White Helen; Meager James; Smith StuartHELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert): Thank you. I just wanted to actually reinforce and elaborate a little bit on the issue that you have started to discuss about the inclusion of breweries because I have this amendment which I think would solve the problem that you saw; the problem of the definition. There's an amendment on the Table which talks about—CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Which amendment?HELEN WHITE: —what a winery cellar door is. Sorry it is Amendment Paper 39 and it has a definition in it of a distillery cellar door". So it is specifically possible by accepting this amendment and I'm heartened that there's an indication that this is a personal vote situation we could include by accepting this amendment the architecture to stretch this out. This would really assist in our cities in a way that is incredibly important at the moment. We have businesses in the fringes of our cities which are doing this well but as has been mentioned they are doing flights. This would allow a whole other option for them and it would be a boost to those businesses and allow them a chance to innovate. So I'd like to know why you think it is not possible to simply accept this amendment and then move to that state? I take your point that you consider members' bills often narrow but there is an issue with being narrow and being actually representatives of the entire nation. So having a law that zeroes in on one place is really—it's something that we don't tend to do. We tend to think strategically and structurally. I would like to know why this would do any harm if you consider the other part of your law overall positive?JAMES MEAGER (National—Rangitata): Mr Chair thank you very much. I wanted to move on to the next issue that we dealt with in the select committee which was of course the sample size provision. I'm aware that there are some amendments in Dr Duncan Webb's name around different types of alcohol and different sizes of the samples that are being put forward. The member in the chair outlined pretty clearly why he thinks that some of the sample sizes being often poured aren't appropriate but during the consideration of the bill it was originally proposed that the sample size be 40 millilitres. For the insight of the members of the Chamber I understand that a teaspoon is around 5 millilitres. So you got about 8 teaspoons of wine there—Stuart Smith: 6 I think.JAMES MEAGER: 6 millilitres. Well I can't do that maths—to the member in the chair. So let's say around about 5 millilitres so around about 6 teaspoons for a 30 millilitre pour. Now the officials did provide advice and the advice was that they believe that for alcohol harm minimisation reasons the sample size should be reduced to 30 millilitres. The issue with that though is that when you are pouring these samples there was a very real risk that 1 millilitre over a 30 millilitre sample size could put you strictly in breach of the Act. With no tolerance we wouldn't want you know well-meaning sommeliers or whatever the fancy wine word is for when you pour these things; my other colleagues around the Chamber—Matt Doocey might well know more about pouring wine samples the Minister for Tourism and Hospitality. But one of the issues was without enough tolerance the standard pour tended to be about 30 millilitres. So if you poured 1 millilitre over you'd technically be in breach of the provisions. So I understand that that's why the member originally brought 40 millilitres as the sample size to the House. Now there was actually a significant amount of back and forth in the committee on this; we were actually concerned generally and the bill's concerned with it and the Ministry of Justice gave a significant amount of advice on alcohol harm minimisation and what this could do in the bill. We came to a conclusion that 35 millilitres might be an appropriate level to go with. The member was very gracious to accept that and not to put much of a battle up with that.But we've got to quantify this. If members think back to their teenage days or whether or not they were skulking around the Bowler in Dunedin which actually I managed the Bowler in Dunedin. So I know what a 30 millilitre pour looks like.Hon Rachel Brooking: Did you?JAMES MEAGER: I managed the Bowler and then it turned into the University's Health Sciences department—Māori Health Workforce Development Unit. Then I ended up working in the Māori Health Workforce Development Unit in the pokies room that the Bowler used to have. But that aside if members can recall their days in the Bowling Green Tavern—30 millilitres is the size of a shot glass. So when you're talking about alcohol harm minimisation going from 40 to 35 or 35 to 30 is not making a significant amount of difference. In reality what this is doing is actually saying that we're now going to put a cost or a charge on that sample size of 35 millilitres. Previously you could provide all the free samples you'd like. You could have 100 shot glasses of wine of Central Otago Pinot Noir lined up—you could line them up and you know you could go for your life and not charge a cent for it. But now you're putting a charge on it. So who's going to go along and line up a 100 shot glasses of Pinot Noir and $7 a glass just so they can get blotto on shots of wine at a time. I think it is unrealistic to expect that this is going to have a significant impact on alcohol harm minimisation and as a member of the House who doesn't actually drink—and actually ironically the other member from this side of the Chamber who's taken a call Tom Rutherford also doesn't drink. But we can understand we can think through the process we can think through the logic of why sample sizes might need to be 35 or 40 millilitres to make sure you build in that tolerance. Because when you're making standard pour and you've poured these samples over and over and over you want to make sure there's a little bit of grace there in the case of an accidental overpour of a teaspoon or two more. So for the sake of a teaspoon or two I'd like to ask the member whether he thinks that 35 millilitres has come to the right place on this particular bill; whether or not you know he would even propose pushing back up to 40 millilitres because I certainly wouldn't necessarily be opposed to that or whether or not other amendments on the Table concerning sample sizes are at all relevant to touch on.STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Mr Chair. Firstly to Helen White's Amendment Paper 39—actually this was raised in select committee and we were advised it would be out of scope of the bill—Helen White: Not anymore.STUART SMITH: Yes that may well be the case but the reason it was to be out of scope was because it didn't really fit in the bill. So on that basis I don't support it at all. There's not been enough work done on things like 35 millilitres or whatever the sample sizes are and all those other implications that actually require quite a bit of work behind them.In terms of the 35 millilitres I did check around some cellar doors in Margaret River when I was over there checking on—Tom Rutherford: Doing some tastings.STUART SMITH: Yes I did do some tasting there to see what their practice was. It was very similar to what this bill is proposing. It is 5 millilitres in a teaspoon so 30 millilitres is 6 teaspoons; 7 would be for 35. You do need to allow a little bit of—people like to pour it by hand. Yes you could measure it out but it all becomes—you know it would ruin the experience quite frankly. People are very good at pouring it to that level. So I think that 35 millilitres has been a good compromise. I think it will work really well. For those who think you should have less: really for wine tasting you need enough wine in the glass to be able to get the aromas to taste it. Many people—having had a cellar door myself—who taste wine don't drink it. They swirl it around their mouth and they spit it out. You have a spittoon for that. It might be sacrilege to some people; it's quite commonplace in the wine industry. It's about getting a mouth feel and about having enough wine to get the aromas to come off that glass and so you can enjoy that experience and assess it. So I make no apology for 35—I think I wouldn't want it to be any less. I do accept the argument of it not being 40 millilitres—reluctantly but I did accept it."