Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Madam Speaker for the opportunity to speak briefly on this bill which the National Party as a caucus has decided not to support and—Chlöe Swarbrick: Why's that? Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —thank you—I will outline the issues as we see it. Now I think everybody in this Chamber is concerned about the public health—Chlöe Swarbrick: Some of us are just willing to do something about it. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —thank you thank you—concerns around alcohol and the impact that it has in society. Alcohol has been with us for centuries and millennia and indeed most human societies have found some way to partake in drinks along these lines. So it's brought great merriment and also great social problems as well and over time societies have tried to do various things to have a prohibition against it and fight against it. So what's been proposed here is two things: first the doing away with special appeals around local alcohol plans. The issue that we have here is that we do not stand here and say that the current arrangements work perfectly well—they don't. It's been a long slow drawn-out expensive process that hasn't worked perfectly. Now our response to that is to say well let's have a look at the process and improve it. The current proposal by this bill is just to throw out the whole process of appeal—Chlöe Swarbrick: No special appeals—not judicial appeals. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —special appeals—and that fundamentally rests on the assertion that local councils will always make good decisions that don't need to be tested in that light. I think the only point I'd make there is that anybody vaguely acquainted with councils throughout this country wouldn't assume that councils always make the correct decisions. So that process hasn't worked well but we think that this is an overreaction to it and have outlined all that and we've already heard in the select committee process from a Labour Government bill on this in relation to it automatically making the local alcohol plans that a local council passes take effect including when it comes to renewal of licences. So we've heard from people who have had a business for 30 years in an area and have put their heart and soul into it and under this bill and under the Government's bill if a local alcohol plan decided that they're going to have a sinking lid and not have any renewals then that business could be shut down overnight irrespective that they might be the best—Chlöe Swarbrick: That is not true. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well they can be. They will not have their licence renewed and so they will not be able to carry on in their business. Chlöe Swarbrick: Well that's not shut down overnight; that's community willpower moving through a legal process. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well and so—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: What is going on with this? ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The member in charge of the bill is passionate about the subject. This is a members' day but it's getting a little close to being a barrage so maybe just calm it down a bit. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Thank you Madam Speaker. The second point is in relation to the—so we're not convinced about that and we think that's not an appropriate way to deal with what is a real issue. There is a real issue around community voices being heard on alcohol policy. What was developed by us in 2012 hasn't worked perfectly and so our view is that you should review it and amend it so that it does work rather than going the step that this member has done in terms of abolishing those appeal rights. The second thing is around advertising and the point I've made to the member and others is that it is a kind of arbitrary focus on sport although with some equally arbitrary exclusions. For some reason the young people of this country will be driven to drink by advertising in a rugby game but they won't be by advertising in the yachting which has been excluded. So there's no logic to that and when it comes to going to a music event for example advertising's fine but for rugby it's not. There are all sorts of activities where alcohol sponsoring can continue but she's just chosen one and—Chlöe Swarbrick: It's disingenuous. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well it's not. It's actually—that's the bill that you've drawn up. So the bill that has been proposed by this member is inadequate on those two fronts and that's why we won't be supporting it. Thank you Madam Speaker.