Hague Kevin: Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Extended licensing hours during Rugby World Cup) Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHague Kevin: Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Extended licensing hours during Rugby World Cup) Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 26 August 2015. Volume:708;Page:6184. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KEVIN HAGUE (Green): I want to begin this contribution by quoting actually from the Law Commission’s report from 2010. One of the very first paragraphs in that report says: “Alcohol is a legalised drug with the potential to cause serious harm. We propose a new policy framework that amounts to a paradigm shift in the regulation of alcohol compared with the current system. We anticipate there will be considerable resistance to some of the proposed measures.” And indeed this bill effectively amounts to a rearguard action against the approach taken in the Law Commission’s report and by this House in the 2012 Act.The Law Commission goes on to specify a list of the harms that it was concerned about and much of this volume is concerned with those harms. It says: “The excessive consumption of alcohol by New Zealanders contributes to a range of serious harms. These can be categorised as: an array of criminal offences …”. It goes on to list the serious criminal offences associated with excessive alcohol consumption. There is “the causative contribution that alcohol consumption makes to a long list of diseases” and it lists those including “alcohol poisoning and accidental injury due to intoxication”—again more detail. Then there is “the catalogue of harms visited upon third parties as a result of others’ excessive consumption. … [such as] victims of crime … domestic violence …”—and the select committee heard more about that—“the harmful effects on educational outcomes workplace productivity friendships social life” and so on and public nuisance factors.The report from the Law Commission which was extensively discussed by this House in 2012 in stark contrast to the discussion that is going to be available around this bill sets out some pretty strong evidence about the harm from alcohol. One of the chains of evidence that is presented and was essentially incontrovertible was that the increased availability of alcohol increased harm in proportion to that availability. In consequence the Law Commission recommended—and Judith Collins the Minister at the time and this House agreed—that we should be restricting the hours that alcohol was available for. The submissions essentially mirrored the evidence that the Law Commission found and this House has heard before. There was essentially overwhelming evidence against the bill and although the speakers so far in this debate have mentioned that they have come nowhere near to conveying the extent of that evidence and argument against the bill and I will come to that in more detail in a moment.Most submissions said the bill was unnecessary because the special licensing regime that Parliament had set up for the specific purpose of special events like the Rugby World Cup was already in place. Many referred to the loss of democracy associated with this bill not only in association with the truncated process that this bill would go through—for example the extraordinarily short period that written submissions were open for the lack of the opportunity to present oral submissions and the fact that this bill will go through without a Committee of the whole House stage in which there would have been the opportunity for further scrutiny of this bill today. Not only that but also it is the fact that this approach where Parliament rides over the top of existing local decision-making processes effectively rides roughshod over those processes.Many were also concerned about the constitutionality of this bill. They made the point that this bill in fact undermines the objectives of the principal Act. There was not the time for the Justice and Electoral Committee to properly consider that. We do not have the Attorney-General’s view on that issue and this House will not have a Committee stage to actually consider that argument in full.There were numerous great submissions that were made by opponents to this bill but I just want to read out some of those organisations. These are just the organisations not the individuals of whom there were also many opposed. Against the bill were Alcohol Action; Alcohol Healthwatch; Anglican Action; Auckland Council; Auckland Regional Public Health Service; Cancer Society; Community Action on Alcohol from Young People; Hokianga Health Enterprise Trust; Community and Public Health which is a public health provider for Canterbury the West Coast and South Canterbury; Northland District Health Board; Hawke’s Bay District Health Board; the Health Promotion Agency; the Inner City Association from Wellington; the Manurewa Business Association; the Manurewa Local Board; New Zealand College of Public Health Medicine; New Zealand Institute of Liquor Licensing Inspectors; the New Zealand Medical Association; the New Zealand Police; Ngā Wairere o Te Ora Trust; Ngāti Rangi Trust; Te Whānau o Waipareira; New Zealand Federation of Business and Professional Women; Population Health in the Waikato District Health Board; Public Health Association of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church; academics; the Society of Medical Officers of Health; Victoria Neighbourhood Association; the Waimakariri District Council; the Waves Trust; Western Bay of Plenty District Council; and Women’s Refuge. Those are just some of the organisations that submitted strongly with substantive submissions against this bill.Those supporting the bill those organisational substantive submissions in favour of this bill came from—let us see—oh the Hospitality Association of New Zealand which is essentially the liquor industry which has confirmed in the public debate around this bill that it developed the bill in conjunction with Mr Seymour. It is hardly surprising then that it would support it. The other substantial submission in favour came from the Young Nationals. I say “substantial” but that is possibly a generous interpretation. Actually sorry it is probably wrong of me to say “Young Nationals” because it was in fact I think the Committee of the Central North Island Young Nationals. So those were the two institutional supporters of this bill.The bill that has emerged from the select committee is undoubtedly better and I do want to join others in thanking the members of the committee the clerks of the committee the officials who supported us and the Parliamentary Counsel Office. They all did a fantastic job. The two big improvements that people have mentioned are the fact that licensees with serious or repeated licence breaches will not be eligible and the brightline test around noise. Those are both significant improvements as well as the incorporation of the bill as an amendment to the principal Act.But contrary to what we have heard from Mr Henare there is no action on excluding premises that are close to schools or preschools—excluded. There is no restriction on the number of games in any way despite that being the preference of apparently the Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice. There is no exclusion of pokies—effectively it is a major extension of pokie licences. There is no requirement to serve substantial meals; no one-way door policy even when one ordinarily would exist for those premises; and no reasonable way of ensuring that people are there for the purpose of watching the Rugby World Cup. Many other conditions that were proposed by most of the submitters have been excluded from the bill. In particular I want to mention that as a result of a decision from the National Party caucus licensed premises that wish to avail themselves of the provisions of this bill to open must now give only 7 days’ notice to the police. The police told the select committee that they required 20 days’ notice in order to gear up their resourcing to be able to handle this.What this bill amounts to now is a major extension of the licensed hours of almost all bars and licensed premises in New Zealand almost every day for a 6-week period with virtually no control. It is a reversal of the idea that we had when we had blanket 24-hour licensing and we said instead: “Let’s go for special licences for events like the Rugby World Cup. Let’s reverse that.” It says: “Rather than have that differentiated targeted approach that special licences provide let’s go back to blanket provisions and let’s not even set those blanket provisions in the most cautious way that we could.” This bill is a retrograde step in every conceivable way.