Blumsky Mark: Sale of Liquor (Youth Alcohol Harm Reduction: Purchase Age) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Blumsky Mark: Sale of Liquor (Youth Alcohol Harm Reduction: Purchase Age) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:635;Page:6352] 
MARK BLUMSKY (National) 
: 
 A few months ago I became aware that this bill would be coming to the House. I also became aware of the silence of the young so I took the opportunity to survey about 2500 Wellington adults aged between 18 and 22. Because of the responses that I received I am not supporting the bill tonight. I received hundreds of responses to that survey and they were overwhelmingly in favour of keeping the legal purchasing age at 18. As well some respondents said they appreciated that we had taken the time to ask them what they thought. Many of the respondents were very eloquent in putting their case for not lifting the legal purchasing age. A significant number observed that raising the legal purchasing age would result only in more illegal drinking of alcohol. Too many said that in putting up the drinking age we would be driving the activity underground. I ask why we would want to take 18 and 19-year-olds out of a public protected monitored environment where they can dance drink and eat and put them in a garage or an old flat—with one loo if they are lucky—with no protection or monitoring. 
We know what would happen in that situation. One respondent to the survey said exactly what can happen. The woman said that she has an 8-year-old boy and has no idea who the father is. She got drunk in a garage and cannot remember a thing but is reminded every morning of what happened that night because she is now a mother. She has no idea who the father is. The gossip was horrible. Her peers at the time were taking bets on who it was because of the activity in the garage that night. Kids can be very cruel sometimes but I suggest not as cruel as we will be if we take those young women out of a protected drinking environment and put them into a very unprotected environment. 
As another respondent noted: “If you put it in the back room you may think you’re hiding it but you’re not solving a damn thing.” Another interesting point was made by respondents and it has been alluded to tonight by others. Many of the respondents made it quite clear they do not know why we are having a debate about the drinking age. They think we should be having a debate about drugs and the problem that drugs cause in their age group and in society. 
Young adults have had a taste of the privilege of alcohol and come hell or high water they will keep swigging. Anyone who says the problem of alcohol consumption is with only 18 and 20-year-olds—that they are the ones with the problem—should join me on a wander through the city streets with Winston both early morning and at night and they will see a hell of a lot more 30 and 40-year-old men and women who are making a drunken nuisance of themselves on the streets. So why not raise the drinking age to 40 and keep those people off the streets! Many older Kiwis just cannot handle their booze. 
Parliament needs to recognise that at 18 one is an adult. There are 121000 adults aged between 18 and 19 today and they deserve to be given respect and to be treated as responsible—but learning—New Zealanders. At the last Wellington City Council elections an 18-year-old was elected as a city councillor. She was deemed old enough to help govern the city of Wellington but not old enough to cheer the mayor on the night the councillor took her oath. 
Young people are growing up very quickly today and the 18-year-olds of today are a very different group of 18-year-olds from how it was when we were that age. I think Parliament needs to send this clear message to the young 18-year-old adults of New Zealand: “You must be responsible. You must take personal responsibility for your actions. You must be held responsible. Get drunk but there are no excuses if you do and it is nothing to be proud of. You must handle the consequences of your actions.”