Hague Kevin: Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Extended licensing hours during Rugby World Cup) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHague Kevin: Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Extended licensing hours during Rugby World Cup) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 12 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5736. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KEVIN HAGUE (Green): Pursuant to your request Mr Assistant Speaker I can indicate at the beginning of this contribution that the Green Party will as a party vote for the first reading of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Extended licensing hours during Rugby World Cup) Bill.Some members will be familiar with an extraordinary piece of work undertaken by the Law Commission. This is the Law Commission’s report from 2010 following a really extensive piece of work involving many public submissions and a great deal of involvement from stakeholders right across the sector. That report generated—eventually some might say—from its recommendations a Government bill which in turn went to select committee and also received very many submissions from the public and from stakeholders about alcohol law in New Zealand. It was in 2012 that this House passed that legislation the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act. The evidence in this Law Commission report and the precursor reports was that the consumption of alcohol in New Zealand is associated with harm. I have New Zealand Police statistics for example that say that one-third of all offences that the police deal with are committed by someone who has recently consumed alcohol. For some offences like serious violence it is one in two offences. So there is serious harm associated with alcohol and the Law Commission concluded on the basis of its review of evidence that the more available alcohol was the more would be consumed and the more harm would be caused.That is why the Law Commission in its recommendations to the House and this House’s treatment of those recommendations basically sought to strike a balance between people’s freedom of choice and the need to protect people from harm. That is why we set up a regime that provides for a local process in which premises are allocated locations and hours and conditions. It is designed to protect people from harm. If premises want to serve alcohol outside of those licensed hours there is a regime that we set up in the law for special licences. In its report in fact the Law Commission uses international rugby fixtures as an example of the kind of special event that would be appropriate for the use of special licences. Those members of the House who were present for the debate in 2012 may well recall that actually our debate also specifically talked about the Rugby World Cup and its appropriate use for special licences. Certainly there is nothing at all in the existing law that actually would prevent special licences from being used for Rugby World Cup fixtures. That is the appropriate mechanism. So why is there a problem now? Well it turns out that the police in some parts of New Zealand are saying that Rugby World Cup fixtures do not qualify for special licences. What that suggests to me and to the Green Party is that what we need is a review of how Parliament’s intentions around special licences have been implemented. That is how we should proceed but we do not have time right now. What we have to do right now is actually address the fact that the Rugby World Cup is just around the corner.We saw David Seymour’s bill for the first time yesterday morning. We denied leave for it to be introduced yesterday because we had major concerns. We are now confident as a result of the discussions we have had with David Seymour the assurances he has given us and also the good-faith discussions we have had with the Government that the issues we had—issues around a bill that covered all games in other words most days over a 6-week period; and that covered all licensed premises including those operated by licensees who had previously breached licences and those that were in locations that were just around the corner from a kindy—are in fact going to be dealt with. We still believe that this measure ought to have been dealt with not as a member’s bill but as a Government bill. We believe that that is the appropriate way of dealing with an issue of this sort for some of the reasons actually that the Minister of Justice Amy Adams discussed in her contribution.