Shirley Ken: Customs and Excise (Alcoholic Beverages) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
Shirley Ken: Customs and Excise (Alcoholic Beverages) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:608;Page:5383] 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (Deputy Leader—ACT NZ) 
: 
 ACT New Zealand will be opposing this Government bill. It is interesting that already we have had an absolute moving feast in terms of what this bill is all about. For some reason the Government decided to spring this bill on the House today and to take extraordinary urgency tonight on an excise matter. Why could it not wait until the Budget next Thursday—only a week away? This is clearly a matter that the Government wants to have passed tonight. Is it a trophy for Jim Anderton and perhaps for United Future? The speeches that we have heard would suggest that it is. Obviously the Government did not want this bad news—increased taxation—in its Budget next week so it has sprung extraordinary urgency on the House. That is a very rarely used process and it has already been observed that the last time it happened was when this Government used the same measure of extraordinary urgency to increase the excise tax on tobacco. Now we have the other one—the excise duty on alcohol. 
The second reading was kicked off by the Government Minister the Hon John Tamihere and he commenced by saying this bill essentially implements the recommendations of the Easton report. That has already been blown out of the water. My colleague Richard Prebble has already had permission to table that report and it will be tabled tonight. The Easton report commissioned by the Alcohol Advisory Council is entitled  
Taxing Harm: Modernising Alcohol Excise Duties 
 and was published in November 2002. One of the key recommendations of that report is on page 13 where it recommends that the excise tax on high-alcohol spirits be reduced. If the object were to use the pricing mechanism to stop young people from imbibing or indulging in alcohol why would one decrease the excise duty on high-alcohol spirits? But that is what the Easton report recommends. So where was the logic in the Minister’s speech when he moved the second reading of this bill? 
We have had some other extraordinary revelations tonight. Reference was made to the McLeod report—again a report commissioned by this Government. That report strongly urged the curtailment of excise duties pointing out the distortions they create and that they are ineffective. Paragraph 3.9 the McLeod report specifically addressed the health issue with regard to alcohol and stated: “A number of submissions were received from health sector organisations. Though these submissions make reference to externalities we believe that the health policy approach to taxation and the framework adopted by the review are irreconcilable.” So the Government is moving a measure here that is in direct breach of the recommendations of its own taxation report from McLeod. 
We have also had some rather strange comments tonight. The Government member for Rotorua Steve Chadwick actually said the Government was not rushing this bill through. 
Opposition Members 
: Ha ha! 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: She said it was not rushing this bill through. Now let us pause and think about that. The Government has decided to take extraordinary urgency. We should have stopped at 10 p.m. We will still be debating this bill I predict when the sun rises. No the sun is rising a bit later these days so I predict we will be going until 4 o’clock or 5 o’clock this morning. Yet we are not rushing it through! How confused are those Government members? 
In the briefing on this bill the Minister of Finance who is also the Deputy Prime Minister said that of course we have to rush it through tonight because all the young people whom we have to address for social reasons could rush out before midnight tonight—the bill is meant to become effective from midnight—and buy up all the alcopops in the 14 to 23 percent alcohol by volume band. Yet anyone listening to Parliament on the wireless would know about this bill—they are probably text messaging each other on their cellphones—and if there is a windfall they could rush to the nearest liquor store. But I suspect young people will not do that because they are smart. They know as I think most of us are learning fast that the Government’s claim that its key target which it stated it was targeting for social reasons is the young drinkers who overindulge in relatively cheap alcopops—the ready-to-drink mixes—and its suggestion that those drinks would be picked up by the 14 to 23 percent alcohol by volume bracket is utter nonsense. The alcopops are all in the 5 to 7 percent alcohol by volume bracket and will not be affected at all. So Jim Anderton’s speech is down the drain. I say to Mr Anderton that I am sorry about that. He believed that he was picking up the alcopops in the bill and was caring for young people. If that was his intention he has failed miserably because this bill does not pick the alcopops up. They are in the 5 to 7 percent alcohol by volume band and certainly not in the 14 to 23 percent alcohol by volume band that we have in the bill. 
We then had Mr Brownlee’s contribution which I thought made some very interesting points. He pointed out that 80 percent of the group of products that will be included—the medium-alcohol band of 14 to 23 percent alcohol by volume—is produced in New Zealand by one company and he suggested 200 jobs were at stake. He suggested that those producers will all close their doors and the jobs will be lost. I do not think that is so. I think the companies will just repackage and rebottle their products at 13.9 percent alcohol by volume. Let us bear in mind that a strong beer is about 5 to 7 percent alcohol by volume while light beer is down to 2 to 3 percent. So we are talking about something that is two or three times the strength of beer even at 13.9 percent alcohol by volume and that is quite enough to have an impact on a young adolescent if he or she overindulges. All that we will see is greater volumes by dilution of alcohol down to 13.9 percent by volume and the only requirement will be that young people will need bigger bladders than previously in order to be in an equally intoxicated state. This legislation is a total failure in terms of the objective that the Government outlined. 
Let us follow the rationale through a bit further. We know that obesity is a problem in this country particularly obesity amongst young folk through lack of exercise and overeating. If we were to follow the same logic through with regard to that we would increase the tax on food. If we were really concerned about the health impact of obesity we would increase the tax on food. Is that the Government’s intention also? 
The whole logic behind this bill which the Government has brought to the House tonight is deeply flawed. ACT will be opposing it because we oppose silly legislation. To dress this bill up in social concern about binge drinking by young people which we concede is a problem is not right. This measure will not in any way address that problem. This bill is nothing more than a $14 million net tax grab by a Government that promised it would not increase taxes. Here is the pamphlet that Labour put in every letterbox with the airbrushed photo of Helen Clark on it—the whole kit and caboodle. Quite clearly it states that there would be no new taxes and no increase in taxation. The Government has already increased the excise duty on tobacco and we now have it with alcohol. 
Who will bear the impact of that? It will be the old folk who drink sherry and port. They will be spending this winter huddled round the kerosene heater in the freezing cold because there will be no electricity. They cannot afford their tobacco any more and under this Government their port and sherry—the small comfort that they had—will also be out of their reach. That is what this Government is bringing to New Zealand: there will be no heat and no tobacco port or sherry unless people are prepared to pay about three times more than the price they paid prior to midnight tonight.