Prime Willow-JeanWILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour—Northland): Thank you Madam Speaker for the opportunity to take a short call on the member's bill. As others have already done I congratulate him on the luck of having his bill drawn from the biscuit tin. Some people have more luck than others when it comes to the biscuit tin so I just want to congratulate the member.I have given this a lot of consideration and I do so with my background formerly as a Far North district councillor and a district licensing officer—or part of a team that was responsible for doing liquor licensing. I come to this issue with some real experience and interest in this area.I first and foremost want to thank all of the people in our community who are working tirelessly to prevent alcohol harm and that's where I really want to start with my contribution this evening. I find it difficult with what is proposed—difficult in terms of when I look at what the purpose and the objectives of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act are and what is being proposed here. I just cannot reconcile the two.The object of the Act is that the sale supply and consumption of alcohol should be undertaken safely and responsibly" and that harm caused by excessive and inappropriate consumption of alcohol "should be minimised". So I cannot see why proposing an exemption for race meetings—I'm not convinced by anything that I've heard tonight—goes towards achieving the objectives and the purposes of the main Act which this is looking to amend. I am not convinced by the proposal this evening that it is achieving the objectives of the Act and in fact we are trying to remove some of the processes that are in the legislation to achieve those objectives of the Act.It is acknowledged in the explanatory note of the member's bill that recently police have begun to object to BYO alcohol during clubs' applications for special alcohol licences for specific areas of the courses. The police along with the medical officer of health are two that are required to comment on the applications for special licences and the fact that they have started to object would suggest to me that they are concerned that the behaviour that is taking place is not achieving the objectives of the Act. That's what they are submitting on when they are giving this opinion as part of the special application process. So if they have concerns I do not believe that it is appropriate to bring in legislation to remove their power to object or to raise their concerns—and perhaps consideration of special conditions to be applied to licences—by purely taking out or exempting race meetings from this Act. I think it is inconsistent with—again what I said—the objectives and the purposes of the Act. I think that it is dangerous that we consider doing this for one area and I don't believe the case has been made for why it should apply to only race meetings and why it should apply when we do actually have evidence of police having raised concerns and opposing applications for special licences or requiring further conditions to be met.I support that we leave this to our councils to our local authorities—Hon Member: To democracy.WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: —to democracy—who are the closest to these clubs and who are the closest to the community to be able to make the decisions following the processes that are set out in legislation which has that special role for the police and the medical officer of health. It is not difficult to apply for a special licence. It is not that costly to apply for a special licence either as was suggested on the other side of the House. According to the Ministry of Justice: $55 for one or two events covered by a small size and $180 for three to 12 events if it's of a medium size. I think they require about 20 days' notice for the application to give the police and the medical officer of health time to input into that process. So I would say that I support our councils in the role that they play to achieve the objectives of this Act to reduce and minimise harm caused by the sale supply and consumption of alcohol. I do not believe that we should be exempting one small group of clubs for the reasons that I have already outlined but particularly because police have been raising concerns about this. So I do not commend the bill to the House."