Adams Amy: Sale of Liquor (Youth Alcohol Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Adams Amy: Sale of Liquor (Youth Alcohol Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 17 June 2009. Volume:655;Page:4407. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) 
: 
 I rise tonight to speak to the Sale of Liquor (Youth Alcohol Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill. Before the dinner break I listened to the very interesting speech made by the MP for Te Tai Tonga Rahui Katene. I share her concerns about the tremendous harm caused by the misuse of alcohol and the insidious nature of the companies that peddle alcohol. Societal harm from alcohol is all too common. 
There can be no question that we all wish to reduce the amount of harm caused by alcohol particularly as it relates to young drinkers. Alcohol-related issues are a priority for this Government—we have made that very clear since the very early days of our Government. I think that all members would agree that this is a significant issue for our communities that it is a major driver of violent crime—especially domestic violence—and that it causes a significant number of problems for our health system to deal with. 
Since I was fortunate enough to become a member of the House I like many of my colleagues have spent time with local police. In speaking with them and spending time out on patrol with them in their cars one message has kept coming through and that is the tremendous amount of work caused for them by the abuse of alcohol in our society. Some of the police I have spoken with have estimated that as much as 90 percent of their average workload is related in some way to alcohol. I am particularly concerned about domestic violence which often affects women. It also affects children and older folk in our community. 
These issues are tremendously enhanced by the long hours that drinking establishments are allowed to be open each day and each week. Equally I have found when speaking to colleagues in the health profession particularly those in the emergency departments of our hospitals that the story is the same. If they did not have to deal with alcohol-abuse issues their lives would be far easier and the pressures on our health system would be considerably reduced. 
So it is clear that heavy drinking is not putting only our young people at risk. It puts at risk their families and any stranger who may have the misfortune to encounter them at the wrong moment—perhaps when they are behind the wheel of a car. It also puts at risk the hard-working members of our police force and our health system. It also puts at risk our fire crews and our ambulance drivers none of whom ask for this problem to come to their doors. 
Against the backdrop of the harm caused by alcohol I commend any member of this House who tries to find ways to address some of these serious issues. But that does not mean that any attempt to deal with alcohol issues should be supported without careful thought. These are serious issues but they are complex and as a politician I am seriously wedded to the need to ensure that we guard against doing something just for the sake of it. Too often this House has passed laws that have been driven by the need to do something but that do not address the real mischief. I understand that we all feel a need to make a difference but we have to be careful when we pass laws. It is an extreme responsibility and we need to be very careful that the laws we pass will actually make a significant difference. 
As I said this is a complex area. My strong preference is not to play around the edges and take a piecemeal approach but to consider the whole of the problem which has many aspects and look at real substantive solutions. When I considered this bill and how I wanted to vote on it I came to the conclusion that its measures will not make a meaningful difference. I was not lucky enough to sit on the Law and Order Committee which considered the bill so I acknowledge that I do not have in front of me all the information that the members of the committee had but I am called upon to make a decision. I have given it careful thought and I simply cannot see that the two elements of the bill will really do much more than give the members of this House a warm feeling of having tried to do something. 
The transfer of responsibility for alcohol advertising to the Broadcasting Standards Authority from the current jurisdiction of the Advertising Standards Authority seems to me to address a problem that does not actually exist. I have not seen any real evidence that the Advertising Standards Authority is not handling the issues competently. The more substantive measure in the bill is to restrict alcohol advertising on TV and radio to between 10 p.m. and midnight—the so-called watershed. 
I was particularly affected by the argument that a lot of the young people we want to target are more likely to watch TV and listen to the radio in the later hours of the evening—certainly from 9 p.m. to midnight. A real concern worth reflecting on is the fact that if we limit alcohol advertising to those hours there is a real risk that the proportion of alcohol advertising that young people will be exposed to will in fact increase. That is something we certainly should not take lightly. 
I will not be supporting this bill. Although I applaud its focus I am simply not satisfied that it will achieve anything in real terms. New Zealand deserves a comprehensive response to liquor-related issues and that response I believe is already in progress. The good work that is under way needs to be looked at as a whole. 
The Sale and Supply of Liquor and Liquor Enforcement Bill is already before the Justice and Electoral Committee. That bill covers a number of the issues addressed by this bill and provides an integrated approach to youth drinking issues. It is not a silver bullet and I do not hold it up as being one but I think it provides a more comprehensive approach to the issues. It certainly includes provisions around the advertising of alcohol. We are better placed if we leave this Parliament and the select committee to complete their work on that bill rather than try to muddy the waters around the edges. 
In addition—and I know that this has already been mentioned in the debate—we have to be mindful of the fact that the Law Commission which is a specialist body that considers such issues is in the process of completing a comprehensive piece of work on the issues around alcohol abuse. One of this Government’s first actions was to indicate through Minister Power that it wanted that to be treated as a priority item and it asked for the report-back date to be brought forward. 
The first volume of that work has already been released. It relates to conscience voting and to how that has had an impact on the quality of our liquor legislation. Certainly that has provided food for thought. My understanding is that we can expect the remainder of the report to be released sometime within the next few weeks—I understand that the commission is working to a date sometime in July. In light of the fact that a comprehensive bill is already working its way through the House and that the Law Commission is completing important work on the issue we really need to take the approach of doing it once and doing it right. We should not try to muddy the waters. 
In conclusion I say that I applaud the work of the members who have brought this bill to the House seen it through the select committee and continued to support it but for my part I do not feel able to support it. It falls into the camp of doing something for the sake of doing something. I do not see that it will make a real difference in terms of these important issues. I would prefer that the House focused on the important pieces of work that are looking at this issue more comprehensively. Thank you.