Collins Judith: Alcohol Reform Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Collins Judith: Alcohol Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 24 October 2012. Volume:685;Page:6153. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 It has been very interesting listening to the debate this afternoon and I think all members right across the Committee should be congratulated on the quality of the contributions. There are a few things I would like to deal with in relation to Part 3 of the Alcohol Reform Bill. Part 3 is the substantive part of the bill. It is the most important part and it is right that we should have the most debate on this issue. 
Mr Chauvel who has just resumed his seat has mentioned the very wise recommendations of the Law Commission. Well it also recommended that this not be a matter that has a personal vote. It actually did recommend that we have party votes on these matters on the basis that it in fact brings about more cohesive legislation rather than some of the messes that frankly we have had in alcohol legislation over the years. 
On the local alcohol policies I particularly want to refer to the comments and contribution from Louisa Wall the MP for Manurewa and thank her for them. She has made some submissions on her Supplementary Order Paper 107 that she might think I would normally agree with around the requirement not to have alcohol outlets located within 1 kilometre of a school or kindergarten but the trouble with having in legislation for the entire country elements of that sort of requirement is that for instance here in Wellington it would mean that the Thorndon New World supermarket would not be able to sell alcohol because it is just down the road from a school—actually several schools. So I think we do need to have more of an input from the local authorities. 
I know her electorate very well being in Manurewa and of course my electorate in Papakura which actually includes a whole chunk of the Manurewa area is one that has some tremendous issues around alcohol abuse and the location of alcohol outlets. I note Mr Hague’s comments—and I hope I am paraphrasing Mr Hague well here—where he said basically that liquor shops open up in places where the poorest people live and they avoid where the richest people live. I think that is pretty much it. I think he is right actually. Around some parts of Auckland that I know well there are few alcohol outlets and in others that I know because they are in my electorate they are everywhere. Of course the thing is that it is not so much the use of alcohol; it is the abuse. We know that availability and hours of access all those things have a contribution to make as frankly does the age of purchase in my opinion. 
There have been some comments that Mr Chauvel made around whether or not local authorities should be forced to have local alcohol policies. It is a reasonable suggestion except that we believe very firmly that we need to let local authorities make their own decisions. The comment was made and on first hearing it it might sound reasonable that the poorer communities in terms of social or economic issues—certainly not in terms of culture and heart—might well be the ones least listened to in the alcohol debate for the local authorities. I hope I have paraphrased Mr Chauvel correctly there. Well it might sound right but actually that is not the way I see it. 
In Papakura and in Manurewa we have extremely active communities—and I see Miss Wall and Dr Calder agreeing with me—because it is the local boards in those communities that are the most strident against the proliferation of alcohol outlets. They are the ones that are most likely to contact me about alcohol outlets opening up and to want to start marches and public meetings against them. It is not the people in the rich areas; they generally do not care. Actually people in the areas where they see their communities being used and abused by excessive numbers of alcohol outlets are the ones who do want a say. I can tell the Committee that the people of Manurewa and the people of Papakura do not necessarily want to have the same requirements put on them as the people of Remuera or Epsom might. They actually want tougher requirements around the outlets that are opened up. 
What I would say is that one of the other things that we are constantly being told by local authorities is that the Government and Parliament should stop putting onerous conditions on local authorities and then complaining when they put up rates. We actually want them to take control and take some action and I think this gives them the opportunities to do so. The chair for instance of the Manurewa Local Board who is Angela Dalton a very active member and preceded by another very active member Daniel Newman will I know be out there saying “We want to have the local alcohol policy for the Auckland region take into account what we need for our area.” The Papakura board will be doing exactly the same. 
Actually I think what we do need to do is to give local authorities some ability to make decisions. They are elected by their constituents. They need to take into account what their constituents want and if they do not they will be pushed out. Next year we have the local authority elections. There is an opportunity—should this bill pass through in the form that it is in and we get it through in reasonable time—for local authority candidates to in fact campaign on what they want in their local authority policies. I think that is a really good thing. I think too that the local authority policies will be able to take into account the issues that Miss Wall has raised such as for instance where the alcohol outlets will be located. Are they going to be near schools? What sorts of facilities need to be taken into account? 
The local alcohol policies will also be able to restrict or extend the maximum trading hours. This is a fantastic thing. At the moment we have around a thousand alcohol outlets with liquor licences that have 24-hour 7-days-a-week trading—a thousand of them. Frankly how did that ever happen? Because Parliament at some stage thought we were all going to have this European-style café culture. I have no idea why Parliament would have thought we would ever have a European-style café culture. We have never had one before; we were never going to have one. 
Of course Parliament thought back to the days obviously of the King Country where my parents grew up and where there was in fact prohibition. Did it stop alcoholism? Not a chance. People would get on the train at Otorohanga—OK it was my family who went on the train and all their mates; that is why I can speak with some authority on this—go up to Kihikihi in the Waikato get roaring drunk and go back again. That was alcohol drinking in the King Country. Then there was the fact that there was moonshine stills and home brew everywhere around the place. Prohibition did not stop it. People were taking a legal substance that had been legal pretty much for ever and prohibition was trying to stop it. 
What we need to do is to be very reasonable. We need to give local authorities some power. We need to give local authorities the trust that their electors put in them and if they do not listen I promise Parliament that they will be punished for it. The local electors will say to their local authority members “Why is it that you haven’t listened to us?”. They will. I know that the members of local authorities in the Papakura Manurewa and South Auckland areas are listening to what their electors say because they understand that they are there to represent them. I do not think it is unique to them. I think that is true around the country but they have different priorities in different areas. Of course some of our local authorities are very small. Some of them do not have for instance the amount of power money and ability to put in place local alcohol policies straight away and others do. 
The Mayor of Auckland has said to me that he would love this bill to get through as fast as possible so that they can get on to it and I absolutely support that. But we have to debate this. Everyone is contributing in a really positive way and I am looking forward to the rest of the debate. We are listening to this and I say that we should give local authorities a chance to show what they can do. I have faith in them and I think we will see that they will come up with policies that are appropriate for their area not for the entire country.