Seymour David: Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Extended licensing hours during Rugby World Cup) Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSeymour David: Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Extended licensing hours during Rugby World Cup) Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 26 August 2015. Volume:708;Page:6179. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I move That the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Extended licensing hours during Rugby World Cup) Bill be now read a second time. This is a bill that will allow communities to use some of their most prized facilities including the many great pubs bars clubs and other licensed venues during what is the largest festival on the 4-yearly New Zealand calendar the Rugby World Cup. I look back with fond memories to the Rugby World Cup being hosted in New Zealand and particularly in my city Auckland only 4 years ago and I believe that we are in for a fantastic festival made better by the enablement given by this bill. It is a victory for the presumption that New Zealanders are free to do as they please unless they are harming others and given good reason for restraint on that freedom. I raise that point which should be redundant because too many in this debate have come from the opposite presumption that we should be constrained unless we are able to justify ourselves acting freely.I would like to thank the Justice and Electoral Committee for the excellent work that it has done on improving this bill and ironically enough for having to meet at some non-standard hours to carry out that work. I would like to thank Labour’s Jacinda Ardern who did some pretty good work on the bill and also Peeni Henare. I would like to thank Clayton Mitchell from New Zealand First who as a bar owner with something like 25 years’ experience proved invaluable in giving advice on the technicalities of the bill. I would like to thank my colleagues from the National Party particularly Jacqui Dean. I would like to thank the Greens member Kevin Hague but I have to say he has made that more difficult than it needed to be.I want to take some time to visit some of the litigations I guess that occurred in the select committee and say why I believe the select committee arrived at the right place. It is true that when this bill was introduced I was committed to doing everything possible to look into several conditions that the Greens believed should be added to the bill before it was passed. One of those was that facilities in proximity to schools should be excluded and we looked into that. One was that operators who have recently been penalised in their licensing should be excluded and we will discuss that. Another was that the number of games should be restricted and we will discuss that.Well what happened is that we sincerely looked into the matter of proximity to schools and as you should when you do good regulation we thought about this in terms of cost-benefit analysis and how much harm could be reduced by placing this restraint into this law. What we discovered as it happens is that most of the games fall on the weekend and a third of the tournament takes place during a 2-week school holiday. By and large children do not go to school during the holidays and on the weekend and it transpired that only three games take place on what you may call a school morning where the spectre of kids going to school with people pouring out of pubs was an actual possibility.Hon Trevor Mallard: Every morning’s a school morning for this member.DAVID SEYMOUR: That is three out of 48 games. Mr Mallard at the back can tell us what three divided by 48 is. It is a very small percentage—Hon Trevor Mallard: No no.DAVID SEYMOUR: I am waiting. Are you there yet?Hon Trevor Mallard: It’s one over 16 yeah.DAVID SEYMOUR: To think he used to be a teacher—0.125. In any case the fact of the matter is that it is a very small portion of the possible games. So we decided especially in light of the fact that those games were the USA versus Japan for one and New Zealand versus Namibia for another that the benefit of that restraint would be minimal but we also took advice that the number of schools that are in any proximity to pubs and clubs is actually surprisingly large once you do the modelling as was done back in 2012 for the primary Act. So we decided having given it I think fairly sincere and just consideration not to take that step.The question of people who have previously been penalised as operators not having the bill apply to them has been put into the legislation by the select committee. If you have had your hours varied under section 280 of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act in the previous 12 months this bill will not apply to your operation. Interestingly enough when we put that particular part up for the vote in the select committee the Green Party opposed it. There is just no pleasing some people. None the less that is now in the bill.Finally we come to the number of games. The select committee had a very constructive discussion around limiting the number of games to perhaps only 16 which I think is a third of 48 games. What happened there is that we actually did not have the numbers on the select committee to make that limit and politics among many other things is fundamentally the ability to count. However what I would say is that I am actually proud that we will not have as some proposed a limit on the number of games and a limit to All Blacks’ games only because what this means is that it will be a decision for consumers and a decision for operators about what is a game of interest to New Zealanders not a decision for politicians. I am proud of our multicultural heritage and the fact that there are so many different creeds classes and races of people who want to make their own choices about entertainment. That is where we have landed.There were a number of other substantial changes. Before I move to those I would say that the trust that members have been prepared to put in New Zealanders is a pretty direct measure of how in touch they are with the true nature of New Zealanders the overwhelming majority of whom are law-abiding responsible and safe people when they go out to enjoy a community event like this. Probably the most substantial change to the bill as introduced is that it will be an amendment to the principal Act the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act rather than a stand-alone bill. This is a technicality for drafting purposes and efficiency; however it does make the bill look dramatically different from the way that it first appeared.The committee also acknowledged in its report that where there is a question of whether Resource Management Act - type restrictions on opening hours might constrain the opening of a venue the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act prevails and the opening hours are extended in spite of any such provisions by local councils under the Resource Management Act for example.There will be a brightline test. As an electorate MP I am very mindful of how people get on with their neighbours. I happen to live in and represent the most densely populated electorate in the country. So there is a brightline test for the amount of noise that can be made.The use of amplified music outside and the use of outdoor spaces will not be permitted. The emptying of bottles which is a real bugbear for people who live near licensed facilities will not be allowed under the hours mentioned in this bill. More important there is a penalty that you will lose the right for this bill to apply to you—if you happen to be operating a licensed venue—if a complaint is made to a district licensing committee by the police. It has to be a substantial complaint but the licensee will actually lose their right to operate under this bill and that is a very strict sanction against abuse and misuse of this legislation.Other than that the bill has come back largely as it was first introduced to this House. I would like to thank again the committee which has worked very hard very rapidly and often at unusual hours to get the bill into its present state. I would like to finally just re-emphasise that this is a victory for the presumption that New Zealanders are free to do as they please unless they are given justifications for their freedoms being restricted. This is not supposed to be a country where you are presumed unfree unless you can justify yourself to the busybodies. With that in mind I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.