Walker Holly: Alcohol Reform Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Walker Holly: Alcohol Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 30 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:5021. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
HOLLY WALKER (Green) 
: 
 As I rise to speak today I have not had a drink for 30 days. At the beginning of August I undertook to spend a month alcohol-free as part of a programme called Hello Sunday Morning; it was referred to in the Chamber earlier. The aim of Hello Sunday Morning and other similar initiatives like Febfast and Dry July is to encourage us to check our relationship with alcohol and to be reminded that we do not need it in order to live a fun social and fulfilled life by putting it aside for a while. Such movements are a direct challenge to the unhealthy drinking culture that we undoubtedly have in New Zealand. I believe they are the kinds of initiatives that with great leadership from our role models and our young leaders will help change that culture. 
And that culture does urgently need to change. We need to learn that we can celebrate and express love and joy and grieve and watch sport and go on holiday and relieve stress and come of age and bond with friends and strangers and dance and listen to music and stay out late and get to sleep and generally live happy fulfilled lives without drinking to excess and indeed without drinking at all if we prefer. 
Generations of young people are growing up in New Zealand learning the exact opposite from their parents from their friends from their communities from their sports clubs and from their heroes. We have an unhealthy harmful binge drinking culture in New Zealand which affects all age groups and all income levels. Young people learn to drink from their families and their communities and they learn very harmful habits. We need to change this culture but raising the purchase age will not achieve that change. In fact I think it will make it less likely that we will see measures to change that culture because the implication will be that we have dealt with the problem of youth binge drinking we have dealt with the problem of alcohol-related harm and we can all have a glass of wine and quietly forget about the problem. 
 But that is not what will happen. Changing the age will send a message that problem drinking is just a young person’s problem when in fact 92 percent of problem drinkers are over the age of 20. It will punish young people especially those aged 18 and 19 for a problem that is not of their making. These are people whom we consider to be adults in our society. They can vote stand for Parliament serve in the armed forces get married have children hold a firearms licence and sell and manage the purchase of alcohol. Yet we may say to them that no they cannot buy a beer and that simply is not fair. 
I know that many members of this House believe strongly in equality before the law and I ask those members to apply that principle to this debate just as many of them did last night. As long as our harmful binge drinking culture remains at all levels of society young people will look for ways to drink to excess and we tell them all the time in our glorification of alcohol that that is what they need to do to have a good time. Raising the age will inevitably see greater supply to minors and people who cannot legally purchase alcohol by themselves. 
On the other hand there is no evidence that lowering the purchase age to 18 as we did in 1999 has increased under-age drinking and supply. In 1997 the Alcohol Advisory Council’s annual alcohol monitor survey showed that 80 percent of 14 to 18-year-olds identified themselves as drinkers. In 2010 only 32 percent of the comparable age bracket of 12 to 17-year-olds were drinkers. That is a massive decrease. That same survey shows that the age at which young people start drinking has been increasing. In 2006 35 percent of young drinkers said they started drinking before they turned 14. In 2010 it was just 21 percent. 
Many members of this House believe strongly in evidence-based policy. We should listen to the evidence that the majority of problem drinkers are over 20 and that youth drinking has not been increasing since the purchase age was lowered and we should focus on measures that can change the culture of harmful drinking in New Zealand rather than simply be seen to do so. 
I want to turn now to the so-called compromise option that is on the table in this debate—the split purchase age of 18 for on-licence and 20 for off-licence. On first glance this might seem like a sensible compromise but in fact I believe it will only create further harms that will affect not only 18 and 19-year-old drinkers but also the rest of us.