Goldsmith Paul; Robertson GrantHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Madam Chair. So just for people tuning in we're debating the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Community Participation) Amendment Bill. I suppose the background to this is concern amongst many in the community around the prevalence of liquor licences—people both on site and off site—in communities and the desire for communities to be able to set the rules around how many stores they have and where and the hours and the prevalence of stores. The previous National Government introduced legislation around the local alcohol plans and there has been a fairly slow tortuous and expensive legal process to get some of those through so I think there is general agreement that the current system isn't perfect and it needs improving. The problem is like in many areas in trying to improve that situation this Labour Government has decided rather than to try and improve that objection process or appeals process to local alcohol plans they want to just eliminate that entirely and then secondly have taken the opportunity to make a number of changes to the process around liquor licensing which we think go far too far and that's why we're opposing the legislation.I want to start with clause 10 amending section 102 which says Any person" when it comes to objections to an application. So you've got a young couple setting out in life wanting to open up a new store to sell things including alcohol or a restaurant maybe that sells alcohol. So any people may object to an application or a grant of a licence whether that person is an individual or a group. Now in the past we haven't allowed groups—as I understand it—to object and I'd be interested to hear from the Minister what great progress will be made from that. I'd just like to get a sense from the Minister as to (a) what is this going to achieve and (b) what cost and time is this going to add to the process. I think we're all conscious of the cost of living pressures that we live under and we all have to recognise that every time the Government passes more regulation that imposes more cost on any process and eventually it flows through to the consumers who actually want to buy the beer or the wine or whatever they're trying to get. So if you're moving from a situation where when it comes to getting a licence having a fairly restricted group of people who are directly affected by a particular proposal having a say—which everyone would agree with—to completely flinging open the doors and saying that if you want to open a restaurant with a licence in Remuera it's OK for the anti-alcohol group from Invercargill to come and have their say and the particular—Penny Simmonds: Please just give Invercargill a bit of a break thank you. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: I'm sorry but it's possible. To be honest there is not always a meeting of minds between Invercargill and Auckland. So it doesn't take too much imagination to realise that there are lobby groups throughout the country who are strongly opposed to any new licences and it doesn't take too much imagination to think that they could be quite well organised in that process and that they could use this ability to martial their resources around the country in order to make life as difficult as possible and to line up.So I want to know what research or evidence has been pointed into the consequences of flinging the doors wide open to anybody and everybody to come in and what additional cost that will add to any given process in this sense. So that's just around that question.Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Just before I address that question I want to pop back to the last of Simon O'Connor's three questions which is that it will be for district licensing committees to decide how to regulate their procedures. So that won't be something that the submitter has full control over.It's actually on that point that I want to pick up on Mr Goldsmith's points—actually no before I do that we do need to go back to the beginning of where this comes from. One of Mr Goldsmith's colleagues—I think it was Mr McKelvie in his valedictory speech yesterday—talked about the importance of politicians being able to apply the LV Martin principle: it's the putting right that counts. I was in this House when local alcohol plans were first being developed and it would be fair to say that there were some pretty high ideals about what those local alcohol plans would achieve. It would be to take Mr Goldsmith's point accepting some of the differences between different regions and how they might choose to see alcohol regulated within their regions. Indeed the Invercargill Licensing Trust exists to this day and there's a different way of doing it than we already had.What ended up playing out however has been a quite different approach which has actually seen local communities stymied from being able to have the kind of local alcohol plan that they want. So the bill comes from that basis. It comes from the community returning to Government and saying "You actually didn't get this quite right and now you need to put it right." That is what has been done here. So I just wanted to say that that is the basis of what is being done here.In terms of how it will deal with people who would be seen by the member Mr Goldsmith as vexatious in their objections or their submissions that they make: in many ways select committees deal with this every day of the week. We often get a large number of form submissions that come in on a particular bill and the select committee makes the decision that actually they're not going to hear from all of those people because they know that potentially they are not that representative of the wider views or they can be dealt with by one single submission. So it will remain in the purview of the district licensing committees and appropriate authorities how they manage their hearings dealing with objectors and ruling out vexatious objections.Equally there are other changes in the bill that also will have an impact even if there is an increase in objectors—for example removing cross-examination and unnecessary formality in hearings will also likely reduce the length of those hearings as well. So we are trying to make sure we facilitate real community participation and get a balance here and I believe that's what we've struck in the bill."