Power Simon: Customs and Excise (Alcoholic Beverages) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
Power Simon: Customs and Excise (Alcoholic Beverages) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:608;Page:5425] 
SIMON POWER (NZ National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 I think the member was referring in his ice cream analogy to the possibility of a young person at a 21st having to do a yard glass of ice cream as opposed to a yard glass of beer or the like. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I remember doing a yard glass of beer. It was disgusting. 
SIMON POWER 
: That is right. Imagine it with ice cream! Although Part 2 just looks like a series of random numbers contained in clauses 4 and 5 they are important random numbers. 
While I am on my feet I have to refer to my colleague Judy Turner’s description of how this bill would apply to the ordinary situation of a young person wanting access to alcohol. The kindest way I can put it is that in the context of the way this bill is drawn up it was just simply wrong. The bill itself has a general policy statement on the front cover that is wrong. It states: “Light spirits in particular are the drink of choice for many teenagers and young persons and are contributing to excessive levels of alcohol consumption within these groups.” That is a pretty fair statement in its own right but the bill that follows it does nothing to address that concern. The honourable Dr Nick Smith Ron Mark and others in this Chamber have made the point over and over again that young people drink the types of drinks that are sitting on Mr Mark’s lectern. Those drinks generally have alcohol levels between about 5 and 7 percent and are not the subject of excise and customs duty increases under this bill. This bill does not address the products that young people go anywhere near. Members are voting for this bill as a quasi-extension of social policy to deal with young people drinking to excess when all it represents is simply a mechanism to collect revenue. That is all it is. 
Rod Donald 
: You wouldn’t know. 
SIMON POWER 
: I say to Mr Donald that this is not a document designed to shape social policy. It is not going to happen. These drinks are the drinks that teenage girls are drinking. They are not drinking the drinks that are covered in this bill. They are not drinking port and sherry. They are drinking premixed ready-to-drink cheap-to-get easy-to-access alcohol—like the bottles on Mr Mark’s desk. 
What worries me is that members have come to this Chamber to vote on this bill but have they have not thought through the implications of what the bill does. The more disturbing fact—and we have heard from members of the Government and from Mrs Turner of United Future—is that they clearly have not read the bill and worked out exactly what it does to the prices of different types of alcohol. What is clear is that this is not a document that will in any way change the social fabric of New Zealand and the drinking habits of its young people. It is not designed to do that—this bill is designed to collect revenue and that is all it is designed for. It is that simple. Let us not dress it up and make out that it is some great social instrument to solve the problem of teenage binge drinking. All this document does is put $18 million in the hands of the Government. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Stealth tax! 
SIMON POWER 
: It is even worse than a stealth tax in the sense that it is being dressed up as something sincere and decent when it does not even reach the market that those members opposite claim it reaches. That is probably the greatest scandal of all. If the Government wants to grab tax off the taxpayers of New Zealand Government members should say so. They should just say that this is good old-fashioned socialism at its best and they want taxes to go up. They want to take money out of the pockets of ordinary working people and redistribute it.