Eckhoff Gerrard: Sale of Liquor Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Eckhoff Gerrard: Sale of Liquor Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:12356] 
GERRARD ECKHOFF (ACT) 
: 
 I came back rather late and I am not fully conversant with exactly what is happening but I do want to take a call on this bill. It seems to me that it is just more ill-conceived and bad legislation that will affect a large number of people. 
The bill allows for the retention of licensing trusts. The real question is why. If we are going to reform this industry as it has been reformed why are we allowing the retention of monopoly rights—to be more correct—for licensing trusts? If a community wishes to have some sort of trust running whether it be a liquor store a hotel or indeed a grocer’s shop then I have no real problem with that. What I and I am sure my party have real problems with is the monopoly provision that no one can set up in opposition to this publicly owned entity. The real question is why. Is the trust such a fantastic commercial model that it is the only option or measure of success we can look at? 
I am led to believe that the return on capital of an institution such as the Invercargill Licensing Trust which has been around for yonks and has had total monopoly rights in that area is a return of just 1 or 2 percent on its capital. Most industries would go broke on that return yet that trust can charge its patrons in Invercargill whatever it likes and there is no option if one lives within its boundary. It is an outrageous situation. The Invercargill Licensing Trust will not become a community trust and lose its monopoly power—that will just not happen. 
There is another rather insidious aspect to some of these monopoly trusts. The reality is simply that much of the money these trusts disperse to charities comes from gambling—from one-armed bandits and slot machines etc. The money they make from their liquor sales and so on is because in many cases those hotels are saying to the clubs—the cricket club the bowling club the chess club or whatever it might be—that they will disperse the moneys to the clubs as long as the clubs buy their alcoholic requirements from them. That is well established and anybody in the industry knows that it occurs. If somebody else perhaps the local bowling club buys its product from somebody else it is told in no uncertain terms by the trust: “OK you’re buying your liquor from the Jeff Connell liquor store in mid-Canterbury so we will disperse our charitable funds to another club because you no longer support us.” Essentially that is blackmail and that is what this bill allows. It allows for continuous— 
Rodney Hide 
: It’s like what Paul Swain does in corrections. 
GERRARD ECKHOFF 
: It is pretty much like it. In the limited time I have left I turn my attention to the question of entrapment which I am sure many speakers have spoken about already. I ask the Committee to imagine the situation where three young people walk into a bottle store—two are 17 and one is 18. They put $10 each into the kitty walk up to the bottle store person and say they want to buy $30 of liquor—a couple of dozen cans or whatever it is. Who then is the purchaser? 
Hon Rick Barker 
: The person who hands over the cash. 
Gerrard Eckhoff 
: Absolutely; I would agree entirely with that. But if the police had been watching those two 17-year-olds handing over the money it seems to me that there is a really grey area there that this bill has not addressed at all. If there were a rugby match at Carisbrook and those young people were in the bottle store 5 minutes after the game when there was a huge rush then the poor old bottle store owner would get whacked. He would be fined very substantial sums of money because the staff were rushed off their feet. That is wrong and it is inappropriate in every aspect. 
If we are really looking at society and its alcohol problem we have to address the issue of the fivefold increase in the number of outlets. That is the single biggest reason why we are having this problem today. We should not blame the guy who is rushed off his feet in a hotel bottle store or the bottle store owner who makes a mistake because a 17-year-old comes who looks 25. If the youth is asked for his identity card he says that he does not have it but that it must be there somewhere. He looks near enough in age and behind him the next person is clamouring to get his or her supplies and be away. Why are we blaming that bar person bar owner or whoever it might be for the problems we face in our society? It is not their fault and I am totally and utterly opposed to that concept. 
Another issue that Pansy Wong and my colleague Rodney Hide have introduced is the problem of the Chinese wine and cooking condiments. What is sherry if it is not a cooking condiment? When a ham is roasting in the oven with a bit of sherry poured over it or a trifle for goodness’ sake has a bit of sherry in it is sherry not a cooking condiment? Members might think that these sorts of arguments are quite trivial but I am illustrating these points because as my colleague Rodney Hide pointed out the principle behind the whole concept is fundamentally flawed. It is wrong and that is why we start to get all those anomalies about Chinese cooking wine and sherries when we get into the ridiculous situation of trying to license and control the sale of liquor. It is wrong. 
We made a major mistake in this House just recently by imposing a “sherry tax” on the elderly. That was never the intention of this Parliament yet the Minister in the chair Jim Anderton rammed that through and we got a major problem out of that. That is all I have to say at this time but I regret deeply the thrust of this bill.