White Helen; Tuiono TeanauHELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. I'd like to take a call on this bill just to indicate to Stuart Smith—and congratulations to Stuart for having his bill pulled—that I am going to support this bill. This is a conscience vote in the Labour Party. I'm going to support it because I don't think regulation in an area like this necessarily does any good but I also want to respect the view that in fact many of the people across this House will have that this is not necessarily what we should be spending our time on in Parliament. I am concerned that we are in a society where we have real serious issues with drugs and alcohol and I am not sure that I've got all the answers to that but I'm just not sure that stopping things like the sale of samples in this way would do any good at all. So I will be voting for the bill because of that but I want to use my time in this House to talk about the issue of how we might tackle a problem associated with alcohol because alcohol is probably our most serious harmful drug in this country and there are some other contenders. But it is a very serious drug. It's carcinogenic and it is actually very romantically imagined in this particular setting that we've got today of the beautiful vineyards that we have and the beautiful ingenuity of our wineries. That all adds to its romance but the reality for most people with alcohol addiction is something so different from that and it affects so many of our families and it hurts them so badly. I recently went to see an operation called AF Drinks and it's a really interesting operation that has started up in Auckland. It's a profit-making company and I was interested in them because they have portfolios in small business and manufacturing and I wanted to see what they were doing and how they were doing it. I was told by the woman running it that she had done it because when she'd stopped drinking in I think a lockdown she'd been asked by people what was wrong. She'd been asked whether perhaps she was pregnant. There was no tolerance in our society for a decision not to drink and I could relate to that. I think it's probably a really common experience. It's so ingrained in our culture and in each class in a way that it means that to not drink is seen as unusual and something of a social disadvantage. So she invented a whole lot of drinks where what they are doing in a very sensible way is not building from alcohol but building layers of flavour up so that you end up with something that's complex like an alcoholic drink in its flavour and it gives people the same opportunity socially to sip. In that situation people who are taking that alternative are doing themselves absolutely no harm whatsoever and that business is skyrocketing. But I was told by that manufacturer about several parts of our law which could change so that they could put that product on the shelf more efficiently. We have things in our law that are getting in the way of a manufacturer of a product that will actually help our population kick a really dangerous habit and we have not taken the time to address that issue in this Parliament. So what I would ask is that this Parliament when it puts in yet another very narrow bill that looks at one area which might suit a particular group in its constituency thinks wider—think wider next time there's a member's bill and put in one that will help this problem. Even if you don't agree with temperance and you're not from the same camp that perhaps some of our colleagues are about banning these things let's think wider about this issue and get it right because this is actually an issue that should absolutely rise above politics and what I would say is that at every doorstep I found that that was the call I heard. It is time for us to rise above politics about issues like this—absolutely rise above it—and that's my challenge here which is that on an issue like this we should be able to do it. So I commend Stuart Smith for bringing this bill but I ask others to think—and maybe Stuart Smith next time—to balance this out and put in a bill which helps promote things that are an alternative to alcohol. Thank you.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The next call is a split call between Labour and the National Party.