Dalziel Lianne: Alcohol Reform Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dalziel Lianne: Alcohol Reform Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 13 September 2011. Volume:675;Page:21194. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 Given the Alcohol Reform Bill’s genesis I should be welcoming its report back from the Justice and Electoral Committee but I am not. Although Labour will not oppose the second reading of this bill there is not much enthusiasm on this side of the House for what has been a squandered opportunity. 
Never before in our history has there been such an in-depth review of alcohol as that conducted by the New Zealand Law Commission. It was an incredible review and I want to place on record a tribute to the New Zealand Law Commission for the work it did. It did an outstanding job. It heard submissions all around the country; its members went out after hours and saw what alcohol was doing in our streets and our communities. At the same time the level of public support for change is unprecedented. Communities from one end of the country to the other are taking to the streets to oppose the granting of liquor licences. This is unprecedented. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Hear hear—Wainuiomata. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: The member for the Wainuiomata area calls out and I know that people in Glenn Innes have taken to the streets as well. Down in Christchurch recently the same thing happened in the Ilam electorate the electorate of the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery. People are absolutely determined to have a say in what is happening in their communities. More than 3000 New Zealanders submitted to the Law Commission on its draft report. When we combine that number with the number of those who submitted on this bill and the previous bill that is over 5000 submissions in total and there were just over 7000 form submissions from interested groups and individuals. 
I have to say that this bill is a travesty because it does not even begin to address the challenges that were posed by the evidence that the Law Commission has put in front of the Government of New Zealand and that should have been the basis for a bill that was introduced into the House. The bottom line is that this bill ignores what the people said they wanted. The Government did make itself available to the corporate interest but not I am afraid to the people of New Zealand. The truth is that this bill adds almost nothing to the bill I introduced into this House 3 years ago which had its first reading in March 2009. If the Government had amended the bill that I introduced with the few additional elements added to that basic framework and if it had referred that to a select committee by way of a Supplementary Order Paper then we could have had this legislation passed and enacted by now. It could already have been taking place and we would not have to have communities marching in the streets demanding something that this legislation would have already given them. 
The other thing—and this is the real reason why I think the Government decided not to do it as a Supplementary Order Paper to my bill—is that we would have had amendments dealing with the question of the breath-alcohol content levels as well. The move from 0.08 to 0.05 would have been within the scope of the Sale and Supply of Liquor and Liquor Enforcement Bill but not within the scope of this bill and that is the reason why the Government did not want my bill amended; it wanted a new bill so that it could leave the transport amendments outside the scope of the bill. 
Our Prime Minister just loves to kick the tyres on these tough issues but he does not like to make decisions and that is what kicking the tyres is all about. Sometimes we need to have a Prime Minister who is prepared to get up and make hard decisions and this would be one of those decisions that I would like to have seen from our Prime Minister—like the decision of a former Minister of Health who in an election year was prepared to put smoke-free environments on our legislative timetable. 
This Government has not got what it takes in my view and this Prime Minister does not have what it takes to make these decisions. It is intolerable in the wake of the evidence presented by the Law Commission. I am particularly disappointed that this bill is one of the final acts of this Minister of Justice; it could have been the one law reform that could produce a legacy that any—any—Minister of the Crown would be proud of. As a Minister who jointly spearheaded the ministerial committee on the Drivers of Crime nearly 3 years ago he should have been able to do better than this. 
I went to an Alcohol Action conference a while ago where a number of us were asked to imagine what New Zealand would be like without alcohol damage. I am not saying “without alcohol”; I am not putting up a proposition in terms of a wowser’s argument here. I am talking about what we were asked to imagine: New Zealand without alcohol damage. I immediately thought of the lives that would be saved of the resources that would free up in our hospitals and within the health system as a whole and of the resources that would flow to the justice system. 
Imagine the impact that a New Zealand without alcohol damage would have on our police our courts and on our prisons. I thought of ACC levies and the fact that they would plummet in the earners account and the motor vehicle account. I thought of the families that would be freed from the scourge of domestic violence. But imagining New Zealand without alcohol damage is an unrealistic dream unfortunately while we as a nation are not prepared to contribute to the change that would make it a reality within ourselves our families and our communities or to require it of this place—Parliament—and require us as members of Parliament to vote for the right thing. 
Unfortunately most of the public discourse around alcohol reform is self-interested not public-spirited. That is why there is such huge support for increasing the age to 20 but not for removing cheap booze from our supermarket shelves. As I have said on many occasions now law reform in its own right cannot provide the total solution. What is required is a major attitudinal shift towards alcohol and the level of societal tolerance for the behaviours it induces. Law reform that is evidence-based can make a difference to an environment that has normalised alcohol as an everyday commodity masking the devastating consequences that it is having on our communities from one end of the country to the other. 
The impact of the retail sector—particularly the two supermarket chains—must be addressed. It has been driving down the price of wine and beer and fuelling the pre-loading generation. Pre-loading has become the norm in that new generation of drinkers who have had virtually none of the restrictions that we had when we first started to drink. I do not think we would be brave enough in this House to take wine out of supermarkets but we should set a minimum price that would prevent wine from being sold for less than $2 for a standard drink. This new generation does its own cost-benefit analysis—I call it a price-trash analysis—“How little can I spend to get trashed?”. That is what these young people do today. I am talking about people in their 20s and 30s; I am not talking about people under 20. That is what happens—when the prices spiral down the harm climbs higher. 
There has been an exponential growth in the number of off-licences and the amount of alcohol now consumed from off-licences as opposed to on-licences has flipped. In terms of alcohol consumed now twice as much has been bought from off-licensed premises than from on-licensed premises. It is a measure of inequity as well. A study done by Otago University showed that lower socio-economic suburbs were likely to have more liquor outlets than any other suburbs. That is fuelling the problems that we see in places like South Auckland. 
We cannot ignore the enormous burden that we are all being invited to carry for the sake of those who are causing harm in our society. As Sir Geoffrey Palmer said not everyone drinks in a manner that is harmful but the consequences of harmful drinking affect us all. We have to want change to happen. Alcohol is not an ordinary commodity and it ought not to be treated as such. It should not be advertised or discounted as both of those actions are designed to increase consumption which does nothing to fit the harm-reduction objectives of a responsible regulatory regime. 
There is a connection well researched and evidence-based between accessibility and harm. Accessibility is about the convenience of the outlets their hours of operation and the price of the alcohol and all three have to be addressed—and I say sooner rather than later as later will be too late for too many.