Mark Ron: Sale of Liquor (Objections to Applications) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Mark Ron: Sale of Liquor (Objections to Applications) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:648;Page:17157] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to indicate that New Zealand First will support the passage of the Sale of Liquor (Objections to Applications) Amendment Bill through its first reading and I can tell the Hon George Hawkins that I am pretty confident we will support it all the way through to the third reading. 
It is interesting to cast our minds back to when a number of us came into this place in 1996 to see how in those 12 years the sale of liquor legislation has moved. In fact with this bill in particular it is quite pertinent to reflect on the changes that occurred in 1989 with the liberalisation of the sale of liquor legislation at that time. Some people would argue that in fact along with a whole bunch of things that happened in this country with the opening up of the free-market approach in governance and administration liquor licensing was just one other area where the free market was able to be unleashed. People such as Roger Douglas David Caygill and a number of others who advocated such things so forcefully got their way. In 1999 we saw a number of other changes led by Mrs Shipley. Interestingly Bill English was her deputy and I recall that he voted against the bill introduced then to lower the legal age at which people could purchase alcohol. But Mrs Shipley was very adamant that we lived in a caff-bar society as she said and that New Zealanders had grown and matured in the way in which they handled alcohol and beverages. 
Of course most of us who lived in Christchurch—David Carter being one and Gerry Brownlee and I—only had to pop down to The Strip on a Friday night to see that that was not true and down to Manchester and Colombo Streets and look at the activities and goings on outside many of the clubs pubs and hotels. We also witnessed a morphing that was occurring between 6 p.m. 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. the next morning when the same establishment would move from being a restaurant to a bar to a nightclub. The establishments by moving tables and changing the way in which they operated to fit within the compliance requirements of the different licences held simply stayed open all night. Then of course we started hearing the problems from the police. Mr Hawkins was the Minister of Police at a time when we were hearing in Christchurch of the problems associated with a couple of pubs—I will not name them—on Victoria Street close to the casino. They were still operating at 6 in the morning and they were the problem. They were problem spots for the Christchurch police because the police knew that people would be pouring themselves out of those places at 6 in the morning and the resulting incidents and fracas that occurred outside were not to anybody’s good or benefit at all. 
The 1999 legislation went through with a lot of controversy and I remember Nick Smith standing over there in the Chamber with a line-up of ready-to-drink drinks on the top of one of the tables telling the House that those drinks were the alcopop drinks that were available and quoting the prices. A number of us who spoke from the same side of the debate as Mr Nick Smith agreed with him that that was the opening of the door and that this would see 15 and 16-year-old girls plied with alcopops which were specifically designed and produced to target that end of the market. The predictions from people who opposed the passage of that legislation were that we would have trouble. One of those predictions was that we would see a trickle-down effect and that 18 would not be the legal age of purchase but that we would see a de facto age as 18-year-old men passed their alcohol down to 15-year-old girls. 
We also saw the Sale of Liquor (Youth Alcohol Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill in 2005 which was Martin Gallagher’s bill. I think it is quite pertinent to point out that many of the submitters who came to the Law and Order Committee—which I chaired for Martin as he was the member in charge of the bill—and were members of the liquor industry said that the licensing regime was too loose too slack. I quote one submitter a publican who said: “It seems these days all you’ve got to do is have a car park and a urinal and you’ll get a licence to sell alcohol.” He made the point but this House voted that bill out. It is a tragedy that the messages that were passed on by the good constituents and the good submitters who took the time to come to Parliament were ignored. It is a tragedy that 3 years later we have done nothing. It took unfortunately the death of a man to bring this House to its senses.