Dalziel Lianne: Alcohol Reform Bill — Procedure In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dalziel Lianne: Alcohol Reform Bill — Procedure In Committee 
[Sitting date: 23 October 2012. Volume:685;Page:6089. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I want to respond to a number of the issues that the Associate Minister of Justice Chester Borrows has raised. First of all I want to remind him that the legislation that was introduced by the Labour Government in 2008 the Sale and Supply of Liquor and Liquor Enforcement Bill was a baseline bill. It was the bill that contained the baseline for the changes that we were going to implement to be supplemented with a substantial root and branch exercise—actually to be done by the Law Commission at the same time. In fact I announced the Law Commission review—the referral to the Law Commission that my colleague Annette King was responsible for as the Minister of Justice—on the same day that I lodged that bill. That bill and the Law Commission report were hand in hand and designed for the urgent stuff to be got on with. One of the urgent things that was to be got on with was the introduction of local alcohol plans to give local communities an opportunity to have a say about what was happening in their own neighbourhoods. That was a direct response to the demands from communities throughout New Zealand who were sick and tired of so many licences being issued regardless of the situation that they were in. 
I think it is a bit unfair to describe this bill as something that had just been replaced by the Government as something that Governments always do. This bill was designed to be introduced as baseline legislation. In fact the National Government had the first reading after its 100 days of action where it referred it to the Justice and Electoral Committee. It did not tell all of the people who submitted on that bill that their submission was going to be a complete and utter waste of time because it was going to discharge the bill once it was reported back to the House. I actually do not believe that the Government intended to do that until after it got the Law Commission report. There were two things that Minister Borrows did not point out. One was that we required the Law Commission to write a bill. We always said to the Law Commission that not only did we want it to come back with the evidence that we need to make real law in this area and respond to the real issues but also we wanted it to come back with a bill. We would introduce that bill to Parliament we would let the evidence speak for itself and then we would have submissions on the bill that the Law Commission wrote. We had committed to that. And what did National do when it become Government? It thought it would just truncate the time that the select committee had for reporting back which meant that the Law Commission would not have time to write that bill. 
When the Government actually saw what the Law Commission had recommended in its substantial report  
Alcohol in our Lives: Curbing the Harm 
 I believe that the problem that arose at that point for the Government was that it did not want a bar of many of the recommendations to be going before the House. So what it did was it made sure that a number of the amendments would be outside the scope of the bill and it also made sure that the bill that we had introduced would have no further truck at all. So it discharged the bill in December 2010 just after referring this bill the Alcohol Reform Bill to the select committee on 11 November 2010. In November the Government introduced its own bill to replace a bill that was coming back from the select committee after it had heard all of the submissions after it had put all of that effort into it. No it was not going to be; the Government had simply decided that the bill was going to be discharged. So I think that the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth is something that ought to be spoken of in this regard and I believe that there has been really an unfair representation of how we have got to the situation that we are in today. 
To criticise my colleague for his views on the conscience issue when we honestly believed that the Government was committed to introducing a second bill—not to replace the bill that all of the submissions had been heard on—that did not contain the major recommendations of the Law Commission well I think that that is not an accurate reflection of the position that we have ever had on it. I was the first person who raised the question of the conscience vote disappearing and I believe that we should ultimately have the position where we are able to take principled positions on legislation based on the evidence—I really like evidence-based policies in these areas—but sometimes these are really hard issues and the reason that I raised the conscience vote in 2008 was because it was an election year. People do not have the courage to face up to some of these really hard issues in an election year and I am not going to comment on the “why for” it is simply a matter of fact that we cannot get real change in these fundamental areas in an election year for that reason. 
I want to talk about the advertising sponsorship and promotion of alcohol in the context of chapter 19 of the substantial report of the Law Commission. I want to remind the Committee that the Law Commission when it had put out its original issues paper had taken the view that the existing system of self regulation was generally sufficient and it said that it proposed leaving the bulk of alcohol advertising regulation to the Advertising Standards Authority. I remember when that change was made and I remember who was in Government when that change was made because I was here and I saw the unfortunate correlation of two portfolios in one person. The Minister of Broadcasting was the Associate Minister of Health and that was the Hon Maurice Williamson who unfortunately I think was enamoured of some of the advertising that he had seen in Australia which apparently was very funny advertising very humorous. He felt that it was not fair that in New Zealand those who were promoting those products were not able to advertise these products in such a cheerful and positive way. So the law was changed to remove it from the broadcasting standards area into the Advertising Standards Authority—an industry-based body with the responsibility for regulating brand advertising. 
The Law Commission listened to the submissions. I think members in this Committee should realise just what they are doing in voting against these Supplementary Order Papers. Almost every submitter had something to say about advertising and sponsorship. Out of 2939 submissions 2281 commented on the policy options about advertising and marketing. Of the 2281 submissions 86 percent supported banning or restricting all advertising of all alcohol in all media. That is how the people feel about it. That is how people want us to respond as a Parliament. The reason that it is hard for us to respond to this issue is because of who pays for the advertising who benefits from the payment of the advertising and what other elements that might affect the work that we do in this Parliament have to do with that i.e. the media have a lot of influence in terms of public opinion over politicians and politics generally and obviously they stand to benefit from the advertising dollar. There is a multiple layer of effect that actually prevents this Committee doing the courageous thing that in this case is the right thing which is to find a way of reducing the amount of alcohol advertising in our country. The Law Commission said to do it over a period of time and that will be OK and these Supplementary Order Papers that are before the Committee also say to do it over a period of time. 
I have made submissions to the Advertising Standards Authority on the alcohol code of practice over the years since I have been in politics—obviously not when I was a Minister as I did not have a relevant portfolio but when I was an MP in the early 1990s I submitted twice to that body. On both occasions I supported a complete prohibition on the television broadcast advertising of alcohol. Often the point was made “But that’s freedom of speech. It comes under the Bill of Rights Act. We have got the freedom to speak on these matters.” and my argument was that sometimes it is better not to have things promoted in a way that undermines a health promotion message.