Bishop Chris: Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Display of Low-alcohol Beverages and Other Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBishop Chris: 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:9723. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS BISHOP (National): I take a great degree of interest in bills like this not the least of which for the reason that in the Hutt Valley we have got some fantastic breweries: Panhead Custom Ales up in Upper Hutt—now the world-renowned Panhead Custom Ales—Baylands Brewery in Pētone and Kererū Brewing up in Upper Hutt. So I take a great degree of interest in bills like this.It is a sensible bill as Jacinda Ardern made mention. Actually I had Retail New Zealand representatives in my office—it would have been about 6 to 8 months ago—and they raised this issue with me and I thought: “Well that actually seems pretty fair enough. That seems pretty sensible. It doesn’t destroy the intent of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act.” It clearly seemed to be an absurdity created by poor drafting or an unintentionally bad outcome from the legislation. I thought “Well that seems pretty good. Maybe that’s a little member’s bill I can take through to the caucus and put on the floor of the House—a pretty sensible change we can make.” and then lo and behold a few days later a Government bill was introduced and I thought: “Oh that’s that opportunity gone for a sensible member’s bill.” My colleagues—Stuart Smith is laughing away here in the House—next to me on the left and right know that certainly on this side of the House that is you know a classic sort of member’s bill that we could advance from the Government backbenches.It is a sensible bill and it does fix an absurdity in the law that came about through the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act. Really we do not want a situation where you have low-alcohol beer or alcoholic products in next to fruit juice and in next to fizzy drink and all the other plethora of different types of beverages you can get. It makes sense that those beverages would be available in the alcohol area of the store and as other members have rightly pointed out—including the Minister in his introduction—it is right that those products can be seen as an alternative.I just want to briefly pick up on Jacinda Ardern’s comments towards the end of her speech about why this amendment is not in a Statutes Amendment Bill. Well the simple reason is that alcohol issues in this House have traditionally been treated as conscience issues and statutes amendment bills are reserved for those highly technical incredibly specific changes to statutes for which there will be obviously—obviously—overwhelming support around the Parliament. I would say that they are the sorts of bills where no reasonable person could disagree that it is a sensible change to make. It is the sort of change where you add an “and” into a section in an Act or an “or” here and there in order to make the policy intention clear. It is not appropriate—and it just shows Jacinda Ardern’s lack of knowledge of parliamentary procedure despite spending 8 years in this House—that she would think that something to do with alcohol would be considered appropriate for a Statutes Amendment Bill.She said: “Oh well the Labour Party now regards alcohol issues as a health issue.” Well that is all well and good for the Labour Party but it is actually not how those members regarded the last major piece of liquor legislation to go through this House in 2012 when we had this reasonably interesting scenario of the Labour Party splitting on individual lines for each division on the bill. For each stage in the Committee of the whole House debate on the bill a variety of Labour MPs would vote one way and a variety of Labour MPs would vote with their conscience another way. So that is a reasonably new development if indeed the Labour Party is going to regard something like alcohol—which has been regarded as a conscience issue for a very long time in this Parliament—as a health issue.Then right at the very end of her speech what did we hear? We heard Labour’s real cracker of a policy which is that the minimum pricing for alcohol should be $2 per standard drink—which is what it was going into 2014 election. So this is the idea that the minimum price of a bottle of wine in a supermarket will be $14 or $15. No no you cannot get your $8.99 sauvignon blanc with fish and chips on the way home on a Friday night—no. That is not allowed any more. No you cannot get your $13.99 bottle of Pinot noir or your bottle of chardonnay from the Hawke’s Bay—no. The minimum price is $2 and so all wine will have to cost $14 and above. The reason minimum pricing was rejected is that it does not work. It does not hit the very drinkers you are trying to make drink less and actually the irony of the whole thing is that it actually guarantees profits for alcohol companies. That is literally what minimum pricing does. It says that it is $2 per standard drink—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order!CHRIS BISHOP: —and guarantees pricing for alcohol companies. This is a sensible bill—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Come back—come back.CHRIS BISHOP: Yes I take your point Mr Assistant Speaker. I was moving slightly away from the bill but I was just responding to the speaker before me which I think is within the Standing Orders. It is a sensible bill. I commend it to the House.