Faafoi Kris: Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Display of Low-alcohol Beverages and Other Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFaafoi Kris: Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Display of Low-alcohol Beverages and Other Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 15 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:9725. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): It is a pleasure to follow Mr Bishop on the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Display of Low-alcohol Beverages and Other Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill. I do remember in 2012 when the principal legislation came through this House. It was a conscience issue for members in the Labour Party and there was a rather large spreadsheet to make sure that our whips knew which way we were to vote. But in amongst all that the Government’s process was so good that it forgot to put this in that bill. So that is why we have to take up the time of this House and the time of a select committee—as Jacinda Ardern has said it is a very robust process—to fix up what I think the Minister called an oversight through this minor and technical bill.It used to be Simon Bridges who provided the House with his fix-up bills but this is another piece of legislation that we have got before us—and if people are watching yes we are debating where we put low-alcohol and non-alcoholic beer in a supermarket. That is what this piece of legislation does.If you are watching and you are wondering why we are talking about this back in 2012 when this House passed the principal piece of legislation there was an oversight and low-alcohol drinks and no-alcohol drinks were excluded from the special area that you see in the supermarket. So if you go to the supermarket now and you look at the options around your normal wine and beer you will not see low-alcohol beer and you will not see no-alcohol beer because the law forbids them to be placed with those products. It is a minor and technical bill but for many reasons we think it is an important one so we on this side of the House—in the Labour Party anyway—are going to be supporting this bill.There are two perspectives around this bill that I will talk about in my contribution. The first one is the simple one and it deals with the mechanics of the bill. From a customer’s point of view—as I think Mr Bishop mentioned in his speech—you do not want to go looking around the supermarket for your low-alcohol or no-alcohol option but that is the reality at the moment. If you are the retailer you also do not want to put a product that should naturally be with the family of products that is wine and beer with fizzy drinks and other juices. From a producer’s point of view—and I know that the Brewers Guild has been concerned about this. It does not want some of the products that it has been creating because of the new regime around drink-driving—that is low-alcohol or no-alcohol drinks—to be placed with other juices and other drinks either. It wants to make sure that those options are right next to the normal alcohol products that we see in the supermarket.But also from a public health perspective I think we want these products to be with their family of products so you want the low-alcohol beer to be with the full-strength alcohol beer. So if you are going home on a Friday night like Mr Bishop does for his fish and chips you can say: “Mmm I don’t want the Steinlager Pure. I will take the low-alcohol option.” That is the option that Mr Bishop is faced with on a Friday night and I think that is the best way for us to approach it—to give consumers options about another choice in terms of alcohol. So in the functional respect of this piece of legislation we think that is a good thing. It does give people a lower-grade option whether they want to drink and socialise and have a beer or to have a beer and have no alcohol. That is a good thing.The other perspective I would like to look at is one that Jacinda Ardern also looked at and that is how this bill has come about. I think this bill was introduced on 7 December 2015 and then at quite lightning speed got its first reading in the House. I think that speaks to the priorities of the Government. There are many other things that we on this side of the House think that the Government could prioritise. You could prioritise maybe the 6-year long wait that we have had for the Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill to pass through this House.Peeni Henare: How long?KRIS FAAFOI: Six years. We could prioritise safer houses and warmer houses or a whole lot of other things in the health area and in education where we think you should get in there fast and get them done. But what is getting done fast here? Getting a beer. Having a beer. You have to wonder where the priorities of this Government are when what it makes happen fast is the ability to buy beer down at the supermarket. Mechanically I have no problem with that because I do not think it is such a big issue but when you look at it in terms of the priorities of the Government I think there are some genuine questions that could be asked by the voters out there just saying: “Hmm is this as much of a priority as other things that could be put on the agenda?”. I think that you know there are genuinely other things that are of a higher priority than low-alcohol and no-alcohol beers at the supermarket.One of the other aspects of this bill—and it is a minor and technical bill—is that it gives a company the ability to hold a licence. I think one of the issues that you can have with that is that if someone is to hold a function it has had to be an individual who held the liquor licence but a company could not do that. I think if an individual within a company had to get the licence and something went wrong it was the individual who was up for any penalty if the liquor licence was not adhered to. So this piece of legislation does tweak the principal Act and allows a company to be a licensee in this sense which I think is a good thing for the protection of the people who are working for those companies.But in general going back to the mechanics of the bill it does get rid of a piece of red tape that I think was an oversight back in 2012. As I said it was a time when there were lots of options on the table in terms of what could be ruled in and what could be ruled out of the sale and supply of alcohol legislation at the time and this one got left out. I do not know how it happened—the Government was in charge of the process at the time so maybe someone from that side of the House could explain to us how that happened—but I do not think it is the best use of this House’s time to be arguing over or debating this.There was an argument put forward by my colleague Jacinda Ardern about whether this amendment could have been contained within a Statutes Amendment Bill. Then Mr Bishop rebutted her comments saying that we did not know whether or not this whole House would have agreed to this but we could have saved at least 4½ hours in this place and a select committee process if the Government had come to other parties and asked: “Could we do it in a different way? Could we do this in a Statutes Amendment Bill?”. I think that would have been a much tidier process and a much more efficient process and would have allowed other priorities of the day to be put through this House rather than this piece of legislation that is before us right now.A couple of people on this side of the House have asked about something that is a little bit quirky in this bill and that is mead.Hon Member: Talk about mead.KRIS FAAFOI: Ha ha! So let me talk a little bit about mead. There is a meadery not in my electorate but in the electorate of Rongotai—in Houghton Bay I believe. If you do not know what mead is it is a honey-based alcohol. I am a whisky person myself as someone over across the hall will know. Mead is not necessarily my drop but if you are a big fan of mead—and I know there are some fans of mead out there—this piece of legislation also covers mead. So if you are one of the very small percentage of New Zealanders whom I believe would enjoy a good drop of mead—I think Mr Mark Mitchell would; he looks like a honey man to me—then this piece of legislation also covers mead. So do not worry the Government has taken care of the mead fans as well in this piece of legislation. I do not think that looking after the mead fans in this country is a massive priority but hey that is what the Government has decided to do.There are things other than mead that this House could be talking about. So maybe in the future the Government would like to take a different approach to these kinds of bills and try to look to a Statutes Amendment Bill as another way to progress this through other than wasting the time of this House on an oversight that it made when it passed the principal legislation.