Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. Firstly I just wanted to acknowledge Ian McKelvie for bringing this bill to the House. That is obviously a momentous day for any member when you manage to get a member's bill to third reading so I wanted to acknowledge him in that and the work that obviously is necessary to get to this place.There's been a broad-ranging debate about this bill about the impact of racing about our communities about culture and about the intertwining and—particularly from the member Glen Bennett from Labour just before—the kind of interconnection between sports and alcohol. So I wanted my contribution on behalf of the Greens this afternoon to reflect on a number of those things.But first and foremost I think perhaps it would be useful to zoom out a little bit and to think about alcohol in the context of how we regulate drugs in this country. The reality is that drugs of all flavours exist—those drugs being alcohol tobacco cannabis and otherwise. It happens that alcohol is the most widely consumed drug in this country—of both the legal and illegal kind. It is our favourite drug in that 80 percent of New Zealanders consume it—and as Glen Bennett said before a quarter of New Zealanders to incredibly harmful ends.But when we are looking at substances like alcohol like tobacco like cannabis or otherwise we have a range of regulatory options in front of us. If we firstly accept the premise that those substances exist then that those substances can potentially cause harm it prompts the question of: how do we go about regulating those substances so as to best go about reducing that potential for harm? That spectrum at one end of the extreme looks like criminal prohibition—the kind of approach that we've taken for example under the Frankenstein Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 which has simply seen greater proliferation of substances. It hasn't wiped substances out; in fact they've got far more dangerous. At the other end of the extreme you have a complete legal free market and many would say that that's the end of the spectrum which alcohol tends to lean on.At both ends of those extremes of the spectrum you have the maximisation of harm. That is because in the criminal prohibition end you have criminal organisations and at the other end of the spectrum with regard to a complete legal free market you have commercial or corporate organisations. At both ends of those extremes those criminal organisations or those commercial organisations are incentivised to exploit vulnerable communities in order to make a quick buck; to sell as much of their product as is possible.So the question or the kind of challenge for this House is: how do we go about pulling back from those extremes? The answer is through sensible regulation. Of course as has been debated many times in this Chamber—not the least throughout this term—the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012 fails in a lot of ways when it comes to regulating alcohol harm. And there's been a number of proposals—not the least members' bills—that have sought to address parts of that.Some of those interventions or policy tools might look like availability—as has been recommended as one of the most kind of best buys by the likes of the World Health Organization in terms of an intervention that can reduce harm—pricing and marketing. Another intervention for potentially problematic use is the utilisation of what is known as a safe consumption space where you have a duty of care on those who are supplying—or at the very least looking after those who are consuming that substance. In the context of alcohol that looks like hospitality venues; it looks like our bars and our clubs and our venues.What this bill seeks to do the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for Race Meetings) Amendment Bill is to remove for sake of these small race meets the offence of offering of one's premises as a place of resort" for a BYO a bring your own alcohol. This is currently used—as submissions to the Governance and Administration Committee showed—for police to negotiate with organisers of those BYO events to try and minimise alcohol harm. But as I understand it—and looking at the history of this bill—the issue emerged in around 2016-17 with race meets complaining that those meets were being restricted by police and as such we ended up with this member's bill from the honourable Ian McKelvie. To that effect in thinking about how we can go about exempting racing in particular I'd like to say first and foremost why is this only applying to that one section of our society given that we tend to see criminalisation of substances occurring for other types of communities? There is an imputed sense of responsibility as well that we're hearing and many speakers have also spoken to with regard to the kinds of environments that a race meet provides—that is: a sense of community and that we're looking after each other in other ways. To that effect I'd say: why can't we apply that same logical consistency to other substances—for example when we're looking at cannabis legalisation and control?There is the opportunity for these special licences to already be provided and through this kind of BYO negotiation with the police under the current "place of resort" potential offence. So again it kind of does just feel like it is potentially a solution looking for a problem to a certain extent.Others have spoken to the deeply intertwined sense between sports and alcohol. As I spoke in another bill just last night it was actually the former National Government that commissioned the 2014 Ministerial Forum on Alcohol Advertising and Sponsorship to especially address that deeply entrenched cultural problem which was acknowledged came from legal structures which enable tens of millions of dollars to be poured into advertising which in turn helps to create an environment where alcohol is consumed to excess. And we've seen consistent reports commissioned by successive Governments which have said precisely the same thing all just to be ignored because once again I think it's put in the too hard basket.So in closing on those points around how these race meets and this kind of negotiation with police about BYO is already possible on the basis of the evidence around drug harm reduction and in asking Parliament for a sense of consistency the Greens are voting down this legislation today. But I understand from speakers who've come before me that it's still likely to get through.But just reflecting finally on those principles of basic harm reduction and actually some of the comments as made by previous speakers. I was listening quite intently to the Hon Todd McClay who was speaking about how New Zealanders at these small race meets are just using alcohol just using the substance respectfully and responsibly—they're doing something without causing harm to anybody else. I'd ask members across this House to think about that same logical consistency when considering the likes of other substances—for example cannabis which is used by 635000 New Zealanders annually 15 percent of this country. If we're to talk about consistency what we're talking about there is a situation where just last year alone 180 New Zealanders were sentenced to prison for cannabis possession alone—for something which many were using in the words of the Hon—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! Can I ask the member to come back. I appreciate her references going wider and I understand that the member is broadly within other parameters of the third reading but she's in danger of straying just a little far out of that lane.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Appreciate that Madam Speaker. So reflecting on those principles of drug harm reduction—that drugs exist regardless of wherever in the world they've tried to wipe them out—with the next question of "How do we go about reducing that harm?" the answer is: evidence-based regulation. The Greens are opposing this legislation today."