Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for Race Meetings) Amendment Bill

on behalf of Ian McKelvie (National—Rangitīkei): I move, That the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for Race Meetings) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

This is a bill in the name of my colleague and friend Ian McKelvie, and I’m pleased to take the first call in the second reading on his behalf. The bill amends section 235 of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012.

When this bill was considered at first reading it was deemed to be a conscience issue and therefore there was a personal vote. I know Mr McKelvie was pleased that the bill did pass that first reading in order that the Governance and Administration Committee could have a good look at it. While the committee in its report back did not make a recommendation that the bill proceed, because it was a conscience vote, I hope I’m able through this contribution to convince those that were confident enough at first reading that the bill should pass through further stages. And I’ll explain what the committee heard and did as a consequence of that deliberation.

Now, section 235 is the “Use of unlicensed premises as place of resort for [the] consumption of alcohol”; drinking dens, effectively, although “place of resort” isn’t defined further in the Act. The need for this bill arose because a number of small race meetings that have been a great tradition of New Zealand—often, summer—life were perceived to be under threat because of the way police and the licensing authorities were deeming them, relative to section 235.

💬 Simon Court: Wowsers!

Well, you may very well say that, Mr Court, but I wouldn’t possibly comment. We heard 22 submissions, and they were pretty much divided between the sort of alcohol health watch - type authorities who were opposed to this bill, and people in the local communities and the racing industry who supported the bill. Now, I want to say from the outset that those who opposed the bill—I and other members of the committee absolutely agree with them that there is a risk of harm from inappropriate and excessive consumption of alcohol. But I submit that in order to reduce that harm one needs to make sure that the risk is managed where it occurs. And my interpretation of the submissions that we heard in support of this bill was that wherever that risk may occur, it is not at our country race meetings.

Now, ever since I was a child—certainly for most of the last 20 years—I’ve been a regular attender at the Central Otago Trotting Club’s annual race meeting in the beautiful town of Ōmākau in the Matakanui Valley. Now, Ōmākau only has about 250 people but the population swells to about 7,000 on the day of the trotting meeting. I go every year with my family, we sit under a tree with a picnic blanket, chairs, and a chilly bin, a couple of beers, you know, a wine or two, and we catch up with friends and family. The racing is almost incidental. Certainly having a glass of wine with our lunch is incidental. And for nearly 100 years, that went without a hitch, until about 2016 in the wake of a court case around place of resort definition that had nothing to do with racing. But as a consequence, the police then started to become more active in opposing licences where BYO at race meetings would be enabled. And it really was prompted by the Central Otago Trotting Club and others like it that Mr McKelvie introduced this bill. So I want to commend them and Graham Sinnamon, who came to present on the bill.

I want to just elaborate on harm or the absence of it at the race meeting that I attend and love every January. The trotting club provided evidence from St John and the local GP practice of the typical event. I was there in January 2016 where St John, at the event, recorded six casualties, amongst which were two headaches, one sunburn, two other skin injuries, and one fainting. The local GP practice reported seeing 27 patients on that day, none of which presented after having been at the Ōmākau races. Centennial Health in Tarbert St in Alexandra also saw a number of patients that day, one of which came from the Ōmākau races, and that was a muscle strain in a lady who raced in the family fun race day. Now, police also told me when I was the Minister of Police in 2015 that in the 15 years since they have had alcohol breath testing, screening testing at the exit to the Ōmākau races, in those 15 years with, who knows, maybe 50,000 cars having gone through breath tests, one failed. There was no conviction because it was actually tested on a private part of the land and therefore wasn’t on a public road at the time. It was more a prevention issue. One failure out of 50,000 cars in 15 years. That says to me that BYO at small races is not a problem.

Now, there was an element of the bill that did need tightening up because the way the bill was introduced, it had a much broader definition of a race meeting than the Governance and Administration Committee were comfortable with. So in essence we’d be giving a pass to the Riccartons and the Addingtons, and so on. That was not the intention. The intention was to enable BYO at the smaller race meetings, so we’ve changed the definition to make it very clear that what we’re talking about is race meetings. I think there has to be no more than three a year at the club, and that’s appropriate because it’s not broader than that. That’s not the problem we’re trying to solve.

Now, police were very helpful and provided good testimony about how they determine a place of resort. And on their website, they have three features that need to exist, all three of which need to exist in order for place of resort to be considered. They are people gathering specifically to drink, rather than just incidental; drinking that reaches a certain threshold of intensity involving more than isolated or casual consumption; and the BYO aspect being “actively facilitated.” Now, all three of those things need to be present, according to police, before they would take action or oppose a licence application. Unfortunately, that’s not been—well, the submissions that we got from racing clubs suggested that what police were doing seemed to be at odds with their own guidance on place of resort. And I’m not being critical of police. They are taking a harm minimisation approach and I understand that. But the important thing, as I see it, is to make sure that risk is managed where it occurs. It’s not occurring at the Ōmākau or Wairoa or Mataura or Roxburgh racing clubs and therefore this very, very longstanding tradition of summer carnival races where people go along to go in the family fun race, to do the fashion in the field and the other—you know, the tombola and the rides around the volunteer fire engine that the kids will do, and maybe have a glass of wine under the tree with their lunch—should continue because that is not where the harm occurs.

So, despite my support for this concept, I did take an objective look at the risk to make sure that we weren’t creating unintended consequences. And with the exception of the definition of which race meetings we were talking about, which we fixed, I’m satisfied that this bill can proceed without there being an increase in harm from alcohol consumption. And I think it behoves us as a House to make sure that we do put our efforts towards identifying that risk and reducing it where it occurs. This is not where it occurs. So I’m glad that those members of the House took the step to refer this bill to the select committee. I want to give them the confidence that the committee, having considered it carefully, was satisfied that the risks of harm are low and that there is merit in the bill proceeding so that this summer, and every summer, we can continue—those who do—to enjoy our summer carnivals under the tree in those beautiful spots right around the country, and have a glass of wine or a beer incidental to our picnic, as we always have.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to take a call on the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for Race Meetings) Amendment Bill.

I had the pleasure of sitting on the select committee that considered the bill, and I do want to acknowledge my colleague Ian McKelvie, who is a very fair chair of our committee, and whose bill this is. And so I do want to acknowledge him and the work that he has done on the bill, and we did consider it throughout the select committee process.

The Labour Party is treating this bill as a conscience issue and just as we did in the first reading, members will be exercising their vote according to their conscience. I voted in favour of the bill going to the select committee. I wanted to hear submissions and advice from officials before making a decision on whether I would support it further. And before I make some comments on how I’ll be voting tonight, I wanted to make some comments about the Governance and Administration Committee report that I felt was quite important we put on the record tonight in this second reading, because it actually speaks more broadly to conscience issues and the role of the select committee in that process.

When it came to the time of adopting our report, we actually had some to-ing and fro-ing as a committee in terms of what we would put into the bill about a recommendation. When select committees consider bills, one of the requirements of the committee is to consider and make a recommendation about whether the bill should pass. We had quite a conversation about this at select committee because a number of us felt very strongly that it wasn’t necessarily the role of the select committee to make a recommendation to the House about how the House should treat a bill, given that it was a matter of conscience. So in the end we elected—and I might just read out what we wrote into the commentary. The five of us that sit on this committee were all of a shared view, the National and Labour members on the committee. What we noted here was: “We note that the vote on the first reading of the bill was treated as a conscience issue. We have therefore made recommendations for amendments to improve the bill’s workability, but leave broader consideration of the bill’s merits to the full membership of the House. We do not consider that it is appropriate for us to make a recommendation to the House about the bill passing, given the bill is a conscience issue. We encourage all members of the House to consider the bill, and our amendments, and form their own conclusions about the bill’s passing.”

On that note, we have also written to the Standing Orders Committee, as a select committee, about this issue more generally. So I did want to give that explanation to the House tonight as to why we hadn’t got to a point of making a recommendation in the select committee report. It is ultimately up to members.

So I’ll just talk a little bit about some of the work that we did do, and what we did hear while considering this bill. Mr Woodhouse has already made some comments about restricting some of the work that we did do, and that we did hear while considering this bill, and Mr Woodhouse has already made some comments about restricting the clubs that this applies to, to those that have three or more—

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Fewer.

Three or fewer! Thank you, Mr Woodhouse—three or fewer race meetings a year, and that we use the definition of “small racing club”. One of the questions I had during this process is that a club may be small by that definition of the Act in terms of the number of meetings it holds a year, but those meetings in and of themselves may be large in number, in the number of people who attend, and therefore there is the ability for there to be harm caused by alcohol. Because if you have a very large number of people at an event, the potential for harm to be caused does start to be increased somewhat. And so we did ask officials about whether this was an issue that we could rectify, but we were having to work within the definitions of the Act and, unfortunately, we would probably need to have done some further amendments to the Act around the size of the event as well, and that proved somewhat difficult at select committee.

That is one of the reasons that I won’t be able to support this bill further. I want to note that I have, in my time, attended racing events, and do enjoy the social aspect of attending racing events. But for me, I’m not convinced—having sat in the select committee—that this bill is actually needed. Clubs that are looking to have a bring-your-own alcohol element are able to apply for a licence for that purpose, so there is already a process existing within the law that allows for that. We did hear from the Police and from the Ministry of Health, and my understanding is that there are concerns about the potential for more alcohol harm to be caused from allowing people to bring their own alcohol without having some level of oversight in place through the provision of a special licence.

I also note that some of the clubs have also told us that they actually rely on bar sales in order to make revenue at their events, and that they would be concerned at revenue loss if they saw some form of bring-your-own without that oversight. So I look forward to hearing the rest of the debate tonight, and I have enjoyed hearing submissions on this bill, I’ve enjoyed working alongside my colleagues on the Governance and Administration Committee—we did give this bill due consideration and, as I note, the committee did get to a point where we felt it was up to the House to make the final decision on whether this bill should proceed. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you. It’s a pleasure to take a call on this matter, and it’s my first call on a conscience vote. I thought very, very carefully about this bill, and I wasn’t at all decided at the beginning, because things do pull in different directions. I’d probably be what Mr Woodhouse called an alcohol watch - type, but I’m going to vote in support of the bill, and I’d just like to explain why.

I think that alcohol does an enormous amount of harm, but I have real issues with prohibition of any of these substances, and I voted for the legalisation of marijuana because I don’t think that these kinds of prohibitions work. I think that Government has a really strong role, but it should focus on things where it can—by evidence—actually reduce harm. And I think that’s an incredibly important principle in this area. So I want the law to have a light touch. I’m not at all convinced there won’t be people who drink to excess at such events, and I’m not actually a particular fan of gambling, either. But I do appreciate that the problem of alcohol can live in your own home, it can live absolutely everywhere, and that it’s not particularly associated with picnics at racing events.

I think that it’s really important that we do simplify people’s lives as much as we can. So I don’t think it’s been that hard to make a decision in support of this bill. I think it’s important that these local events are encouraged. I don’t particularly want bars to make money out of such events, and I really do want those events to happen, because we have been a little disconnected over the last couple of years, and it would be nice if we can be reconnected. I hope that isn’t through alcohol, but I don’t think that that’s the purpose of the bill.

So I’m going to vote in support of this bill, and I’m going to vote in support of Chlöe Swarbrick’s bill later when it comes up, because I see that bill as very much targeted at where the harm is occurring with alcohol. So I hope that the consistency of that position can be seen by the explanation I’ve given now. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, the ACT Party will support Mr McKelvie’s proposal. We believe that people attending race meetings in their communities should have the right to responsibly drink with friends, with family, with club members. And that’s because the ACT Party trusts New Zealanders; we believe in personal responsibility; we believe that Kiwis should be trusted to take a beer, a bottle of wine, a cider, even—if it was a race meeting in West Auckland—a four-pack of Woodstock (Woodies) and drink that out of the back of the ute while they wait for the horse race to start.

Now, apart from the Avondale Racecourse, which is more than likely to end up becoming a property development than seeing another horse race any time soon—I’m not sure where in West Auckland that’s likely to happen. But when we’re thinking about it means to live in a small community, to not have all of those country pubs, all of those cosmopolitan clubs that we used to have in New Zealand, because as New Zealanders are drinking much, much less than they used to—both in volume and in concentration—the sale of alcohol through retail premises has actually declined significantly in the past few decades.

Now, when I was at university, it was common for a beer tanker to be driven onto the university campus and for all the students to grab a milkshake cup which had a giraffe on the side of it, and that said “The longest drink in town”, and to drink as many of those cups as they could until they drank the tanker dry. And that was a great fund-raising activity for the student union.

Now, some people these days might think that’s irresponsible drinking. But when I was a student, and many of the students of that time—including no doubt Young Labour, Young Nationals; can’t remember Young Greens being there—would have enjoyed a “longest drink in town” to drink the tanker dry.

But that’s not common these days; New Zealanders drink far less and they tend to drink far higher-quality drinks, such as all of those fantastic craft beers brewed by micro brewers in places like Wellington, Auckland, and around the country.

So if we’re thinking about what it means to drive—because it’s unlikely there’s public transport to a lot of these small rural race meets, simply because it’s not possible to deliver public transport services to every small town in every region, all of the time—it’s more than likely that the people going to these events will have a driver. I’m sure they will nominate a sober driver.

I’m sure they’ll take food—a picnic—because they’ll be going for the day. So not only will they have a sober driver, but a picnic, lots of things to eat, probably a range of non-alcoholic drinks, bottled water, dare I say. They’ll have a few beers, wines, ciders, or—if this was that mythical race meeting in West Auckland—some Woodies, some pre-mixed bourbon and colas.

And I trust the Kiwis going to that race meeting—that they will drink responsibly, they will pick up their cans and bottles, they’ll put them in the recycling, and that at the end of the day, when the race meeting’s over, the carpark or the grass parking area will be left clean and tidy and that everybody who leaves there will go home, cared for by a sober driver—and that the chance of harm coming to Kiwis going to this kind of thing is very, very minimal.

And yet, we have heard members, including the fearful Rachel Boyack—who’s heard from different health groups and others that this could cause alcohol harm—that that member is so fearful of this risk of people drinking a couple of ciders or a craft beer and harm might come to a group of people. So as a result, that member’s stated that she will exercise her conscience and vote against the bill.

Now, what has New Zealand come to, where we can’t accept, or some of us can’t accept, the small risk that somebody might make a mistake and they might drink a little bit too much and then, I don’t know, they might say something to a family member or they might say something to a friend that they regret in the morning—or who knows? They might decide that, actually, they don’t like racing after all and they’d rather be at a motor sport event. Who knows what kind of mistake they might make?

But thinking this is only exempting small racing clubs and that, as introduced, the bill would provide for all racing clubs to be exempted—but not all racing clubs need or want the exemption. That’s because larger clubs often have the resources and staff to provide hospitality services and do not want attendees to bring alcohol on to the premises. So the recommendation back from the committee is that this exemption for race meetings really should only apply to small clubs.

So then we’re thinking about how much harm could possibly be caused by allowing for this exemption. Yet, apparently, for some members of this House, they are afraid of any harm. And isn’t it that “afraid of any harm” approach which has really led New Zealand to where we are today—where, for over 104 days in Auckland last year, the city was locked down after one case of COVID was reported; one case.

💬 Simeon Brown: How much harm was caused by that?

The harm from COVID became the one thing that this Government was worried about. When for Aucklanders—

💬 Simeon Brown: My daughter is still afraid of talking to other people. It’s terrible what the lockdown did.

—that’s right—for 1.7 million Aucklanders, the harm we were worried about was the fact that people who were stuck at home were young people locked out of education, and then having police sent to the regional border to check truck drivers’ papers, that there might be this other harm called out-of-control crime. But apparently, the harm that a couple of people might accidentally do to themselves in the carpark of a small horse racing club in a small town is so significant that some members believe they should vote against the bill.

Well, the ACT Party says, “We trust Kiwis.” We think that Kiwis should be able to make the odd mistake and that if they trip over on the wet grass at the racing club or at the trotting club after having an accidental tip over—and whether that’s because the ground was slippery and there was no warning sign to say, “Be careful, slippery wet grass”—

💬 Simeon Brown: Where was the road cone?

Or, as the member said, there were no road cones there to identify where the pothole was in the carpark—or potentially they drank one too many Woodies and then they fell over! Well, the ACT Party says that the risk of that kind of harm happening is so minimal that the members of this House should all unilaterally support this wonderful exemption that would allow small racing clubs to sell and supply alcohol to members and visitors—those attending race days. It’s part of our culture. We are responsible people in New Zealand; we are responsible drinkers, far more responsible than we used to be.

In fact, some of us consider that we’re responsible enough that Kiwis should also even be allowed to smoke cannabis, for example, which is why I personally voted “Yes” in that referendum. Because personal responsibility should extend to all aspects of our life. So I do appreciate the Green member Chlöe Swarbrick’s offer to take her call on this bill because she felt that her contribution would be made at the time of voting.

But as an ACT member representing New Zealanders up and down the country, people who like to have a drink, go to the horse racing, and trust someone to get them home safely afterwards—ACT says, “We’ll be supporting this bill and we urge all the other members of the House to get up and do so.”

E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I am glad to be able to take a short call on this bill tonight—

💬 Simeon Brown: We’re all merry—a very merry Christmas!

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —you’re feeling very merry about it, Simeon Brown—and part of the reason for that is actually just to address the actual content of the legislation, which pertains to the ability to bring your own, not, as the previous speaker, Simon Court, was referring to, with regard to sale and supply. It is, of course, an amendment to the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act, but it does not enable more sale and supply at the place that these horse racing events are occurring; it enables people to bring their own alcohol.

So, in a nutshell, as was already expressed by the member for Nelson very ably, in canvassing the select committee process here, a licensing regime for events like this already exists. And it was really fascinating just listening to the contribution before and some of the heckling that was going back and forth. The speaker prior to me, Simon Court, was saying that people should be able to make a mistake, and the same member, who is now heckling, was saying that that’s a revolutionary notion.

We were also hearing from the speaker prior about the equivalence between alcohol and cannabis. So let’s talk about those equivalences, because, if we were to take the same logically consistent approach to cannabis as we do to alcohol, for example—as was proposed in the Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill—we would be looking at placing far more restrictions on the way that we currently offer the sale and supply of alcohol in this country. I’d ask the member heckling before, Simeon Brown, whether he’s comfortable with those 120,000 New Zealanders who made the mistake of personally possessing cannabis—

💬 Simeon Brown: Where’s the member’s consistency?

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —who went on to get convictions, since the 1980s. The consistency, Simeon Brown, has been laid out for you many times before, including when I offered to meet with you about this many times, which is that there is a spectrum of approaches that we can take to substances in this country, whether they be alcohol or tobacco or cannabis.

Mr Speaker, if I may, we have heard wide-ranging debate on the equivalence of cannabis, prior, from other speakers, and I think that it’s really important that we do address this, because we are talking about consistency of approaches to drug-harm reduction. Alcohol, of course, is the drug which has the highest amount of macro harm in this country. A quarter of New Zealanders who engage in drinking do so to harmful ends.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: And let’s just do it in the context of the bill, which other speakers have done.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Yes, and so have I, Mr Speaker. A licensing regime already exists—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, you haven’t.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: This bill is therefore not necessary.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you for the contribution from my colleague. The crux of the matter of this bill, the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for Race Meetings) Amendment Bill—and I like the collegial nature of the debate. I live in rural New Zealand, and this speaks to all things rural. And we’ve canvassed it previously tonight. Going to enjoy the carnival reality of small races in and around provincial New Zealand—it happens all the time, although it’s a diminishing reality—and sharing in a lovely meal, a lunchtime meal, and perhaps a bottle of wine with family and maybe one or two beers; this is not an environment that perhaps the previous member articulated, which is an environment that would purport to create an environment of binge drinking.

I’ve been to several race meetings in my 30-plus years living in rural New Zealand. These are usually small gatherings, and this bill has spoken to that very reality by virtue of putting a caveat in it, which said that this applies to the small race meetings in these venues that gather no more than three times per year. I mean, suffice it to say—and I think we’ve got to just go over this—this is another slow decline or degradation of rural New Zealand. This is not just an environment you give a whole lot of country people an excuse to drink. This is a simple reality that people go to rural New Zealand events. Somebody in the country happens to be horse racing, why shouldn’t they enjoy in a licensed environment the ability to share one or two beers with a few friends and drink?

💬 Hon Member: They can.

No, not in this instance, they can’t, and this is the point. This is the point. This creates an environment—I’m sorry to the member over there. I’m not sure if she actually lives in a rural community like I do, but it is a reality that without BYO, a lot of these people and their patrons don’t attend.

And in the free marketplace of ideas and debate which is this House, I’m sorry to the member on the other side of the House. You’ve actually got it fundamentally wrong. This bill seeks to balance that reality. The ACT Party does support that rationale. And to the previous member of the ACT Party that spoke this evening, New Zealanders are becoming more conscious of alcohol and the potential harm and abuse that it can cause in urban and rural New Zealand. That notwithstanding, New Zealanders are now much more cognisant of it. We see routinely young people more cognisant of the damage that’s happening to themselves and their surrounding persons and community. We maintain this is a balanced view. It balances up the wellbeing of small rural communities and those that go to race meetings and the potentiality for any harm. We support this legislation. Thanks very much.

Oh look, it would be lacking if an O’Connor didn’t stand up and actually speak on an alcohol bill. I probably just impugned a pile of O’Connors across the country, but anyway.

Look, I’m actually happy to support this. I think, whenever there are competing issues, rights, goods, values, whatever you want to say, there’s always a bit of a competition. And some of the debate and discussion rightly tonight is on alcohol harm. It’s one of, if not the worst drug, if you will, that exists in this country, and causes enormous, enormous amounts of harm. I suppose the counterfactual is that it’s something that’s been socialised into human history for at least 6,000 years of recorded history, which for me begins to knock out a whole lot of the other drugs which people try to compare things with. Tonight’s not for us to discuss, I would say, everything from fentanyl to methamphetamine—get my tongue around that—through to cannabis and others, which is just a new harm. We’ve got the smarter approach.

So, really, just what I want to draw attention to is this is a very good particular bill. I think Ian McKelvie, as an electorate member of this House, is responding to a need which he has seen in his community and across New Zealand, which is ultimately that small racing clubs with moderate means are just wanting a little bit of flexibility around alcohol laws. And understandably, when this Parliament passes the overarching laws which we do around, well, anything to be honest, but in this case alcohol, it doesn’t always fit every circumstance. We try as best we can, but it doesn’t always fit. And so this is just a very simple tweak tonight.

Others have referenced why there’s a difference between, say, small and large racing facilities. Quite simply, the larger ones—in the likes of my electorate—they are well managed, they are huge, large incomes, they’ve got plenty of staff, it’s easy to manage in this space. Much, much smaller racecourses struggle. So I think this is, for me, quite sensible. But I think, again, it’s prudent that there’s discussion and debate around harm. But personally, as someone who has gone to the races, as an Irish Catholic family, it’s very much part of our—I don’t know what you’d call it—tradition. By and large, if not most of the time—I’m not talking about my family here—for those going to the races, it’s well respectful for what they’re doing. I’m not actually particularly worried about any particular harm or harms that is going to come from this. I think it’s a sensible move. I think it’s a good, proactive—actually, it’s not proactive; it’s a reactive move, strictly. As I say, Ian McKelvie is responding to what he’s heard from his constituents. And if our Parliament is to do anything proper and right, it is to respond to the people on the ground saying, “Hey, we want this law change.”

Look, it’s clear, listening to the contributions tonight and reading the select committee report, there’s been a lot of discussion and debate around how this could be improved or changed—is it necessary or not? Again, I’ll be supporting this time, because I think it is in the right space. And look, I can’t speak—I come from the great electorate of Tāmaki in the heart of urban Auckland. We’ve got the likes of the Ellerslie Racecourse there and just across the ball at Alexandra Park. It’s not going to affect these guys. They already do an amazing job. But when I think of some of the smaller racecourses that I visited over the years, and different members will have gone around—I think my dad, if he goes up to the likes of, I don’t know, Dargaville or Ruakākā, they need a little bit more help and support.

So I think this is a sensible move. Look, for those who are concerned—and rightly so. I think there’s been discussion and debate tonight. I don’t think anyone’s actually wrong. This is the nature of any of these sorts of conscience votes—anything that’s particularly ethical. I don’t think anyone’s wrong. If, for some reason, we find in six months or six years that this change in legislation has increased harm, I’ll be one of the first to stand in support to repeal it—to pull it back. But I think this is quite sensible. And realistically, it’s very particular and also it’s relying on Kiwis, particularly those that we know in the rural provincial areas, who actually are quite responsible. That’s a really important starting point.

The next point I want to make is there’s always a lot of debate, and I’m sure we’ll have it later in the House or in the coming weeks—it’s always around the phrase “harm minimisation”. And it’s an appropriate phrase to use. But as I pointed out before to media and other outlets or other points of debate: where do you want to put the emphasis on that little phrase—harm minimisation? Some people will always put their focus on the word “minimisation”; that’s fine. I put the focus on harm. Ultimately, I don’t think this is going to create the wave of harm which some are concerned about. But I just again want to stress, for those who vote against this bill, it’s the absolute, for them, right thing to do, and I think there’s a nuance in this debate. I think it’s one of those little ethical issues which is not, if you will, black and white.

And on that, I want to finish with one thought coming out of this second reading, and it’s related to this bill specifically, but it’s also broader. I am concerned with this House that we’re having select committee reports coming back from, well, strangely enough, the select committee that do not take positions, and I think that’s unfortunate. I want to be really, really clear to the select committee responsible for this that I do understand. I’ve sat on many select committees—arguably a select committee that’s dealt with probably the most contentious, or, actually, one of the most contentious issues, and it too chose to go down the route of “We as a select committee should not give an opinion.” I think that’s a valid argument. I think the idea of the select committee taking a fairly neutral approach, reporting back to the House, allowing this whole Chamber to make a decision, is a consistent position, but I don’t think it’s the right one.

For me personally, I actually trust my colleagues across the House. It doesn’t matter if you’re left, right, blue, green, red, it doesn’t really matter. When we send these bills to the select committee, I’m wanting my colleagues, as with this bill, to examine it and to tell me what their conscience, what their beliefs, what their mind thinks. I’m grown up enough, old enough, grumpy enough to be able to—I was hoping, actually, someone would call me out there to say I’d misled the House, but anyway. I am grumpy enough that I can actually look at what other people say and make my own decisions.

So I suppose what I’m trying to say, and in closing, is I really hope that select committees, including the ones that I am on, for conscience votes and for personal votes to be strictly correct in the future, do actually make an opinion, like they should have on this Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for Race Meetings) Amendment Bill. Use their reason, use their conscience, use their beliefs, and report that back to the House. I actually think that’s going to enrich the debate when we see the different views, because, actually, all 119 of us currently can exercise our judgments. We’re not going to be misled, misguided in any way when we get to a second reading. So it’s just a plea from me to have that happen. I think it’s becoming a little bit of an unfortunate norm in this House that we come back with these, “Oh, we can’t really say much about the bill. We’ll just leave it to the whole House.” No. Guide us. Give us your thoughts, give us your opinions.

In fact, the more robust that the report could have been out of the select committee on this Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for Race Meetings) Amendment Bill, that will actually spur thought. And in a bizarre way, this is happening now tonight. This has actually been one of the better debates, personally, all day. As different people have shared their thoughts and nuances, it’s created reactions and counter-reactions—that’s a great thing. And I personally feel, had we got to this second reading with a better report, a more personal conscience-led report from the select committee, we’d be in a better place. But I do want to finish by saying this: this is no reflection on that particular committee or the work that’s been done. I’ve sat on many committees that have come to a similar position, and I think that’s not quite the right space.

But anyway, as I say, I will be supporting this bill tonight. I am looking forward—I think one person mentioned earlier that this could be their first conscience or personal vote. Fantastic. It’s a great moment. Make sure you point very clearly at your name as you move on through. It’s a great moment. It’ll confuse a number of our colleagues that the bells keep ringing before 10 o’clock, but, actually, these are important moments.

Anyway, I’m just going to pause because I suspect someone else who’s probably quite important around this bill might want to take a call, not only because he’s here, it’s also because his wife, I suspect, is in the gallery. And it’ll be really important for him to take a call at some point. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Can I just indicate to members at the moment that there are now five speaking slots left, and that they will be allocated by way of calls, since we actually seem to be out of proportionality right now.

OK, Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just wanted to take a short call to go on record just to put my own local racing club, which I imagine that my friend and colleague Ian McKelvie was actually considering when he put this bill together—small-country racing clubs that are the heart of some little communities, and especially in the racing circuit.

I was the clerk of scales for many years on the West Coast, and I did the whole West Coast circuit over the summer. I can tell you that those little community events are very important to community connectedness. They’re run by volunteers who work all year to provide a day out for one or maybe two days a year.

They’ve gone through some hard times in the past. A lot of them are aged facilities so they rely on fund-raising and they rely on the income that they derive from their race meetings to maintain those facilities and keep up with the constant changes of rules, health and safety regulations, etc. that they have to implement on the day.

Security has played a big part in sucking some of the revenue out of those small organisations. The last thing we need is the fun police to come along and shut down one of the main sources of income on race day. I can tell you that the security is so tight that if you trip over a rock, the police will deem you intoxicated and remove you from the track. There is no way that people are going to be able to abuse the system on race days because of the tight rules that are now around, in terms of security and watching for people who do abuse the alcohol intake.

I’m standing in support of this piece of legislation that I hope will go through tonight, or at least—yes, it is its third reading tonight, because I think it’s really sensible that we include small race meetings in a different category than we do to others. I totally commend my colleague Ian McKelvie for raising this issue in defence of these small clubs around New Zealand. We’ve even lost clubs on the West Coast due to some of the retrenchment that happened under the former Labour coalition Government. That was a real disaster for some of our small clubs that have been around for over 100 years, and now those places are abandoned. It’s a real tragedy and a dishonour to the people who maintained them for many, many years. So I speak in support of this bill. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I just indicate there are two five-minute calls available in call nine.

May I take both of them, Mr Speaker? It’s been an interesting conversation this evening, and also an interesting evening when we have two bills around alcohol: the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for Race Meetings) Amendment Bill and, of course, the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Harm Minimisation) Amendment Bill. As I listened intently—mostly—this evening, I feel like there’s sort of a “we’re responsible drinkers” and “she’ll be right” and, you know, we’re going to be party poopers and that type of thing for those of us who voted against this. I mean, personally, I know I’d love to have a greater conversation around the review of looking at the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act, but that’s not for tonight’s debate—that is around the exemption for race meetings.

I just find it interesting that we would pick a certain sector, and then also that we would pick a certain sector and say if we don’t do this—some of the bits I picked up this evening—it’s all going to shut down. It’s these small, rural clubs, which I have in my own electorate—you know, I’m part of that rural community. If they’re going to close down because they can’t drink alcohol there, then so be it. I mean, it’s around the racing, right? It’s around the experience. So it really does surprise me that people feel that if we can’t have a drink—I really question that.

💬 Simon O’Connor: No one said that.

I’ve heard comments along those lines. If this is the reason—if you can go to the races and not have a drink and you can go to the races and there are no drinks provided, then that’s OK, or you can go to those bigger events.

But when I look and listen and, again, think, as Simon O’Connor said in this conversation often, around harm minimisation—but there are some real issues, and for me, when I’m at home and I get an opportunity on a Wednesday night, which isn’t often, because I’m here regularly, I will go to the Salvation Army Bridge programme on a Wednesday night and be part of their recovery programme. I’ve been an attender of that for many, many years, and to sit there and to listen to stories, that I can’t disclose in this space, but to listen and hear the impacts and effects—and I know that, you know, people say, “Well, it’s just one drink.” or that everyone’s responsible in these spaces. That can be true, but also that can be not true, as well. If you look at the fact that in New Zealand we are a heavy drinking society—we are a heavy drinking society. So, for me, I will do all I can to ensure that we do ensure that our communities are kept safe.

When I look at the numbers, they say around—and they can’t identify it completely, but the average number they say is around 600 to 800 people a year die of alcohol-related impacts. So when we look at this and the exemption for race meetings, again, I come back to: what harm would be done if—for example, the police have obviously been participating and have been turning up to race meetings, and they don’t just turn up for the sake of it; they have a role to play and something to do. I look in terms of what is through the select committee process and I look at the Ministry of Justice as they considered the bill; I look also at the Ministry of Justice and the New Zealand Police and the Health Promotion Agency, who all advised that it’s likely that there is potential harm that is caused in these spaces.

Also, I come back to the fact that they talked about the context in the relation of a wider review. So, again, I find it interesting that we’re talking on this bill right now and shortly we’re talking on harm minimisation when it comes to the sale and supply of alcohol. I’m really open and I really want to listen and understand, and I have, but I come back to the people that I know. Yes, maybe everyone in this House are responsible drinkers. Does that mean that we have to shut it down for those who aren’t? Well, I don’t know, but I know I want to make sure that I keep my community safe. I know that I want to make sure that we live in a country that is empowering and open but also is responsible and is to care for all people and to make sure that we do the right thing. So I won’t be supporting the bill, but I have appreciated the debate this evening.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Noting that this is a five-minute call, I’ll take this in the hope that Mr McKelvie, as the person whose name this bill is in, may wish to speak a little bit longer than five minutes. So can I, firstly, acknowledge my parliamentary neighbour Mr McKelvie, in terms of him having the bill drawn and working through the select committee process, along with the members of the Governance and Administration Committee.

I probably adopt a different view to that of Mr O’Connor in terms of the report that has come back to the House, because I think what the select committee has done—and I know the Governance and Administration Committee is a hard-working one—is that they have made the bill, in their mind, a more workable one. And given that this is a matter of conscience, they’ve landed at a point where they have sent it back to the House so that members can continue to exercise their own conscience without having a particular view expressed. So, having said that, that is a point of difference between myself and Mr O’Connor.

I probably, in terms of my experience, have a bob each way on this. I spent four or five years as a deputy chair of my local district licensing committee, so I know the elements of risk, the various statutory reports that medical officers of health, that liquor licensing inspectors, and that the police do as part of that process. But I also spent more than 10 years working for the Judicial Control Authority for Racing, which meant that I basically have visited every single racecourse throughout New Zealand including, actually, Maureen Pugh’s one on the West Coast in Kūmara, alongside Gore, Winton, Waimate—

💬 Maureen Pugh: Waimate?

Waimate—well, I did see Ms Pugh at the Kūmara races when I was there—not as clerk of the scales, however, I think. But it means that I am familiar with a number of our rural and country racecourses. I think of places like Wairoa and Gisborne, Waipukurau, Gore, and others, and when I look at the submitters that have submitted in support, I note that it also includes my own local harness racing club, that of Manawatū.

So this bill, as I understand it, makes clear that the clubs that would be eligible for this discretion to be exercised are not the intended target of section 235 of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act, and that while these changes may not be necessarily welcomed by metropolitan clubs such as the Race Group, which, as Mr McKelvie knows, represents a number of different clubs from Ashhurst Pohangina through to Fielding, Manawatū, and Marton, and actually Wellington here at Trentham, the changes that the select committee have put forward do limit it quite significantly, in my mind, to the number that is at a singular level. And so I don’t see this as a move around the degradation of rural New Zealand. I see it as an acknowledgment that rural communities can come together and that race meetings are community opportunities for those communities to come together.

So like my colleague Helen White, this is my first contribution within a conscience debate. And having considered all of those factors, I intend to support this bill this evening, because I do know that rural communities who are involved in the running of race meetings up and down this country, in my mind, go a little bit the extra mile in terms of making sure that the arrangements are safe, making sure that things are all sorted, as opposed to metropolitan clubs who often they do a good job, but they don’t rely on that element of goodwill of volunteers. A number of the individuals are often paid, so that is a point of difference.

So I congratulate Mr McKelvie and I’m happy, having considered all those things, to lend my support to the bill.

Oh, thank you, Mr Speaker. First of all, I want to thank the House for their tolerance tonight. Interestingly, I had my whole team in Parliament today, and we’d decided we’d have our Christmas party tonight, so that’s why I was absent at the beginning of it, and I felt that my team are more important than my bill. But, none the less, this piece of legislation is a very important bill.

It’s a pleasure to take a call late in the debate on what I think is quite a good little bill. I want to thank Michael Woodhouse in particular for leading the debate, on my behalf, on this bill. He also sat on the Governance and Administration Committee, as did a number of other people in the House, Rachel Boyack in particular, who’s the deputy chair of the select committee that heard this bill.

The bill came about as a result of a discussion the Rt Hon Winston Peters was having with himself one day, as he often did, and Chris Bishop happened to overhear it. He then drew this bill up, actually, as a result of the comments that Mr Peters had made about the fact that he felt the racing industry was, to some extent, I guess, being victimised by the way the licences were interpreted, and particularly relating to what’s turned out now to be the small racing clubs in New Zealand. When the bill was entered in the ballot, it didn’t relate to the small racing clubs; it related to all racing clubs. I think the select committee have done a very good job of tidying that bit of it up.

I guess that my point with this bill was that, and I go back quite a long way, when I started off going to the races when I was extremely young, we used to go along in the back of the car and sit around the racecourse and have a nice time—actually, picking up the wasted tickets a lot and seeing if we couldn’t find a ticket that was still live, and sometimes we did, and cashing them in. But, besides that, it was a family outing, basically, and, I think, for a lot of people, it still is a family outing, but only once or twice a year. So that’s what appealed to me about this bill.

As we discussed in the select committee, quite a lot of issues arose with respect to—we had submitters who talked a lot about the damage that alcohol does. I think we all accept that excesses of everything do damage. This bill’s not actually about the consumption of alcohol; this bill is about getting people to race meetings, particularly in our small rural areas, enabling us to have a nice day out, and go home at night safe and having had a rewarding day.

So, in my view, there’s a big difference between what the alcohol watch groups and those people concerned with alcohol consumption—there’s a lot of them, and I’ve got no problem with them—felt was a challenge and what the bill was designed to deal with, which was nothing to do with the consumption of large amounts of alcohol.

So, having got through that point, we had quite a number of submissions from small racing clubs who really felt the bill, in the form we introduced it, would add quite a lot of value to their opportunity to, I guess, make things easier for them, to enable them to do what they wanted to do with their race days without having to provide a massive facility to achieve it. The problem with the facility is that to achieve alcohol licences, there’s quite a lot of facilities required. Many of these small racing clubs don’t have those facilities and aren’t able to provide them, so to be able to offer a BYO opportunity at the races is quite a significant advantage to them.

So I’ve talked about the submissions from the smaller racing clubs who were extremely supportive of it. What I found very disappointing was there were two submissions, one from New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing and one from the Waikato Racing Club, opposing the bill. I must say, I wondered what they were thinking, because they both occupy very important spaces in the racing industry—an industry that’s struggling for owners, for jockeys, for participants, and for support. I think that, historically, that support has come from rural New Zealand. Rural and provincial New Zealand have provided a large number of race horse owners, a large number of jockeys, a large number of trainers, and a large number of people interested in the industry. Many of them have come out of small towns. I myself would probably have never got in the racing industry if I hadn’t been involved at a very young age with a two licence-day racing club, where I later trained horses. And today, I still race a quite a number of horses.

And I think I’m an example of someone who may never have gotten involved in racing if it hadn’t been for those small racing clubs—those small, isolated, to some extent, racing clubs—and Tangi Utikere talked about the race clubs, and the club I was part of was one of those: the Rangitikei Racing Club. It hosts two race meetings a year—it wouldn’t qualify for this because it’s part of the race group. But there’s a large number of small clubs, particularly in the South Island, that will qualify for this, and I think will be very interested in the potential to use this bill to enable them to run a race meeting in a much easier form than they otherwise could’ve.

I just wanted to turn to the select committee report—and I heard some discussion, I think, from Rachel Boyack particularly on this, earlier on. We had quite a debate on this issue in the select committee, because I think we all felt—and an interesting point about this: all of the select committee, interestingly, voted for this bill to go to select committee, which is quite interesting. So we all voted for it to go to select committee, and we didn’t feel it was our role to then recommend a course of action to the House. We felt, despite our own feelings, that our role was to put this bill in as good of a space as we could and send it back to the House for a debate to be taken by the Parliament as a whole. And that’s where we got to as a select committee. As a consequence of that, we’ve written to the Standing Orders Committee and suggested that they change the rules, with respect to these sorts of members’ bills, and bills that relate to conscience. I think there’s been about three or four of them, in my time in the House, that have come back, and they have, with one exception, had recommendations back to the House. The one exception was the euthanasia bill; it had some special conditions around it and so I’d be interested to see where we get to with respect to the Standing Orders Committee and what they recommend back to the House.

So we made three very small changes to the bill: we updated references to the Racing Industry Act 2020, as when the bill was written, it referred to the Racing Act 2003. We amended Section 235A(1)(a) to insert the word “small” into the bill to ensure the bill would only apply to those clubs described as small in the Racing Industry Act 2020, so the effect of the definition comes from the Racing Act 2020, and I think it’s most appropriate. We also recommended replacing “racing club” with “small racing club” and proposed Section 235A(2)(b).

This industry has struggled in New Zealand in recent years, and any little glimmer of hope that we can give it by making things easier for our small racing clubs to involve local people in an industry that, ah—whatever we think of it, contributes significantly to the New Zealand economy and contributes significantly to rural and provincial New Zealand. Whatever glimmer of hope we can give them, in the course of that, I think is of huge value to the industry.

So I think we’ve got this bill in as good of a space as we can; I’d urge members to support the bill at second reading, and hope that we can make some progress, and obviously if we get through second reading we can sort out any further issues that members have with respect to the bill in the committee stage. But I do want to thank the select committee for the work they’ve put into it; I want to thank all the members of the House, really, for the consideration they’ve given me tonight, and also, I guess, to a large extent at first reading, and we’ll see where it gets to tonight.

So that’s probably all I need to say; I think everything’s been said by the many members who have spoken on it, so thank you for the opportunity; and obviously I commend this bill to the House and hope that it gets some support. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I have determined that the subject of this vote will be treated as a conscience issue. In this case, I know that there are members who want a personal vote, and I am prepared to accept one. This is the process we are going to follow: I’m going to put the question, I’m going to announce the result. At that stage, any member can ask for a personal vote.

Bill read a second time.

The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 61, Noes 49, Abstentions 1.