Wall Louisa: Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Extended licensing hours during Rugby World Cup) Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWall Louisa: Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Extended licensing hours during Rugby World Cup) Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 26 August 2015. Volume:708;Page:6194. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): I want to indicate that as a party Labour would like a personal vote please. My contribution to the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Extended licensing hours during Rugby World Cup) Bill is going to be in two halves actually but before I do that I would just like to congratulate David Seymour. Putting a bill before this House is a really important and big opportunity and obviously you have put this bill forward because you think that there is a need. So I commend you for that.The game of two halves that I am going to play in my speech firstly has to be an acknowledgment that within my electorate of Manurewa I had two groups submit on the bill. The first was the Manurewa Business Association so to Wendy Dunn and the businesses in Manurewa I acknowledge that you do not support this piece of legislation. I acknowledge that from your perspective this bill is not necessary that it denies natural justice because it was put through so quickly and that for you alcohol-related harm—which is a big issue in our community—will not be minimised through this bill. In fact you think it is going to add to or exacerbate the harm in our community.I would also like to acknowledge Angela Dalton and the Manurewa Local Board who also do not support this piece of legislation. For them there is no evidence that it will fulfil the objectives of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act and for them it is poor lawmaking. They also highlighted and I would like to highlight the process to enable the over 8000 New Zealand businesses that actually had Sky subscriptions—that is what we are talking about. We are talking about the over 8000 businesses in New Zealand that have Sky subscriptions which would then be in a position to be able to invite the public into their premises to watch rugby. That from our local board perspective was going to have too big an impact on the police who of course do great service in our communities to minimise the harm associated with alcohol but also the board was quite clear that from an Auckland Council perspective—and we have already heard from my colleague Kevin Hague that Auckland Council was one of the submitters that oppose this piece of legislation.The other submission that I want to highlight is from the Public Health Association of New Zealand which said: “Actually let them open but don’t let them sell alcohol.” In fact if you are a club you could have opened and not sold alcohol. So actually there were alternatives in being able to provide rugby off this Sky business platform so that the public could see the matches.I would also like to acknowledge that in December last year a group that was put together by the then Minister of Justice Judith Collins in 2012 which was chaired by Graham Lowe—and we all know “Lowie” who is one of our sporting legends in the league area—recommended to the Government that alcohol sponsorship of sports clubs needed to cease and that we should be looking at banning advertising of alcohol during licensed matches.It is really relevant for us to talk about these recommendations because it was also a recommendation of the Law Commission which undertook a 2-year process of reviewing the impact of alcohol in our lives. So this piece of legislation is actually a convergence from my perspective. It is a convergence of alcohol and how alcohol seems to have this relationship to New Zealanders in our culture and also rugby and how rugby has a relationship with and impacts on our culture.I found a 2011 Master’s thesis titled Exploring Players’ Perceptions About Alcohol: The Impact of Alcohol on the Rugby Team Culture. It was written by Phillip Scott Kahu-Kauika. Basically what it does is it traces why alcohol is so prevalent within the rugby community. I have got to say that when I played rugby—and I played rugby both for Waitematā for Suburbs for College Rifles—at the end of the game you would go into the shed and there would be a crate or a box of beer and you would consume that box of beer while you were having a shower and then you would go into the club rooms and you would consume a few more beers. If you were the player of the day and sometimes I was you got a bottle of wine. So there is this intimate relationship between alcohol rugby and team building which is one of the things that this Master’s student highlights—that somehow it has all become morphed into one big thing. I see this piece of legislation as highlighting that but I think there is a great opportunity for us as a country to take stock to acknowledge that actually for us and the public to see the Rugby World Cup we have to amend the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act. Is that not interesting?So I think there is a big opportunity for us to think about what the consequences are of this piece of legislation going through today. I actually will vote in favour of this bill and I will do so after consulting with members of my Manurewa rugby club who wanted to get a special licence. They had a very interesting conversation with the council and they were told that a special licence was actually most likely going to be vetoed by the council. So in fact it was going to be very difficult for some rugby clubs and some people who have these Sky business licences to be able to show the rugby. So in fact I do think David Seymour is fixing a problem in some areas.But what I want to also do with my contribution on this bill is actually highlight bigger issues about the relationship between rugby and alcohol sport and alcohol the harm in our community what groups like Graham Lowe’s have done the recommendations that they have given to the Government and actually challenge us past the Rugby World Cup which is running from 19 September to 1 November. We are using the resources of this Parliament for a very specific piece of legislation but I think there is an opportunity for us to really consider a whole relationship between alcohol sport and what we do in the future particularly in communities of like mind where there are obvious issues about how people are consuming alcohol and what the police position is.One of the things that is unanswered for me in this process is that within 7 days of a game you have to notify the district licensing committee and also the police. So you notify the police and then what do the police do with this information? Are they getting more resources? Are they going to be able to monitor the sites that are going to show the rugby to the public? Are we going to say to the police that it will be great if they had a presence at these particular venues? That is the missing thing in this legislation for me.But I guess we have an opportunity through this process to say to the Minister of Police that we would expect that the police would have an ongoing role. It would not just be about notifying them that the Manurewa rugby club was going to watch—and it is only intending to cover the quarter-finals the semi-finals and the finals even though the scope of this bill allows it to be open for all the games. For the club it is actually about rugby. So for me it is actually about rugby and that is why I am voting in support of this legislation.But if I voted wearing my other hat which is that actually this is about the harm that alcohol is causing in our communities and if for me the overriding factor in this legislation was alcohol then I would vote against it. But I guess because I am biased—I am one of those New Zealanders who is passionate. I have represented our country in rugby and I am very proud of that and I am proud of the All Blacks and I am proud of what they contribute and represent to us and on the international stage. I do think that rugby is special and that is why this piece of legislation is special and why we are debating it under a very expedited process. We would not make allowances for just anything. But what I do hope is that there will be ongoing conversations about how we can actually look at what the relationship between sport rugby and alcohol is and how we can use this opportunity to make some positive changes in the future. Kia ora.