Sabin Mike: 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 
Sabin Mike: 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:7367. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
MIKE SABIN (National—Northland) 
: 
 The member Gareth Hughes who just resumed his seat said something about members having had their heads in the sand. I am not sure too many people in this place would disagree with that. Can I just firstly in this last call commend the Minister of Justice for the work and also the Justice and Electoral Committee. It is a substantive— 
Brendan Horan 
: What about your son coming on a Wednesday and making out it’s a Thursday and putting my mother’s grave on TV? 
MIKE SABIN 
: —piece of work. At least it is the member speaking and not his cellphone on this occasion. It is a substantive body of work because this is a substantive problem in this country. It is by volume one of the biggest problems if not the biggest drug problem. By consequence probably not so. If we had 85 percent of the population smoking P we would probably see some slightly different consequences but none the less this is a country that has challenges around substance abuse and alcohol is at the top of that list. Problems like this will never be solved by this place. They will never be solved by the police; they will be solved by the community. The appropriate tools are what are required for the community and the appropriate culture is something that only the community can foster with the assistance of messages from this place. 
There has been some discussion in the House about the purchase age. For me it was 20. Why? Because I believe that so many parents in this country believe that lowering the age was the cause of the problem. In all likelihood it is probably not but in their minds it was and the overwhelming dissatisfaction from members of the public about the fact that the age was not raised to 20 says very clearly that they think that that is an important aspect of this issue. Whether or not it is the point is that that 85 percent of the population—we need those people on our side because this issue will take the community to solve and those people need to know that they have our backing. 
The ironic part of that is that two members who took calls Lianne Dalziel and Iain Lees-Galloway took a fairly prominent position on the fact that we had gone soft and we were getting this all wrong. They both voted for 18 because they do not see that those parents need empowering and that we needed to support them and even more ironically what you find is that both those members have some very strong views on the decriminalisation of cannabis under the guise of medicinal marijuana. If you turn to some of the blogs you see some really interesting commentary. One of them from Iain Lees-Galloway said: “Worth having a good read of this to take it all in.” when referring to the Law Commission’s report on the Misuse of Drugs Act. “Lianne Dalziel and I are as keen to hear your thoughts as the Law Commission is.” They are very keen to hear the thoughts on the decriminalisation or liberalising the use of cannabis a drug that does so much harm in this place— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Order! 
MIKE SABIN 
: —and stand on that side of the House and criticise this Government for the role that we have taken with regard to getting the right balance and right measures. My challenge is to the people in this House and to this community and to New Zealand is to make sure that we pick up a challenge and help change that culture. This legislation will take us there. Thank you.