Robertson Grant: Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Rugby World Cup 2015 Extended Trading Hours) Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Rugby World Cup 2015 Extended Trading Hours) Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 26 August 2015. Volume:708;Page:6208. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I want to start my contribution by speaking briefly about the process issues that we are going through and just to record that I do think it is unsatisfactory that we come to the House tonight having not had a Committee of the whole House on the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Rugby World Cup2015 Extended Trading Hours) Amendment Bill.I actually support this piece of legislation and I will explain my support for it in a moment. But I do think this was an issue that was foreseeable. It was raised with me a couple of months ago. I undertook to talk to various stakeholders on the issue in my own inner-city electorate and I do think there was the opportunity to have a better process than the one we are having now. No matter what the good intent either of Mr Seymour or of the members of the Justice and Electoral Committee I fear that there will be unforeseen circumstances—unforeseen things will arise as a result of this that we have not had enough time to work through. There is even some confusion among members about exactly what provisions have stayed in the bill and what provisions have not so I regret the fact that we are doing it this way.I would rather that we were treating this matter with a little bit more caution and with a little bit more of the normal process that we have and I just want to put on record that I think the Government dropped the ball—and that will be one of the very few rugby metaphors that I will use in this speech; but there may be one or two others. I do think the Government has dropped the ball in terms of not getting on to this issue earlier. I also think that although Mr Seymour has taken the initiative on the bill the Government itself was at one point going to take it up and again I think it probably would have been better had it done that. That is not what happened and we stand here tonight having to debate this bill in the form that we are.In the Wellington area a number of special licences have already been granted to establishments to screen games for the Rugby World Cup and the process that those establishments went through was a thorough one. They spoke with the district licensing authority the police were involved and they were granted special licences with a series of conditions. That process should be the process that we are able to follow for events like the Rugby World Cup. However around the country inconsistent approaches were abounding. The idea of ridiculous conditions being put on the licences became it seemed a tactic to be used in certain authorities by certain people who had a concern about the licence. So we got the stories of people needing to run fancy dress parties or quiz nights or have MCs and all sorts of things like that.The inconsistency of that process concerns me. I think it would be far better if this legislation was actually about special licences rather than a blanket exemption. For me that is what I thought I was doing as a member of this Parliament when we passed the last Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act changes—establishing that a special event like the Rugby World Cup would generate a situation where a special licence would be provided.It has become clear for many people in this process either deliberately in terms of trying to make it more difficult to get special licences or simply because this is how they interpreted it that the special event is the thing that happens in the licensed premises not the thing that is on the screen on the television. For me as a member of this Parliament I always felt we were passing legislation where an event like the Rugby World Cup on the screen would be the special event and had that interpretation been consistently taken around New Zealand then we would have had applications for special licences on the basis of the event the Rugby World Cup. So I want to put on record that my preference would have been to be able to use the special licence process on the understanding that the special event was the event the Rugby World Cup and we will have to revisit this because we cannot keep doing this every time a major event in the world comes up. I would much rather we were in that situation.But my reason for supporting this bill relates to the fact that the Rugby World Cup is a special event. Obviously I am a huge rugby fan. I appreciate that not everybody else is but I think we can all understand that the Rugby World Cup will be an event quite different from any others that we see. People want to come together for these events. This is about a sense of community. It is not about a sense of wanting to go on long drawn-out drinking benders. The few people who might think that that is what they want to do are going to find they are not going to be able to. They are going to find that actually both the police and the licence holders are not going to let them do that. They know there will be huge scrutiny on them as part of this bill and it simply will not occur.What this will be about is people coming together for what are iconic moments in their history—and that will not necessarily be confined just to New Zealanders. The passion with which people from other nationalities will follow their teams will match New Zealanders’ and when Samoa play and when South Africa play we will see huge turnouts of people wanting to be part of that. I believe there is more danger of people leaving pubs in a caffeine and bacon-induced haze than there is in an alcoholic haze after these events because that is what will happen. We do need to be practical and real about this. People will mostly be there having breakfast because that is the timing of the games when they would be wanting to be out and that is what I know in my own heart is what will happen.That is not to diminish the concerns that have been raised tonight about our drinking culture and about the laws that govern the way in which alcohol is used and sold in New Zealand. I think Chris Bishop did a disservice to this bill by standing up in this House and trying to diminish binge drinking and its impact in New Zealand. It is a real thing. Standing in this House and saying it is a myth and it does not exist is actually a silly—Jono Naylor: That’s not what he said.GRANT ROBERTSON: No it is what he said Mr Naylor. I have listened to Chris Bishop’s speech. You know you could see the old tobacco lobbyist coming out taking the statistics and twisting them round for his argument. I think that was a silly set of arguments for Chris Bishop to make.I want to put on the record again that we do need to look at the drinking culture that we have in New Zealand. We need to look at things like hours of sale cost of alcohol the abuse of alcohol and education. This bill is not going to sort that out and opposing this bill is not going to sort that out. So I continue to support the bill but I do not appreciate those arguments. I do not think they are helpful. I think Mr Bishop needs to look again and spend a little bit of time perhaps with an accident and emergency staff member on a Saturday night before he does that. I also want to acknowledge the concerns that have been raised about the linkage between alcohol and domestic violence.They are serious issues that New Zealand needs to get its head around. Again though I do not believe that opposing this legislation is the way in which we will address those particular issues.I do think it is important to relate the matter around the conditions of licences. The licences that were granted in a place like Wellington take into account the concerns of those who live in the inner city and I want to acknowledge the Wellington Inner City Association which has put in a very good submission on this bill about its concerns. They are the people who wake up in the morning when those bottles crash down when they are being thrown out they are the people who will be concerned about the courtyard noise and so I appreciate the work that the Justice and Electoral Committee did in knocking out some of those things. But I have to acknowledge that the Wellington Inner City Association would rather the bill went further would rather that there were more restrictions around and we do have to appreciate the mixed use of inner-city environments.Having said that all of the conditions that apply to licences other than hours will continue to apply and I am quite sure that the police will keep a very close eye on that in the Wellington central area as they always do. I am very pleased to see the provision around people whose licences have been suspended not being able to use the provisions of this bill. We should not reward bad behaviour; we should make sure that those pubs understand that they are not able to be part of the special occasion because of what they have done. I also want to note the provisions that basically say that the only way that noise restrictions that are not in this bill will apply is where they are more restrictive than what is in this bill. I think it is very important that we maintain the faith that we are putting in people behaving responsibly.So I will be supporting this legislation. I do not think this is the best way that this House could have gone about this. I do think that we need to sort out the provisions around special licences and special events. I do think there could have been some more conditions imposed particularly around the question of venues being closer to schools and other things like that but on balance this is a special event as I envisaged a special event when the sale of liquor legislation changes went through. I think we need to work together as a community to reduce and eliminate harm from alcohol use. We must continue to do that regardless of what we are doing here today but this piece of legislation on balance is one that I can support.