Hughes Gareth: 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 
Hughes Gareth: 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:7365. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora. Nga mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to take a call to vote in support of these three bills the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Bill the Local Government (Alcohol Reform) Amendment Bill and the Summary Offences (Alcohol Reform) Amendment Bill. The Green Party will be voting in support but we are deeply disappointed. The three bills we have in front of the House are a missed opportunity. These three bills fail to tackle the big issues facing our country and they are significant issues. What we are talking about is New Zealand’s cultural drinking problem. 
As we know the first part of dealing with the problem—[ 
Interruption 
] It is a—oh we have had a good interjection from the public lobby. [ 
Interruption 
] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Just one moment. Can security just find out where that is coming from please? I am going to stop the clock Mr Hughes. [ 
Interruption 
] Oh is it in the Chamber here? Well I will ask the member if he wants to use it to go out into the lobbies. I will invite—[ 
Interruption 
] Order! I did stop the clock so—Gareth Hughes. 
GARETH HUGHES 
: Thank you Mr Speaker. That might be the best contribution by the member Brendon Horan we will see today! As I was saying the country has got a cultural drinking problem. It is important that we acknowledge it. You know all of us see it in our towns in our cities as we go out on the weekends and sometimes accompany the police. We see it on the news we see it in the media we see it at public events. In my town a third of the crime occurs down the “golden mile”—down Courtenay Place—which some of our members are more noted for patronising than others but this is where the bulk of our crime in my city of Wellington happens and it happens of course because of the alcohol problems we see particularly on Saturday and Friday nights. 
We know it is causing real harm. We have heard some heartbreaking stories over the course of this debate. We have heard some heartbreaking stories in the Justice and Electoral Committee. We know that alcohol in New Zealand is responsible each year for 1000 deaths—1000 people’s deaths can be attributed to and no doubt were avoidable because of the role of alcohol. 
Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch you picked me up in my Committee stage speech on mentioning the intoxication of members that I had seen. That got quite wide play in the media and I think it is symptomatic of the fact that we still cannot have an open and honest discussion around alcohol—the fact it is happening. I think sometimes we like to keep our heads in the sand and pretend it is happening somewhere else but it is happening to our country. It is happening to our towns our schools our communities and unfortunately sometimes to the poorest and most vulnerable Kiwis. 
As I said the Green Party will be voting in support but we lament that the measures in this legislation are not going to be the most effective that they could be. There are three big missed opportunities. The first is we see the Law Commission report there—a substantial tome. It is a real once-in-a-generation opportunity to take the momentum from this well-considered well-researched substantive report. It is a missed opportunity because there was genuine cross-party support across this Chamber. We have heard some good things from the Labour Party some good amendments from the Maori Party. My colleague Kevin Hague the Green Party spokesperson on alcohol put up a number of good amendments. There was a real opportunity to get cross-party support for greater alcohol action. It did not have to fall across the partisan lines that it has where sadly the balance has fallen on less regulation less action than what I think people would have wanted. Third was the missed opportunity of genuine public support. The polls are saying that Kiwis do want to see greater action. Really the once-in-a-generation opportunity to take the work of the Law Commission the cross-party support and the public desire for action has been blown. 
Unfortunately all the attention was on the smokescreen of the purchase age issue. I am glad we did keep it at 18. I think it was all about avoiding the real issues. It would not have been fair it would not have been effective at reducing real harm and in fact it was damaging because it took the focus away from those real issues. It is good to see Parliament use a three-way vote so that the desire of the majority of members—the largest number of members—could be achieved in the final vote. But what we have failed to address is those real issues: the issues of accessibility advertising and intoxicated driving amongst many others. 
We know that in the period between 1990 and 2010 there have been 8000 new alcohol outlets in New Zealand. There are 1000 alcohol outlets now that sell alcohol 24/7 and it is good that we see that 65 percent of people in the Health Sponsorship Council say that there are too many liquor outlets. We have a real need for action on the accessibility of alcohol. Likewise with advertising because we have a barrage of it on TV. I understand that annually around $70 million is spent. We know the studies show that numerous people particularly young people remember the ads. We have got to remember why the alcohol industry is spending so much money on alcohol advertising and the simple answer is that it is spending it because it works. 
Lastly intoxicated driving—a real opportunity to move into international norms and lower the blood-alcohol level. We are glad to be voting for alcohol measures but we could go—