English Bill: Customs and Excise (Alcoholic Beverages) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
English Bill: Customs and Excise (Alcoholic Beverages) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:608;Page:5360] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 It is telling is it not that the Government has sent clapped-out has-been Jim Anderton to introduce the bill? [ 
Interruption 
] 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Can we have a little even-handedness? We made a few interjections when the Minister claimed that one could buy bottles of gin for $10 and we were told to be quiet. The Leader of the Opposition has hardly started to speak and he has been greeted with a barrage of statements that may be explained by the need for the bill. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will know full well that the first sentence from the member contained a very provocative statement which was answered by interjections. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Well it’s factual. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I will not warn the member again. Please be seated. I will not warn the member again that he should not make those sorts of interjections. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The question is where is the Minister whose name is on the bill? That is not Jim Anderton; it is Rick Barker. 
John Key 
: Who’s that? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I am not sure who he is. However I do know that he knows that he does not want to be associated with what this bill will do to the spending habits of the young people of Tukituki from tomorrow morning onwards. He is a wise man to keep his name away from this bill although he is not wise about much else. 
Hon Jim Anderton 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. First I do not think that it is appropriate for members to refer to members who are absent or to the reasons for that. The fact is that Mr Barker is overseas and I am the Acting Minister of Customs. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No please be seated. That is out of order. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: We have “Old Mr Crocodile Tears” telling us that—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will not make unparliamentary comments. He will keep within the Standing Orders. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: This will come out of the member’s time. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: Are points of order coming out of members’ time now? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Yes. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: That is a new ruling is it? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Yes. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: All right let us make sure that they come out of Government members’ time. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Right they will too. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: We have Mr Jim Anderton— 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. If the Speaker wants to cut down the Opposition’s time there is nothing we can do about that. However I make this point. “Old Mr Crocodile Tears”—that is interesting. We have not been told whom the member was referring to. For all that we know he could have been— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will be seated. He knows full well that it referred to a member of the Government . 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Jim Anderton tells us that we are here at 10 to 9 at night because of car accidents house fires and birth defects. Of course he is wrong; we are not here because of those things. We are not here because of the effects of alcohol on young people. The Government has the choice of raising that issue at any time at any place. 
We are here purely because of the ego and vanity of Dr Michael Cullen who does not want his Budget tainted with this measure. That is why we are here. If the Government really wanted young people to get the message it would have announced this measure on the 6 o’clock news tonight. The Government would have been on all the radio stations throughout today and tomorrow telling young people to stop drinking these evil substances. But it did not and it will not. The Government brought this legislation in after the newspaper deadlines tonight because it wants to make sure no one notices it. That is deeply cynical. I resent Jim Anderton’s standing up in this House pretending that this bill is all about caring for young people because it is not. 
Dr Cullen’s Budget will be tainted anyway. 
John Key 
: And boring. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: It will be boring because Dr Cullen has already dropped the Government’s growth goal of getting New Zealand into the top half of the OECD by 2011. He has already been dropped in it by the Prime Minister who has told him to find a solution to the electricity crisis—a solution that will manufacture the appearance of new generation in the next 2 weeks. He has big problems with the transport legislation as well as the electricity market. So his Budget is already tainted. This measure I have to say will not make any difference to that view. I invite the next Government speaker to tell us why this matter is so urgent that the House has been put under extraordinary urgency tonight and why it is so secret that I first saw it when the Minister came into the House and tabled it just before he stood to speak. Why is that? Why should we regard this bill as anything more than a cynical manipulation of the parliamentary process exploiting the vulnerability of young people? It is no more than that. 
The Government is getting into that habit more and more. Today this Parliament debated the Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2). The Minister in charge of that bill has made public and parliamentary statements that were absolutely wrong about the content of that bill the extent of change and the opportunity for public debate. Why are we not having public debate about this bill? Will the brave Minister of Youth Affairs be standing up to speak for the right of young New Zealanders to make submissions on this bill? He will not because he is doing what he is told as he always does when it really matters. He is muzzled and is doing what Helen Clark tells him to do. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: The warrior! 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The warrior the outspoken Minister of Youth Affairs! Or has he been going around the country for the last 6 months telling young people that the Government planned to raise the taxes on this sort of alcoholic drink? Is that what he was doing when he was being cool with the last group of young people he talked to? No he was not. 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: Once was a warrior! 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Yes he once was a warrior. What about the rest of them? 
Rod Donald 
: Is the member for or against this bill? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: We will vote against it because this is a total abuse of the process—absolutely! This is a cynical manipulation of the process. It is an abuse of the young people of New Zealand. The Government has made no case for putting this Parliament under extraordinary urgency for the first time in a number of years to discuss this bill tonight. The only reasons that this is happening are to beat the news deadlines and to keep this issue away from the Budget. Those are the only reasons. I invite some of those brave Government members to stand up and own up to that. 
If there is a problem with young people’s drinking why not go out and tell them to stop doing it? Why not raise the legal age of drinking from 18 and put it back to 20? That is the position I took at the time. Why are we not debating that matter tonight? We heard the Hon Jim Anderton earlier; he was dripping with sincerity. As Mike Moore said when one can fake sincerity one really gets to people. That is what we heard tonight. 
Hon Murray McCully 
: Oozing sincerity. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Oozing sincerity—is that not the name of one of those drinks? We will be opposing this bill because it is an abuse of the process. 
The Government does not deserve the $14 million this measure will raise. What will it use that money for? 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Maori television. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: It will use it for more closing of the gaps more social policy seminars more social scientists’ conferences more hui more meetings more regional development and more Sovereign Yachts projects. This bill is just the start of that. Let us wait until we get the 5 percent levy on gaming machines which will be more income for this politically correct Government which cannot leave anything alone. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I call Judy Turner.