Gilmore Aaron: Sale of Liquor (Youth Alcohol Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Gilmore Aaron: Sale of Liquor (Youth Alcohol Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 17 June 2009. Volume:655;Page:4415. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
AARON GILMORE (National) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to rise as the last speaker on this bill the Sale of Liquor (Youth Alcohol Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill. This is a conscience matter and the bill was originally introduced well before my time in Parliament but it deals with some really interesting matters that I think affect my family and people I know. It is ironic that the bill is being sponsored by the member for Christchurch Central given that the last two members who have sponsored the bill are no longer in the House. It does not create auspicious occasions for that member. 
Amy Adams 
: Bill of doom! 
AARON GILMORE 
: It is a bill of doom. I am opposed to this bill and opposed to it for some good reasons. I am not opposed to some of the bill’s aims but I am opposed to its means. It seeks to go about achieving its aims in ways that I just cannot agree with. This bill in effect has also now been superseded. 
We are all worried about the impacts of alcohol; we are all worried about the impacts of alcohol on young people in particular. As one of the youngest members of this House I have recently experienced and seen many of the things that alcohol can do to young people. In my time as a young man I have been one of the generation that has been a guinea pig for alcohol laws. We are the ones who have grown up with booze in our dairies we have had ads for brands blasted at us 24/7 and we have seen the good bad and ugly after the lowering of the purchase age from 20 to 18. Working part-time in a bar as a student also made me see the stupidity of the old law with the purchase age at 20 years and the lengths that students would go to in order to deal with some of the law’s potential loopholes like selling meal tickets and other strange behaviours. 
It is also ironic that the focus of this bill is solely on youth when we know that young people get a bit of a bum steer. I was interested in Rahui Katene’s mention tonight of how this bill is focused on youth and how youth are not always the sole problem in regard to drinking. I can tell members that the most scared I have ever been in my entire life was when I was a bar manager in Christchurch on the night of a male strip review and 20 middle-aged women were liquored up to the max to the extent that I was frightened to leave the building and I locked myself in the toilet. I was the most frightened I had ever been in my entire life. When 20 drunken middle-aged women were chasing me looking for action I can tell members that that was the most frightening moment of my life. 
Hon Member 
: Come on—you enjoyed every moment of it. 
David Garrett 
: You can see your six-pack from here. 
AARON GILMORE 
: That is right—that is right. I have seen many many middle-aged people out of control from drinking. A number of members of this House have had their problems with drinking with drink-driving and with other things needing professional help for their drinking. Some of those members have spoken tonight. Alcohol abuse cuts across society not just youth. We are fooling ourselves if we think this bill will solve that problem. It is my experience that most young people watch television and listen to the radio—shock horror—late at night. Yet what is this bill designed to do? It restricts the advertising of alcohol to late at night. 
What would that mean in practice? Let us talk about some of the research. According to research by ACNielsen—which by the way the research unit did not come up with—total drink advertising expenditure in all media in 2005-06 was 21 percent lower than the level of advertising in 2002 which is a drop of about $11 million. This drop in advertising was accompanied by an increase in per capita consumption of 7 percent. So the relationship between advertising spend and alcohol consumption is not quite as valid as one might think. 
Hone Harawira 
: Hiding in the toilets eh! 
AARON GILMORE 
: That is right—hiding in the toilets. I can tell my friend that it was a frightening evening. What would happen if we shortened the time for advertising? It would intensify the effectiveness of the TV broadcast dollar spend. That $41 million or $50 million would be spent in a shorter space of time. We would have wall-to-wall advertising showing all sorts of things that we do not really want to see. To borrow a phrase from one of the liquor providers if members think this would solve the problem—yeah right! I can see the billboards now—“Yeah right!”. Will this bill solve the problem? Yeah right! This bill also tries to tidy up some perceived crossovers in responsibility between the Broadcasting Standards Authority and the Advertising Standards Authority in relation to TV. I can tell members that my 6-year-old son knows that the “Yeah right!” billboard that we drive past every week to go to rugby practice advertises Tui and Tui means beer. But he also knows that beer is not for kids or teenagers because he has good parents who teach him that. 
This bill would fragment liquor regulation of the media and that seems to me to be just nuts. More important this bill is not just about using the wrong tools to solve problems that we wish to solve; it is being superseded by another bill—the Sale and Supply of Liquor and Liquor Enforcement Bill. This bill deals with the problem in the advertising of liquor. That bill gives us a better more thoughtful way of dealing with and approaching these issues. Yes I agree as do many members in this House that our alcohol laws need some change. But this bill we have tonight will not do it. The Sale and Supply of Liquor and Liquor Enforcement Bill goes further. 
I enjoy a social drink with my friends and whanau and I would hate to see a move to restrict too far the law-abiding people who wish to pick up a bottle of wine at the supermarket and enjoy it with good food or to see a restriction on my ability to know what is the biggest special on wine at my supermarket. 
Tonight we have heard many arguments from across this Chamber. Most agree that we need to do something about this problem. Most have spoken in favour of the bill from the opposite side of the House. But even those members opposite who have spoken admit that this bill will not solve the problem of youth drinking. Members opposite claim that this bill is a step in the right direction. I say that this bill will not go far enough and the bill that is soon to become before us— 
Paul Quinn 
: It’s window dressing! 
AARON GILMORE 
: That is right; this is just window dressing. This bill will not solve our problems. It is better that we stop we wait and we see the work of the Law Commission which is currently doing a good job and this work is about 6 weeks away. The Government has indicated to the Law Commission that it will give priority to liquor issues and to the advice of the Law Commission. Many members would have seen the early work that has come out from the Law Commission and it talks about all sorts of things that I think we need to have good discussion about. The Law Commission which is led by a former Labour member has put forward some good ideas on how to deal with some of these problems. It is 6 weeks away. It is wrong to go off half-cocked and get to a situation where we have processed this bill but then have to change it or amend it to fix some of its problems. 
I look forward to seeing the results of the Law Commission review and the debate we will have on it at that time. I think we need to sit down and think about it. Is this a bill that would solve youth drinking? No. Is this a bill as borne out by statistics that would stop the advertising of liquor? No. Is it a bill that may increase the effectiveness of spend in a period of time? Yes. Does a reduction in spending on alcohol advertising result in decreased alcohol consumption? No it does not. This bill should disappear. Research has shown that in 2005-06 a decline in expenditure actually led to an increase in alcohol consumption. ACNielsen did that research. It is a very good research company that is independent of everybody sitting here tonight. I say to this bill: haere ra!