Dalziel Lianne: Sale of Liquor (Youth Alcohol Harm Reduction)  Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Dalziel Lianne: Sale of Liquor (Youth Alcohol Harm Reduction)  Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:626;Page:21163] 
LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I have been more than a little frustrated about the nature of this debate—not the debate that has occurred within this House but the debate that has occurred outside the House. What worries me is that many people think that MPs sending this bill to a select committee will mean that we can all pat ourselves on our collective backs and say what a jolly good thing it is that we fixed that problem. My concern is that the liquor interests in this country will be delighted with this bill because it takes the real issues off the agenda. The real issues are those that I will talk about and my colleague who has just resumed his seat mentioned the most obvious one—the drinking culture in New Zealand. 
New Zealand has a degree of tolerance for drinking to excess that I think is greater than that of any other country in the world. Blaming 18 and 19-year-olds for that problem is hardly the way to address it. We did not lower the drinking age in 1999—in fact we do not have a drinking age and I wish that people would stop saying that. We standardised the age at which people could drink at on-licensed premises and purchase alcohol to age 18 but we also lowered the age for purchasing alcohol from off-licences. That is the most significant change we made in 1999. This bill does not restore the law to the position of 1999. In fact it allows for no exceptions for under-20-year-olds to purchase. Under the previous law which had existed since 1989 18 and 19-year-olds were allowed to drink wine or beer with a meal in a restaurant and were entitled to purchase it themselves. That situation is not being restored with this bill. 
To suggest that this bill is an effective prohibition on drinking is a nonsense. There are plenty of examples in the world of places where sensible drinking practices are encouraged in an environment that does not tolerate drunkenness. In New Zealand we not only tolerate drunkenness but glorify it. Our laws used to allow drunkenness as an excuse or mitigating factor for criminal behaviour. Some of us will have attended 21st birthday parties where yard glasses came out—the standard ritual for any male’s 21st birthday party. 
John Tamihere 
: And a few women. 
LIANNE DALZIEL 
: I know that that member does not describe us as women but the point is that it was a male ritual and I think the member would agree. What is the advertisement that is on everyone’s lips? Those ads are not designed to increase tolerance for drinking to excess—Yeah right! 
A problem with sale of liquor licensing that no one ever mentions is the free-market approach to the sale of liquor that came in during the late 1980s and early 1990s. The controls that had existed until then with strict hours of trading went out the window. That enabled youth culture to adjust its drinking times to suit. We used to go home at 11 o’clock or midnight; that is when people are going into town these days. That is the real problem. It is not even mentioned in this bill which is why I would have liked to see a far more wide-reaching review. I could make a number of points about the statistics on alcohol-related harm and youth offending but there are other reasons for changes in statistics. The results have been inconclusive and I hope that the select committee will take a good look at them. 
Finally there is nothing about enforcement in this bill. The 18-year-old age restrictions that applied in the past were never enforced; the 20-year-old age restriction that applied in the past was never enforced. This bill contains nothing about more enforcement measures and nothing that will change the practice that existed before. This bill was designed not as a youth alcohol harm-reduction measure but as an under-age harm-reduction measure. I applaud the bill for that reason. I am pleased that people are starting to address that. 
The problem with the bill is that the blame is being laid squarely on the shoulders of the 18 and 19-year-olds of this country. While we have a situation in which 18 and 19-year-olds can go to war to defend our country but cannot go and have a beer after a day in the trenches I think we have the message wrong.