Adams Amy: Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Extended licensing hours during Rugby World Cup) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeAdams Amy: Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Extended licensing hours during Rugby World Cup) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 12 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5732. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister of Justice): I am pleased to take a call in support of the first reading of Mr Seymour’s Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Extended licensing hours during Rugby World Cup) Bill. Just noting your ruling Mr Assistant Speaker can I begin by indicating that the National Government will be supporting the bill at first reading. That is the decision of our caucus and I am very pleased to be able to indicate that support to Mr Seymour.There is no doubtin this House I think that we have a very unique situation here which deserves a unique response. We have a tournament being played on the other side of the world representing not only the third-largest sporting event in the world but also more important for most New Zealanders the game that I think New Zealand really considers its national game and that is featuring our own very much beloved All Blacks. Not everyone in this country is sports mad but a vast majority of us are absolute diehard All Blacks fans—and the sensible ones are also Crusaders fans; but that is another debate which we will not get into—and watching the All Blacks is something that I think New Zealanders really do regard as a critical part of being a New Zealander. Certainly the Rugby World Cup comes around once every 4 years and there can be no doubt that it has a special place in New Zealand—from both the attention it gets and our focus on it to the very mood you can feel on the streets as you walk around New Zealand depending on whether the All Blacks have played well. On the very rare occasion that that has not happened you can certainly pick that up in the air.In this particular case as I mentioned the tournament is being played on the other side of the world and uniquely the way that the scheduling has worked means that almost every single game will be played in the few hours that the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act deems as prohibited hours for trading for licensed premises. Although the Act certainly provides a framework for special licences to be granted—and that system works very well in the vast majority of cases—in a situation like this when we will have a huge number of licensed premises from Cape Reinga to Bluff wanting to be able to offer their communities an alternative to get along and watch the game live in a group situation where they can feel the excitement of the crowd and they can feel not quite as if they are there but as good as it gets from this side of the world it is not something that we would want to see affected by a process of unnecessary levels of bureaucracy. I think the intent of this bill which is to ensure that that is not unreasonably disrupted is a good one.To be fair—and Mr Seymour and I have had this discussion—it is the National Party’s view that there are matters within the bill that we think we would want to look at more closely. In particular we have a view about the games that should be covered by this blanket granting of a special licence for every facility in New Zealand. That is a very very high threshold and it is a unique set of circumstances that justifies it. Certainly going into this process our initial view is that that sort of blanket granting of special licences to licensed premises around New Zealand is certainly warranted for the All Blacks’ games and is warranted for the play-off matches but it is hard to make the same level of argument for some of the other teams that will be playing. That is not to say that there will not be interest in them for some New Zealanders but not to the level that would warrant an automatic blanket special licence for every game for every bar in New Zealand. That is certainly something that we will be wanting to discuss.In addition it is important I think—and I am sure that many members of this House will agree—that the bill fulfils its purpose of removing unnecessary hurdles in compliance so that New Zealanders can watch the game but not in a way that takes away from the core host responsibility provisions that we would expect our licensed premises to comply with. I think that there are some very simple practical changes that can be made to the bill just to ensure that we get the right balance between facilitating New Zealanders’ enjoyment of the tournament but not seriously degrading any of those host responsibilities and actually neighbourhood responsibilities that licensed premises need to be mindful of.The other issue that is worth picking up is really just one of the workability and the application of the bill. As the Minister responsible for the underlying legislation I certainly have an interest in seeing that any amendment to the Act that is passed is workable is clearly understood will be easily applied and if reference needs to be sought to it for enforcement purposes that that can be done without any debate over what Parliament meant. I appreciate absolutely that the circumstances in which this matter arose on a reasonably fast-moving playing field—to make a reasonably unfortunate pun—have shifted quite a lot in the last few days. Mr Seymour has worked very hard to try to navigate his way through that but the speed of drafting and the limited resources available for a member to put up a member’s bill mean that that process is a challenging one. I think that there are certainly some drafting opportunities in the bill which we can work on together to improve the bill and to get it into as good a shape as possible.The last point that I did just want to make is simply to say that actually the underlying framework of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act works very well. I am very comfortable that the framework is right. This is not some sort of signal that there is an issue; this is a signal of one thing and one thing only which is that this is a unique set of circumstances that holds a particular place of importance to New Zealanders all around the country and deserves a response in this House. In the vast majority of cases when events occur at odd hours around the world with different sporting codes and events I think that the special licensing provisions work incredibly well but the National Government recognises the uniqueness of this situation and the uniqueness of rugby and the All Blacks to New Zealand and we commend this bill at first reading.