Chauvel Charles: Alcohol Reform Bill — Procedure In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Chauvel Charles: Alcohol Reform Bill — Procedure In Committee 
[Sitting date: 23 October 2012. Volume:685;Page:6077. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 I was one of the members in the House who throughout supported retaining the purchase age at 18. I believe that I reached that position on the basis of the evidence that I heard in the Justice and Electoral Committee in the previous Parliament. As I said in my earlier contribution the experts who came independently to the committee who were not from the industry identified a number of factors where if we tightened regulation we could make a difference to our binge drinking culture. It is true that age was one of those but it was never the most significant or the most important. As my colleague Lianne Dalziel said the issues of availability of advertising and of pricing were seen as much more significant influences. 
I just want to make a brief call in this part of the debate to say this: we should base our decisions on the evidence. We should not fear reviews. I think that Supplementary Order Paper 121 is an appropriate Supplementary Order Paper because we should always be looking at the evidence and whether or not as the member who has just resumed her seat the Hon Annette King said best practice international research and the experts tell us that there are new factors that we should be considering. We should always be keeping an open mind on this issue. 
What I just want to say is this: since I first became a member of this House I have served on and off on the Justice and Electoral Committee and that has been a rewarding experience but we have a tendency in this place to assume that certain matters ought to go to that committee as a matter of course. I in supporting this Supplementary Order Paper—and I hope it will pass—would make this plea to the House: if it does pass let us think about some Standing Orders or some sessional orders around how this review should work. Why should it go to the Justice and Electoral Committee? This is a health issue just as all of our regulation of potentially hazardous substances like alcohol ought to be just as drug law reform ought to be just as prostitution law reform ought to be and just as abortion and the issues surrounding that issue ought to be. These things should not be considered always in a justice framework. That is with respect an old-fashioned way of thinking about these issues. 
If we are thinking about these matters going forward we should be considering them in a health paradigm. It is health that matters when it comes to these issues. We should be sending it off to the Health Committee not to the Justice and Electoral Committee and not to one of the law reform - related committees just because historically that is where these sorts of things went. The best place for these sorts of things to be considered by our Parliament is the Health Committee. I would just want to end my contribution on this new part with a plea that when we deal with these sorts of issues in future we send them to the right committee.