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

Members, the House is in committee on the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for Race Meetings) Amendment Bill. Before we begin the debate, I’ll advise members that this bill is being treated as a conscious issue and I’ll accept a personal vote on each provision if one is called for. At the end of each debate, I’ll put the question, then announce the result. At that point, any member can request that a personal vote be held. Members, we come now to clause 1. This is the debate on the title.

Point of order. I seek leave for all provisions to be taken as one question.

Leave is sought. Is there any objection? There is no objection. The question is that clauses 1 to 4 stand part.

Mr Chair, thank you. I learnt very early in my political career that the simpler one makes something, the more likely you are to get it successfully agreed to, and I’m hoping that will be the case on this occasion. I certainly didn’t expect to have the auspicious audience in the House at the time of one of the smallest bills to go through the House—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: A lot of people like that car park stuff!

Quite right, Mr Brownlee. So, very briefly, the bill was sent to the select committee, came back for a second reading, and we’re now in the committee stage of the House, and the select committee recommends a couple of changes—very simple changes to the bill, but very sensible ones. Of course, this bill had its genesis in the Rt Hon Winston Peters’ mind at some stage in the night and was picked up the next day by Chris Bishop and turned into a logical bill, which was then picked up by me and brought to the House.

The two changes that are specific to what we’re talking about: updating references to the Racing Industry Act 2020, which, of course, was passed as a result of the Rt Hon Winston Peters’ introduction to the House; that wasn’t in the original bill, and amending section 235(A)(1)(a) to insert the word “small” into the proposed section so that the exemption would only apply to small racing clubs. “Small racing clubs” are defined in the racing Act as racing clubs that hold three or fewer betting licences during a year.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you to the member for that short introductory explanation. I do just want to commend him on taking this bill, so far successfully, through the House, and it was a pleasure to sit on the Governance and Administration Committee with the member when we considered the bill. I note that the member is also the chair of that good committee.

I wanted to ask a further question about the matter the member raised just now regarding small racing clubs. One of the matters that we grappled with at select committee was the potential for alcohol harm if we allowed people to bring their own alcohol into the boot of a car, as we’ve discussed. With the definition in the Racing Industry Act around “small racing clubs”, it’s specific to the number of events that are held each year. But we know that there are some racing clubs in New Zealand that may only have one or two meets a year, but they are of a very large nature, with thousands of people there. So this particular part of the bill would allow people to bring their own alcohol to a racing event where there were thousands of people. I guess that’s one of the concerns that the committee has grappled with.

So I’m just interested, from the member, if he did consider a Supplementary Order Paper to introduce a new definition or another form of definition that could be used to perhaps limit the implementation of this bill to those meets that were below a certain number so that we could consider limiting the alcohol harm from this bill. So I’m just interested, from the member, if there was any consideration given to that.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Just a quick question to the member. I note that the Manawatu Harness Racing Club was one of the submitters, and it was good to see the member in charge of this bill at that particular venue last week to celebrate the city of Palmerston North gold cup. But I’m just interested: in terms of the way in which the number of meetings would fall, will this primarily allow harness racing meetings to take advantage of this, as opposed to thoroughbred racing meetings? I’d be interested in a brief response from the member.

Perhaps, given my age, I’ll answer the last question first and the first question last. I think, with respect to the Manawatu Harness Racing Club, they of course wouldn’t qualify as they hold more than three licences per annum. And the reason for this bill really was, I think it came out of the smaller racing clubs in the South Island primarily. And of course harness clubs are a large part of that and there are also a large number of harness clubs—or not a large number. Six or seven harness clubs in the South Island run three or less meetings a year and they’re defined as small racing clubs under the Racing Act. So that’s a brief response to that question.

The question that the deputy chair of the Governance and Administration Committee, Rachel Boyack, raised is a more complex issue and it was raised by one or two of the submitters particularly related to harm from alcohol. It was also raised as a matter of, I suppose, interest because some of those events, as you say, are very large events, but none the less they’re run by amateur racing clubs, usually in holiday resorts, and those clubs very seldom have the facilities to cater for a full licensing system. So this type of an event would make it much easier for them to operate. And I think, from a harm perspective, some of us in the House will be old enough to remember the days when there was no alternative but to take your alcohol in the boot of the car or your picnic in the boot of the car. There was no such thing as a licensed bar when I was that age. I think, from a point of view of answering your question, those racing clubs and small harness clubs and those communities are extraordinarily responsible and they do have to—even under this Act, even under the changes that this would bring to the Act—manage those challenges in a manner that I think is totally responsible to the events talked about.

The issue of the large events, and some of them are large events—they can get up to 10,000 or 15,000 people turn up, but they’re none the less very well organised and we heard no evidence in the course of that discussion from either submitters or the police, actually, with respect to any, I guess, damage from alcohol or even a significant amount of trouble from those being caused as a result of alcohol being available at those events. And of course alcohol is currently available at the events. The reason for this bill being introduced is that it’s extraordinarily difficult for small amateur-based racing clubs or in fact every other small rural club has the same impact, the same challenge—it’s extremely difficult for them to comply where a bigger organisation can very easily comply with these things because they have not only the facilities but they also have the people with the resource and the skills and get to navigate their way through the licensing thing. So I hope that’s a satisfactory answer to your question.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I think this is an eminently sensible bill, Mr McKelvie. I think the small racing clubs will really appreciate the flexibility that’s inside the legislation. Obviously, I’ve been to various events of this size and scale, and I think small race meetings—people are eminently sensible. The one question I have is with access to the venue: how will that be managed in terms of bringing the alcohol into the venue, and will it be checked or will it just be turned up in the boot of your car and no one will know? So will there be a monitor or will there be someone on the racecourse that actually checks that in when—normally, people go there and it’s free to go. Secondly, most of these events happen at holiday time, but if you have a big race meeting, obviously the venues default to a licence scenario, but if you have a smaller venue or a smaller race meeting, then—the one thing we’d like to know is just how that gets managed on the racecourse itself. The ACT Party is very supportive of this bill.

Very briefly, to answer your question, the racing clubs concerned will have to undertake that monitoring and control of that in a manner that’s prescribed under the Act. So there will still be controls under the Act—that’s how that has to be managed. I think the real challenge in this instance was allowing those small entities to take advantage of an opportunity easily and create, I suppose, what I would have termed as a picnic-cum-family atmosphere, which is certainly lacking when you end up with what you might term those barn-type situations. I think it’s to take the onerous task off those clubs, but, at the same time, they’re still responsible in the same way they would be under any other terms in the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to take a call. Just in reading through the bill, and acknowledging the member Ian McKelvie, but also—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: That’s a bit unfair.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —the points that he’s been putting forward—sorry, Mr Brownlee?

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Reading the bill; that’s a bit unfair.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Ha, ha! The very short bill, being what it is. I just had a few questions for the member. He was just alluding to the fact that there would be controls around the management of alcohol in this BYO environment. However, from my reading of the legislation and the primary legislation which this seeks to amend, actually, in providing this exemption, there would be next to no controls, so I would like him to elaborate on that point that he made with regard to controls.

Well, there certainly won’t be no controls. I think most of these clubs that will be using this part of the licence will also have an alcohol licence on the course, which will, effectively, mean they’ve got to have control of this whole situation. So part of their course will run under the normal conditions of the Act and part of it will be exempted under these conditions. I suppose the most obvious one is Canterbury Jockey Club, where they run a separate licensing system for this. But they run a large—effectively, I suppose you could call it a car boot picnic area, and it works very successfully.

Mr Speaker, the committee has considered the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for Race Meetings) Amendment Bill and reports it without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.