Sale of Liquor Amendment Bill (No 2)

I move, That the Sale of Liquor Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time. I thank the House for the passage of this bill, and I thank the Leader of the House for giving it time.

Easter Sunday trading was moved originally by Jeff Whittaker, a former member of Parliament from Hastings. It was knocked out in 1999. After 4 years we have restored it, and I thank him very much for that.

We have also managed to tidy up provisions relating to the sale of rice wine, and to transitional provisions for training. We have improved accountability for trusts, and we have improved their democracy and efficiency.

This is a very good liquor bill, and I thank the House for its overwhelming endorsement of it. I encourage all members to turn up to Hawke’s Bay on Easter Sunday and enjoy a tipple of fine Hawke’s Bay wine, as this bill enables them to do.

I start by clarifying an issue that I spoke about during the course of the Committee stage. I think I gave the impression to the Committee, and to the Minister in the chair in particular, that the Hospitality Association of New Zealand had not been consulted. That, in fact, was not the case. The point I was trying to make is that the association represents a minority position, not a majority position, as the Minister would have us believe. My point was, and still is, that there has not been wide consultation about the regulations aspect.

I find myself in a position where I cannot support this bill, yet there are components that I very strongly support—in particular, Easter Sunday trading for wineries. But I find myself in a very difficult and complex position. I had to vote against the controlled purchase operations because I am more strongly opposed to the issues of entrapment. Despite my suggesting amendments to enable these provisions to be deleted, the Committee saw fit not to agree to them. I accept that is the democracy we work in.

I am concerned about how that aspect of the bill will operate. I have sent out a loud warning that I feel that some people in the industry and across this country will be victimised by the police. I want to put it on the record that I am a very strong supporter of the police, but on this occasion I think this legislation goes too far. The ability of people in the industry to deal with the issues of entrapment I now think have been taken out of their hands, and I believe we will live to regret this day. The Minister had his opportunity and decided that it was not of sufficient concern for him to take heed of what I was telling him, and change his vote.

The practicality of trying to enforce this legislation will result in it simply not working. Law-abiding citizens across this country will be turned into lawbreakers, and that, I have to say, disappoints me immensely. Who amongst us can say that he or she would be able to tell someone’s age without proof of identity? I still beseech the House that we should have considered lifting the age limit, or at least making sure there was compulsory proof of age, when people go into hotels to purchase liquor. That would have taken the onus completely away from the owners, and would have put the onus on the person buying the liquor. With those comments, I thank members for their indulgence.

I would just like to take a quick call in this debate. I said most of what I wanted to say in the second reading and in the Committee stage. But I would just like to highlight the fact of licensing trusts being able to reconstitute themselves as community trusts. That is an acceptable way of changing their business practice. We were disappointed that we were unable to get the threshold for the poll lowered, but we accept that democracy is the key there.

On the point of entrapment that Brian Connell has been going on about, we expressed some concern at the beginning, but if there is any opportunity to stop the blatant misuse of bars selling liquor to under-age people, then we say that every effort should be taken to prevent that practice. We go further to say that the age limit should have been raised in the bill. There should have been a clause that reinstated the age limit back to 20 years, and that would have reduced a lot of the under-age drinking problems of drunken kids in the streets.

There is already a requirement to check for IDs. There is also a requirement that the age limit is strictly enforced, and it is up to the bars to follow that process. If there is the slightest bit of doubt people are asked for proof of age. Even if a person looks a little bit over age, he or she should be asked for ID and proof of age. So it is up to the barkeeper and there should be no out for those bars that blatantly flout the law.

On the subject of the wineries being able to trade on Easter Sunday, that is just a reinstatement of an error that took place in the last amendment legislation of 1999, and that gives the opportunity for wineries to open on Easter Sunday and provide a service to the tourism industry. Tourism is a huge industry in this country and this change is just bringing it back into line with what it was prior to 1999.

The Greens are pleased to support this bill through its third reading. We are pleased to be able to support the passage of the bill to this stage. I will not go into great length about the different clauses of the bill. I have already canvassed those issues during my second-reading speech, and other members of the House have spoken at some length about them already, and I am sure other speakers will continue to do so.

We are pleased to see that a couple of sensible amendments have come out of the Committee stage. The first concerns reciprocal visiting rights around clubs put up by the Hon. Peter Dunne. It was good to see something sensible come from Mr Dunne in that regard, so I thank him for that amendment. The other issue concerned culinary wines, rice wines, and so forth. Amendments were put up by different members, but the one put up by the Minister had been properly drafted and should proceed. It is good to see that finally cleared up. We think the bill is better for those amendments and we are pleased to see it go through its final passage.

As I said earlier, the ACT party opposes this bill. I was interested to hear from members who said that a monopoly is a choice that people make. That seems to me to fly in the face of cultural diversity and recognising that minorities have a right and a view. If we say that voting 51 percent makes something right, then I think we in this country are in for a rather rough old spin. It seems to me that not everybody in an area wants to buy their alcohol from a licensing trust. It seems a bit tough that the majority can impose that will on them. I would have thought that Māori members opposite in particular would recognise the fact that rights cannot be taken away just by a vote.

I am pleased that the rice wine issue has been addressed. However, I do worry about the Minister who never bothered to address it, until Pansy Wong and the ACT party introduced amendments in the Committee stage and made it an issue. The Minister had the opportunity to fix that issue a long time ago. We have to say that sometimes we overprescribe what New Zealanders can, and cannot, do in order to enforce morals, better behaviour, and the way in which we think people should live their lives. When we get down to defining what is a supermarket, a Chinese supermarket, what is Chinese cooking wine, and what is not Chinese cooking wine, then fundamentally we should rethink some of the ways in which we go about our legislation.

I am very disappointed that the Minister managed to persuade Government members to vote for training of general managers of liquor outlets. It is an unnecessary bureaucratic measure. It will impose costs on people to the advantage of particular trainers, and no problem has ever been identified that this particular legislation is addressing. I heard the Minister say that he will develop training programmes in consultation with the industry. That is recorded in Hansard and I hope that he is as good as his word and that his concept of consultation is better than the consultation he has delivered in developing this bill.

Certainly, it is a lot better than the $1.3 million worth of phoney consultation the Minister of Corrections, Paul Swain, got himself involved in. So I hope that his consultation is a whole lot better than the $1.3 million of fake consultation with the Tainui people that, unfortunately, has seen a fallout with the Tainui people today. I believe that the Department of Corrections took advantage of a difficult situation with the Tainui people. I do not blame the Tainui people. I blame the Department of Corrections that has caused untold mischief in the Waikato and amongst Tainui. The fact that Minister Paul Swain can make light of it and laugh at it is a disgrace.

I take a very brief call to support the third reading. We welcome the amendments that have been passed, particularly those clarifying the situation on Easter Sunday and those regarding rice wines. I was particularly grateful to the House for the support it gave to my own amendment regarding off-licence sales to reciprocal members of clubs. I think that will be a positive step forward.

The only other observation I want to make, and I am sure the House will indulge me very briefly to make it, relates to a comment made by Mr Catchpole, suggesting that lifting the drinking age to 20 would curb under-age drinking problems. It reminds me of a visit I made to the electorate of the member for Otaki when I was a member of the Government in the 1980s, to discuss the Government’s economic changes, and someone got up at a meeting and said: “We’re all in favour of the Government’s economic changes. Why couldn’t the Government have waited until all the old people had died first before we brought them in?”. I think of the same argument in the context of Mr Catchpole’s point that if we raise the drinking age, we resolve all our under-age drinking problems. The issue is far more complex than that. I do not have the time or the interest to go into it this evening. I think this bill is a good one. We should support it and then we can all go home.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I understand that there is some uncertainty as to whether the leave that was granted carries on to the third reading. National has a split vote, so I seek leave for a split vote on the third reading.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There appears to be none.