Flavell Te Ururoa: Alcohol Advisory Council Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Flavell Te Ururoa: Alcohol Advisory Council Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tatou katoa i tenei po tatou kua hoki mai ki roto i te Whare Paremata. 
[ 
Greetings to you Mr Assistant Speaker and to us all this evening who have returned to Parliament House 
.] 
I am told that today’s Christchurch  
Press  
has all of the reasons why we need to amend the Alcohol Advisory Council Act in relation to the levy imposed on all alcoholic beverages manufactured in or imported into Aotearoa. The paper talked about a study of 12000 young people that found that the onset of drinking “goes up very steeply from age 12” and that children as young as the age of 4 are trying alcohol—4 years old for goodness’ sake. It seems that child’s play now extends to having a drink or a glug of liquor that is meant for adult lips. In response to these shocking headlines Tuari Potiki a spokesperson for the Alcohol Advisory Council (ALAC) confirmed that the age at which people first drink has been steadily decreasing. 
That was not just an isolated headline or a one-off story. On any weekend in most towns in the nation—and Rotorua is no different—we find our young people out drinking themselves to drunkenness to a level where they probably would describe themselves as “wasted”. That is what they call it: getting “wasted”. We say that it is probably more wasted potential. We think it is pretty outrageous that alcohol and drugs are involved to such a large extent in youth crisis situations as has been spoken about and has been written about in newspapers particularly in more recent times. The lowered purchasing age and the prevailing attitude of a society that associates alcohol with fun and freedom are having an impact on our communities. The Maori Party along with our colleagues in the House tonight says that we need to look at and instigate strategies to address matters to do with getting “wasted”. 
The negative consequences associated with under-age drinking especially the pattern of heavy binge drinking that many minors engage in are pretty substantial. The Maori Party has always suggested that there should be a variety of strategies both legislative and non-legislative to reduce the overall supply of alcohol to young people in order to limit their drinking and its associated harms. As other speakers have said we know that in order to stem the tide of this desperate problem of binge drinking by young people we cannot just put up ad hoc proposals in isolation from the overall drinking culture of the nation. We think the Alcohol Advisory Council Amendment Bill is heading in the right direction in terms of putting in place different approaches to address those who have the responsibility of purchasing alcohol and supplying it to our young people. 
The bill proposes to calculate the levy for each product according to an alcohol classification band stream similar to the approach used by the New Zealand Customs Service to collect alcohol excise and excise-equivalent duty. A dollar amount per litre would be set according to the beverage’s alcohol content or deemed alcohol content. Beverages with higher alcohol content will contribute a higher proportion of the levy. It is not a quick fix or a one-stop catch-all to improve industry compliance and responsibility and to put the focus squarely at the feet of alcohol barons and the alcohol industry; in many ways it is just tidying up the regulations and making the new system easier to operate. 
Five years ago the 2004 Ministry of Health review of the levy-setting mechanisms found that the way the levy is calculated and apportioned is outdated and overly complex. The levy calculation system used to be very complex; some levies were calculated by volume in litres and some by the percentage of alcohol per beverage. The purpose of this legislative amendment is to get the levies all calculated on the basis of alcohol by volume in order to achieve a standard measure and a consistent approach applied across all alcoholic beverages. What is good for wine and cider will be good for beer and spirits. It is not about the brand that we are drinking but about the amount of alcoholic content that we are consuming. We believe that these changes are for the good. 
In essence the changes will ensure that alcoholic beverages with a higher volume of alcohol will contribute a higher proportion to the levy but they do little to address 4-year-olds replacing Fresh Up with Lion Red. They do little to address the fact that young people are more than twice as likely to suffer from alcohol-related harm as other age groups. We know that the issues are pretty overwhelming. The drinking behaviour of young people all too frequently ends up with road trauma violence depression suicide disruptive relationships high-risk sexual activity delinquent behaviour decreased productivity at work increased absenteeism and educational failure. Some of the images on TV recently about what young people get up to adds fuel to the fire. Updating and simplifying the current mechanisms for setting ALAC’s levy will not solve all this raft of problems; they cannot be addressed by one solution. They require a multifaceted multi-pronged holistic approach. 
ALAC itself has plenty more ideas to share with the House which we should listen to if we are truly committed to doing something about the complex problems associated with alcohol misuse and abuse. ALAC was established over three decades ago in 1976 following the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Sale of Liquor. That commission recommended establishing a permanent council to encourage responsible use of alcohol and minimise its misuse—and so it has come to pass. ALAC’s key objectives in all of its activities are to promote moderation in the use of alcohol discourage and reduce the misuse of alcohol and minimise harm resulting from the misuse of alcohol. 
We hope that the amendments recommended by the Health Committee and the new system of alcohol classification bands may have some impact on the range of alcoholic beverages manufactured in or imported into Aotearoa. As we understand it the revised standard provisions for the ALAC levy will not necessarily affect the price that consumers currently pay for alcoholic beverages but the changes may influence the proportion that each type of alcoholic beverage contributes towards the ALAC levy. We in the Maori Party will be interested to hear from the Minister of Health as to exactly what impact—and the scale of the impact—we can expect of the changes introduced today. We intend to continue to talk of the impact that alcohol abuse is having on our communities along with the dreaded P epidemic and of course smoking. 
We believe that significant changes to the Sale of Liquor Act are needed. The Act has a predominantly business focus where alcohol is a mere commodity that can be bought or sold. It is our firm belief in the Maori Party that the Act needs an increased public health focus and a focus on reducing alcohol-related harm—that is addressing the physical and sexual violence accidents crime and arrests that have been mentioned before. 
We note the statement from the Minister of Justice that connects alcohol to the rising tide of crime and we go further and suggest that addressing alcohol misuse and abuse must go across all sectors all portfolios and all age groups. The Maori Party will support changes to the proposed regime but we signal our concern about many other issues such as excess quantities of alcohol being consumed by our young people. We know that fixing the levy is a partial solution; real solutions are likely to be more effective when coordinated across the board with a multilevel approach in society. Real solutions will involve stakeholders at all levels. Most of all real solutions will involve our families and must engage our whanau. We support this bill at the second reading and look forward to a prompt and effective hearing of the wider issues in front of the House. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Thank you. I just remind members that cellphones are not to be ringing in the Chamber. The usual tariff is morning tea. With 122 members the Clerk’s Office the Hansard reporters and the messengers members could end up with a worryingly large Bellamy’s bill at the end of the month.