Borrows Chester: Alcohol Reform Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Borrows Chester: Alcohol Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 30 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:5027. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon CHESTER BORROWS (Minister for Courts) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to take this final call. It was my privilege to be part of the Justice and Electoral Committee that considered this legislation the Alcohol Reform Bill when it came before the House last term. It was interesting to watch the history unfold as for the first time over a period of about 80 years the obvious traction from the public was to seek to constrain the supply and the sale of alcohol—something we definitely had not seen before. 
The number of propositions before that committee was very interesting to behold. One of them of course was around the drinking age of 18—the purchase age of 18 which of course we did confuse with the drinking age. The point was made as has been made by a number of people in the Chamber tonight that you can do so many things from younger ages than 18. People talked about for instance the age of consent for sexual intercourse being 16 being able to vote at the age of 18 being able to join the army at 18 and being able to purchase tobacco at a young age. The point that really needs to be made is this: most of the decisions that young people make at those young ages are the wrong ones. Would anyone in the Chamber really think that it is a really good idea to seek consent and go off and get married at 16 or to get married at 18; or to start having sex at an early age at 16; or to start smoking tobacco at 16? The trouble is of course that when those 18-year-olds go off and vote they all go and vote for the wrong party so those decisions are not good decisions that are made. 
The absolute claptrap that my until now good friend Tau Henare was talking about—well I do not know whether he was pleased to see me or whether he was trying to deal with a bit of crusty vomit. But that is the point about this. The decisions made around alcohol are incredibly emotive and not always based on a whole lot of experience. 
Those of us who were not in the House back when the laws were liberalised in 1998-99 are wondering just what on earth those members of Parliament thought they were doing. Apparently what they were trying to do was say that we could all go off and start drinking like the French. Well apparently the French are pretty good at drinking and their alcoholism statistics would tend to lead you along that line. But that is not the way that we deal with drinking within our culture—not that we have got anything to be proud of. And when you go to those hospitals those accident and emergency departments late at night or when you are working in the streets—no matter what your occupation may be—late at night what do you see? You do see increasingly numbers of young people who are the worse for wear for alcohol and it is increasingly earlier in the night that that happens. 
That does not mean that we did not go out and get drunk when we were young or when we were under 18. It was more difficult to do. It is very difficult too to think back on our times when we were young to the way we were drinking and try to compare it with today—not just the products that are available but the liberalisation of that law. When John Banks and Peter Dunne were out drinking and it was illegal to have liquor in the vicinity of a dance was there liquor in the vicinity of a dance? Of course there was. There were 50 guys sharing a crate of flagons out of the back of an old Vauxhall. It probably belonged to Phil Goff or Trevor Mallard. It is a totally—[ 
Interruption 
] You drank his beer for nothing. You were skiting about it. In any event we cannot put on—