Fox Marama: Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Rugby World Cup 2015 Extended Trading Hours) Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFox Marama: Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Rugby World Cup 2015 Extended Trading Hours) Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 26 August 2015. Volume:708;Page:6222. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party): You know Jan Logie has articulated a very compelling argument. Poto Williams also has expressed the views that we hold. We gave Mr Seymour the ability to respond to some of our concerns. We worked with the Justice and Electoral Committee to try to address those concerns as we went through. In fact one of the times when I was otherwise engaged in the House and missed the meeting by 5 minutes I went back to the select committee to find that everything had been turned round after we had already made those decisions and had those debates. I think that that actually points to the heart of the issue for me.Despite all of the talk that we have had about communities coming together and being able to watch the game which I do support by passing this bill through tonight what we may do is actually loosen alcohol licensing rules. We have had all the good scenarios but actually we do this to protect against the worst-case scenarios. Despite the fact that we want communities to come together we are actually loosening alcohol rules to extend the sale of alcohol. Why? So that we can watch games of rugby. I love rugby—absolutely love it. I would go watch a game of rugby in my home town any time night or day but this does not make sense.Let us have a look at some of the issues that we raised before. The misuse of alcohol has devastating effects on our whānau. One in five Māori will have an alcohol disorder at some stage in their life. One in 10 will become dependent on alcohol. Those most likely to have alcohol abuse and dependence issues are those living in the poorest households and communities. We also know that domestic violence incidents arise when alcohol consumption increases. Our whānau suffer when we have lax alcohol laws. There are enormous harms associated with alcohol consumption. We cannot support this bill. We cannot support it going through in the way that it has done. We wanted to try to work with the select committee to put some processes around doing this because yes communities coming together is a good thing but why with the sale of alcohol? Why would we need to have potentially some licensed premises open for almost 48 hours? That potentially could happen.We tried to say “Limit the number of games that on-licence premises and clubs can be open for.” but no that was turned round. We tried to say “Give the emergency services and the Police time to put things in place.” because the impact that this is going to have on them by making the special licence 14 days’ notification—well that has not gone as well; it is back down to 7. We cannot apply these blanket open-slather rules that we have done and not expect harm. We are here and we are opposing this because we absolutely believe that what will happen is an increased risk to our most vulnerable people to our children and to our families.Through the 2012 reforms the Māori Party put up a number of Supplementary Order Papers. Following the reform of those laws there was a significant decrease in the incidence of harm. In the 10 weeks following there was a 24 percent fall in alcohol-related offences between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. In central Wellington alone there was a 31 percent fall in alcohol-related offences and in central Auckland there was an 11 percent drop. That was in only the 10 weeks following those reforms in 2012.I want to say to you that there is real harm associated with excess alcohol consumption and what we are proposing here tonight is to loosen the laws around alcohol rules and I believe firmly that there is already provision if you want a special licence and we are just ignoring that process. Thank you.