Flavell Te Ururoa: Alcohol Reform Bill — Procedure In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Flavell Te Ururoa: Alcohol Reform Bill — Procedure In Committee 
[Sitting date: 23 October 2012. Volume:685;Page:6086. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Chair. Kia ora tatou katoa. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to this particular part new Part 2A which is set out on my Supplementary Order Paper 81. Very briefly I will just cut to the explanatory note. For those who are listening I point out that my Supplementary Order Paper amends this bill the Alcohol Reform Bill by adding new Part 2A which bans alcohol advertising and sponsorship with the exemption of on-licence establishments such as bars and restaurants. The ban is intended to come into force in 2 years and to achieve denormalisation of the drinking culture by removing the glamour promoted by advertising and the sponsorship of events. 
When I was a young fella—and I talked earlier today about Wilson Whineray and rugby. Not that I indulged too much after a game but back in the day there were only about five labels of beer and alcohol that I can recall—maybe seven—and generally people stuck to those. Now you can go to bottle stores and you have got everything ranging from Blonde to Pure. I do not know what the opposite beer might look like—Unpure? But you have all those labels. You have Waikato Draught beer—Waikato the champion team in a number of codes. You have got to think back and say: “Well Waikato beer—what’s the link? Is it just because it originated in Waikato or is there something playing on the name and the identity?”. Certainly somebody had a real good idea way back in the day to take Waikato as a label of beer. But now you have got all sorts from our own home-made brew in Aotearoa through to those that have been imported from overseas. 
One of the things that really whacked me around about 3 years ago—not beer; it was not beer—and really got to me was when I went to the Maori Affairs Committee when it questioned a gentleman from overseas. There was a movie made about him; I think it was called  
The Informer 
 or something like that. It had Russell Crowe in it from memory. Anyway the Maori Affairs Committee brought this person across— 
Hon Simon Bridges 
:  
The Real Deal 
. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL 
: It might have been that one. The select committee brought this gentleman across and what he did was he told the select committee that just in cigarette smoking people market right down to the race the age and the gender of people. He talked about marketing to Hispanic women he talked about marketing to black men and to young black men—all that was down to the marketing. 
It really made me understand the power of advertising and the power of image and of brand and how it is used to manipulate in some senses the minds of people. It must be right because obviously there is a big market there called cigarettes and alcohol. That is basically why the Hon Tariana Turia has moved towards plain packaging which is I suppose an endorsement of the idea of advertising of marketing as a powerful instrument in terms of drawing people towards a particular product. That is why we have put this Supplementary Order Paper up—to draw attention to it but also to make it a lot more difficult for those companies to draw people towards the product. 
Mr Kevin Hague earlier talked about some statistics that I suppose put it all in context. I heard him talk about the fact that every 9 minutes during prime-time television there is a scene depicting something to do with alcohol. I heard him talk about the fact that 90 percent of New Zealand children aged between 5 and 17 are exposed to alcohol advertising on TV each week. That is a pretty big group of people. And I suppose the evidence that we certainly got from people like the New Zealand Drug Foundation and so on shows that alcohol advertising one encourages people to start to drink at a younger age; two encourages people who already drink to drink more; and three makes it harder for problem drinkers to abstain. 
Against all that background the general view that they provided as information to us as the Maori Party was that the regulation of alcohol advertising marketing and promotion is considered the second most effective way to reduce problem drinking and alcohol-related harm. If that is the case that is the motivation behind this particular amendment—this particular Supplementary Order Paper. 
Some might suggest alcohol marketing has no effect on who drinks and how many people are drinking. Some might suggest that it just helps people who do drink to know what is available and to encourage them to pick one product over another. That is one argument but the rebuttal of that would be that if advertising and marketing had no impact on people’s drinking then the alcohol industry would not be wasting about $400000 a day or $150 million a year on it. There is the background on that and the rebuttal to that discussion. 
The evidence clearly shows that exposure to alcohol advertising particularly at a younger age makes people more likely to start drinking earlier and become heavy drinkers and marketing methods—as you know no doubt as you watch TV—have become more sophisticated and subtle than the ads that we see on TV or in magazines. Through sponsorship of youth events like music festivals the utilisation of social media and the creation of products such as ready-to-drinks alcohol companies are clearly and deliberately targeting young people. 
For those who suggest that we already have a code of liquor advertising and the Advertising Standards Authority to ensure that alcohol advertising conforms to standards the downside is that it is really voluntary self-regulation. It is not a model that is working well in any country that we understand. In fact in New Zealand the people responsible for upholding the standards are the Advertising Standards Authority—a private sector body representing the advertising and media industries. Against that background you would have to say they are not exactly independent. 
Just to conclude the Advertising Standards Authority relies on public complaint. So if there is no complaint then technically no standard has been breached. But it is simply not working. Promotion of excessive alcohol consumption continues despite its being illegal since 1999. I appreciate the comments of many other speakers this evening in support of my Supplementary Order Paper. The Maori Party will obviously be supporting my Supplementary Order Paper as well as Mr Iain Lees-Galloway’s and also— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: David Clark. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL 
: David that is right—sorry e hoa. I am happy to support those Supplementary Order Papers as well. We hope that one of them gets through at least but we do not want to hold our breath too much against the current climate of how this thing is going. But we do hope that the combined views of members in Parliament—the Labour Party and certainly I think the Greens who are supporting this as well—indicate that advertising and marketing play an integral role in maintaining the whole drinking culture in Aotearoa. We are looking to change that and we would hope that the Minister of Justice looks favourably upon these Supplementary Order Papers which are presented to the Committee in the spirit of cooperation and of trying to make a real difference to lives of New Zealanders. Kia ora tatou.