Baillie ChrisCHRIS BAILLIE (ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker. Unsurprisingly I rise on behalf of ACT to oppose the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Community Participation) Amendment Bill. The bill was brought in under urgency last year but just like the last one it wasn't that urgent. This is quite bad process.The bill has six main parts one of which we do agree with: make clear that licensing hearings can be conducted by phone audiovisual link and other means where appropriate and available. That sounds pretty fair and reasonable. But the other ones we'll go through them. ACT in general support the devolution of powers down to communities that can make decisions democratically. But that also has to be balanced against the rights of individuals and businesses to operate in what is a legal activity and with a robust and democratic process that can't be captured by interest groups. So allowing appeals is very important.The assumption in the debate is that anti-alcohol groups represent the community and that the shops that sell alcohol don't but that's just totally wrong. These shops are part of the community. They're not aliens. They're owned by members of that community and the people they're selling to are part of that community.I've recently had to renew a liquor licence and the hoops that licensees have to jump through are huge. People outside of the industry obviously just don't understand. Business owners are already right into harm reduction and they care about their community. This word I often hear the alcohol industry"—in brackets—referred to like they're the devil it just doesn't exist no matter how they try and spin it.If there's a legal process to strip businesses of the right to sell what are legal products and that process is through a licensing committee then people affected have a right to be represented and to appeal. That's just natural justice. The fact that anyone can object—and the bill commentary says that clauses 10 and 11 inserting new sections 102(1)-102(1A) and 128(1)-128(1A) "allow anyone except for a trade competitor and surrogates to file an objection to an application for a new or renewed alcohol licence." That is a real overreach. It will affect or can affect existing business—those businesses are family businesses often passed down.The chance of vexatious submissions are right there. And as someone mentioned if a dope-smoking Green Party member in Auckland can complain about a bar in the West Coast then there's something not quite right with that system. The other one is: giving more powers to the district licensing committees. That's just going to equal less democracy. We just know it.The bill removes the voice of the local business owner. When the business owner disagrees with what a local alcohol policy may come up with they're being restricted in their ability to oppose it. We're talking about people's livelihoods. We're talking about like I said families' businesses that have been passed down and that they've worked hard to build up and to actually make a living to live in this country. It's getting so difficult.I had a look at some of the first reading speeches. Once again if you disagree with the left then you're evil you obviously just don't care and you're only interested in money—you're only interested in money! And it's just because we like to ask questions; we want to question the actual rationale of policies that go through. Sometimes I come to wonder why these are actually called debates. We will hear from the Greens about how much worse alcohol is than cannabis. That naivety would be laughable if it wasn't so dangerous and I'd be quite prepared to have that argument any time.Once again this Government has managed to divide us. This time it's with those who take the moral high ground with those in the real world.I'll finish with a quote from Nicole McKee who actually sits on the committee and gave ACT's first reading speech. She said "Not everybody is drinking but everyone should have the ability to make the choice. And everyone should have the ability to be able to conduct their business or at least debate the reason why their business has been taken away from them." We oppose this bill."