. That is why we retained the conscience vote for this debate. We wanted to debate the real issues: restrictions on advertising discounting and promoting of alcohol; restrictions on trading hours; minimum pricing; making local alcohol policies mandatory and strengthening the community’s say; banning the sale of ready-to-drinks with more than 5 percent alcohol and more than 1.5 standard drinks; health risk warning labels and nutritional information panel requirements; health levies; and lower blood-alcohol levels for drink-driving—all of which would contribute to saving lives. 
Today Alcohol Action NZ has put out a media release with the headline: “National’s Alcohol Reform Bill totally fails the public”. It says: “The campaign for effective alcohol law reform will go on. National has only delayed the inevitable. Just as happened with tobacco reform parliamentary champions will emerge who are prepared to put the public first. Meanwhile history will judge those MPs who wilfully planned and led the wasted opportunity to do something to help the hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders being harmed ...”.