Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Community Participation) Amendment Bill

Members, the House is in committee for the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Community Participation) Amendment Bill.

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

Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is none. The question is that Parts 1 and 2, the Schedule, and clauses 1 to 3 stand part.

Thank you very much. Look, it’s still no surprise to Minister Robertson and, obviously, to the House that National’s opposing this bill. So what are, effectively, three questions from me, Minister: the first is, how is this bill going to deal with existing liquor stores? Because as I read the new section—is it clause 12, where section 133 is being replaced? Long and short, it could potentially—I just want to stress that word, “potentially”—hang existing liquor-licence holders out to dry.

I think, in my own electorate, we actually have—not sure if this is a great thing to confess in the House or not—quite a number of liquor stores throughout the Tāmaki electorate, and, actually, they are well-patronised by locals and well-liked and respected. But a number of them—using this as the example—are very close to the likes of schools and community centres and the like. And, you know, the ones that are coming to mind—I won’t name them in the House per se, but they’ve been there for many, many years and are actually well-loved and respected, not just for what they’re selling but also for the people that they are. There’s a risk, or a perception of a risk, that they’re going to potentially lose their liquor licences with this new community participation amendment bill going through. So I’m wondering if the Minister can give us—or them, in particular; and too my constituents in Tāmaki—some surety that they’ll be able to continue so long as they’re continuing in good practice.

The second is around objections. As you read through the bill, basically, anyone in the country anywhere can put in an objection. So, again, a local Tāmaki liquor store in Saint Helier’s could have someone—no offence to my excellent colleague here, Penny Simmonds, but someone in Invercargill could be complaining about the liquor store in Saint Helier’s or Glen Innes or Ōrākei. Does he see any potential issues there, and whether or not he’d be open to change that or at least put something in to push back on vexatious and, I would argue, irrelevant engagement?

And the last is around the new section—sorry, clause 14—apologies, it’s the new section 203A. I hope I can articulate this question well. It is a concern that so many conditions are being placed on the licensing committee to make sure someone feels happy giving their submission, that it could almost become counterproductive. And what I mean by that is everything from the time and the layout of the venue, the time table, the languages used. I mean, in themselves there’s nothing wrong with that, but, to be slightly facetious, if someone walks in and decides they don’t like the colour of the carpet, does the committee have to, basically, dissolve and set things up for the permission of the submitter? That’s where I’m trying to get to, actually. Is the law—and particularly that clause—setting things up so that a submitter really dictates how these events are structured? Because as I read the legislation, they are. The submitter holds a lot of the power, because the committee has to, as it says, “establish appropriate procedures to consider the applications.” And it’s all based, after that, on, effectively, the person giving the submission. So yeah, does the submitter hold all the cards around how and where the process should be held?

At the outset, I’m obviously indicating that I’ll endeavour to respond to all questions. I may need a little bit of time here and there, given that it’s not a bill that I have been following all the way through, but I’ll do my best to answer the members’ questions as they come forward.

And so clause 12 was the first question that the member Simon O’Connor raised, around the position of existing stores. I do think it’s important to note that while this does now introduce a discretion element in terms of a renewal of a licence, that discretion is not completely unfettered. It’s limited to deciding to renew the application regardless of inconsistency, and the district licensing council may only decline to renew the licence if there is inconsistency around location or density in the local alcohol plan, not other matters like trading hours. This change means that there’s now greater consistency between renewal and new licence applications.

So yes, at a certain level, I accept the member’s point that this introduces something new for an existing licence holder, but what the clause endeavours to do is create a consistent approach. I think the member will know that, as a local MP of some reasonable time, these issues are commonly raised—prior to this bill—around why licences are not renewed. I’ve had plenty of contact from those who’ve had them around their views of district licensing authorities. So, actually, I think the outcome here is a better one that provides for a consistency between the two approaches, but it is limited to those matters around location and density within the local alcohol plan as it stands.

In terms of the question the member raised around objections, I think it would be pretty challenging for somebody to be able to make objections in every case. There’s thousands of these sorts of applications that come through. Really, what we’re trying to do here is strike a balance of allowing more people to come into the process but for the process not to be used for commercial or trade reasons, which is what’s, unfortunately, happened to this point. So our view is that we are enabling community application. It’s highly unlikely that we’re going to see a big flood of objections from people cutting across the country, given the situation, and we do want communities to have the right to be involved.

The final question from the member I will come back to him on, but, quite clearly, whenever there is a committee set up to do anything, it’s a two-way street. The people organising the meeting have to be able to be there and run it, and the people who are participating need to be given a fair chance to participate. I actually think members across the House would, I would hope, celebrate the general principle of the third of the goals of this bill, which is to use technology to endeavour to find ways to make it a lot easier for people to participate in the public process. So I will come back and see if there’s anything further—I’ll get advice on that—but, from my perspective, I think we’ve got the balance right in that clause as well.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So, just for people tuning in, we’re debating the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Community Participation) Amendment Bill. I suppose the background to this is concern amongst many in the community around the prevalence of liquor licences—people both on site and off site—in communities, and the desire for communities to be able to set the rules around how many stores they have and where and the hours and the prevalence of stores. The previous National Government introduced legislation around the local alcohol plans and there has been a fairly slow, tortuous, and expensive legal process to get some of those through, so I think there is general agreement that the current system isn’t perfect and it needs improving. The problem is, like in many areas, in trying to improve that situation, this Labour Government has decided, rather than to try and improve that objection process or appeals process to local alcohol plans, they want to just eliminate that entirely, and then, secondly, have taken the opportunity to make a number of changes to the process around liquor licensing, which we think go far too far, and that’s why we’re opposing the legislation.

I want to start with clause 10, amending section 102, which says “Any person”, when it comes to objections to an application. So you’ve got a young couple setting out in life, wanting to open up a new store to sell things, including alcohol, or a restaurant maybe that sells alcohol. So any people may object to an application or a grant of a licence, whether that person is an individual or a group.

Now, in the past, we haven’t allowed groups—as I understand it—to object, and I’d be interested to hear from the Minister what great progress will be made from that. I’d just like to get a sense from the Minister as to (a) what is this going to achieve, and (b) what cost and time is this going to add to the process.

I think we’re all conscious of the cost of living pressures that we live under and we all have to recognise that every time the Government passes more regulation, that imposes more cost on any process and eventually it flows through to the consumers who actually want to buy the beer or the wine or whatever they’re trying to get. So if you’re moving from a situation where, when it comes to getting a licence, having a fairly restricted group of people who are directly affected by a particular proposal having a say—which everyone would agree with—to completely flinging open the doors and saying that if you want to open a restaurant with a licence in Remuera, it’s OK for the anti-alcohol group from Invercargill to come and have their say, and the particular—

💬 Penny Simmonds: Please just give Invercargill a bit of a break, thank you.

I’m sorry, but it’s possible. To be honest, there is not always a meeting of minds between Invercargill and Auckland. So it doesn’t take too much imagination to realise that there are lobby groups throughout the country who are strongly opposed to any new licences, and it doesn’t take too much imagination to think that they could be quite well organised in that process and that they could use this ability to martial their resources around the country in order to make life as difficult as possible and to line up.

So I want to know what research or evidence has been pointed into the consequences of flinging the doors wide open to anybody and everybody to come in, and what additional cost that will add to any given process in this sense. So that’s just around that question.

Just before I address that question, I want to pop back to the last of Simon O’Connor’s three questions, which is that it will be for district licensing committees to decide how to regulate their procedures. So that won’t be something that the submitter has full control over.

It’s actually on that point that I want to pick up on Mr Goldsmith’s points—actually, no, before I do that, we do need to go back to the beginning of where this comes from. One of Mr Goldsmith’s colleagues—I think it was Mr McKelvie in his valedictory speech yesterday—talked about the importance of politicians being able to apply the LV Martin principle: it’s the putting right that counts. I was in this House when local alcohol plans were first being developed, and it would be fair to say that there were some pretty high ideals about what those local alcohol plans would achieve. It would be, to take Mr Goldsmith’s point, accepting some of the differences between different regions and how they might choose to see alcohol regulated within their regions. Indeed, the Invercargill Licensing Trust exists to this day, and there’s a different way of doing it than we already had.

What ended up playing out, however, has been a quite different approach, which has actually seen local communities stymied from being able to have the kind of local alcohol plan that they want. So the bill comes from that basis. It comes from the community returning to Government and saying, “You actually didn’t get this quite right, and now you need to put it right.” That is what has been done here. So I just wanted to say that that is the basis of what is being done here.

In terms of how it will deal with people who would be seen by the member Mr Goldsmith as vexatious in their objections or their submissions that they make: in many ways, select committees deal with this every day of the week. We often get a large number of form submissions that come in on a particular bill, and the select committee makes the decision that, actually, they’re not going to hear from all of those people, because they know that potentially they are not that representative of the wider views, or they can be dealt with by one single submission. So it will remain in the purview of the district licensing committees and appropriate authorities how they manage their hearings, dealing with objectors, and ruling out vexatious objections.

Equally, there are other changes in the bill that also will have an impact, even if there is an increase in objectors—for example, removing cross-examination and unnecessary formality in hearings will also likely reduce the length of those hearings, as well. So we are trying to make sure we facilitate real community participation and get a balance here, and I believe that’s what we’ve struck in the bill.

May I take it from that answer that the Government has done no research into what the effect on the cost of the process would be and that the Minister is not concerned about any person being able to come—and he thinks it will be fine.

💬 Hon Michael Wood: At the cost of 10 years of litigation.

That member might be tedious, but he shouldn’t throw these things around.

The next question is around trade competitors. So the next question is that a trade competitor may object to an application. We’re not talking about local alcohol plans, we’re talking about licensing applications. Under this legislation, it’s now possible for a trade competitor to object to an application, with two exceptions: if the objection does not relate to trade competition, or to the effects of trade competition. But otherwise, it’s open slather. So I’d just like to hear from the Minister what are the reasons that a trade competitor might come up with for objecting and why he thinks it’s appropriate for Parliament to allow trade competitors to object, given the ingenuity of people to come up with reasons.

We’re thinking about this, and these rules apply not just to setting up a new licence but also renewing a licence. So you’ve got your little store or your restaurant with a licence, and somebody wants to open a new one next door. You’re allowed to go along and say—well, you can’t say, “I object to this licence because I don’t want competition.”. but you can say, “I object to this licence because I’m worried that having two stores in this neighbourhood would be hurtful.”, and in the mind of that person, they wouldn’t be thinking about competition, but they’d be only concerned about the concerns of the community. Is this Government so naive that they think that that’s how it would operate?

That the trade competitor would say, “No, I object to this being opened up next door, not because I don’t want any competition, but because I am worried about the impact of having two stores in this community and we think that that’s an issue. On that basis, we think there will be too many temptations in the way of people in this community and it shouldn’t be opening.” Is the Minister really that naive to think that that wouldn’t lead to some pretty fundamental problems?

The next one is around clause 12 which replaces section 133, which is the renewal of licences where relevant local authority policy exists, and this is, I think, the thing that we most strongly object to. There are two steps in this process. We’re talking about setting up a local alcohol plan and then that goes through, and then, separately from that, there are the district licensing authorities, which actually do the deal about starting up new licences or renewing licences.

The core issue of this legislation is it says that once you’ve passed your local alcohol plan, and if your local alcohol plan says that there shall not be any liquor outlets within a kilometre of a school, for example—and that’s a new rule. It’s come through, it’s been approved, it’s gone through the process, and it’s been adopted. Under this legislation, when it comes to renewing a licence, the district licensing committee may decline to renew the licence if it considers that renewing the licence would be inconsistent with the policy, including the location.

So you’ve been in business for 50 years, you have an impeccable record, and you haven’t had any complaints. You’re just a couple of Kiwis trying to make a living and you’re proud of what you’ve built up—you know, that’s your retirement saving, that’s your plan, and that’s what you’ve done. That’s your business, giving something that people want for purchases, and you happen to be within 800 metres of a school, and then, suddenly, there’s a local alcohol plan that says you cannot be within a kilometre and—whoom-fa! You’re gone.

💬 Hon Grant Robertson: Boomfa?

Whoom-fa—you’re gone—and how does he justify that?

“Oom-fa!”

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): No, “Whoom-fa!”

Oh, “Whoom-fa!” It’s important to have that distinction, isn’t it?

Just to pop back to Mr Goldsmith’s previous comment, I’m advised that there has been consultation with local government around the management for objection and concerns about whether or not there’d be a great increase in volume and they have the tools to manage that volume and they are comfortable with it.

On the member’s two points, both of them were raised by Simon O’Connor, so I am now repeating my answers that I gave to Mr O’Connor. But Mr Goldsmith had one new point, and that was his question around trade competitors. It’s just really important to note that I find it somewhat ironic that the member has managed to flip, in two contributions, to two 180-degree opposite positions, which is suddenly he doesn’t want people to be able to be involved at all.

What we have at the moment is a situation where trade competitors have lodged objections that have unnecessarily and unfortunately limited the ability for local alcohol plans to be created. We are making changes that limit the extent that they can object by taking away the ability for that objection to be about trade competition matters. But the idea that they as residents, potentially, in a community would be entirely wiped out from being able to have a view, I would have thought that the member wouldn’t haven’t wanted. He would have wanted local community members to be involved. So there is now a limitation on trade competitors, and that I believe is appropriate, given the problems we’ve had. But that’s balanced against them still having some rights to actually be able to have a view.

Then on the question of renewals, I did answer this for Mr O’Connor earlier. The change here is a discretionary change. It allows a district licensing committee to be able to consider those issues around a local alcohol policy (LAP) around location and density, but not around other matters like trading hours, and, as I said to Mr O’Connor earlier, I’m sure the member is aware that people regularly have to update their licence. Someone who has been in business for 50 years would have had a regular process of having to update their licence, so this is now allowing in that renewal process for the LAP that will have been created to now be taken into account, and thereby a new entry to the market and an existing person will now be treated the same. I actually think that the member, if he stopped and thought about that for a minute, would realise that that was actually a fair process.

Thank you, Madam Chair. No I don’t recognise that at all. I’m not quite getting a clear reply from the Minister. It may be discretionary that a licensing authority may decline to renew a licence but this legislation gives them the power to decline a licence if it is consistent with the local alcohol policy.

💬 Anna Lorck: That’s the reason for it.

Yes, I know, and the question I’m trying to get from the answer is how he thinks that is justifiable. Maybe people don’t seem to understand it, but if you’re operating a business where you have your life savings in that business, and you’re trying to figure out whether to continue to invest in that business so it doesn’t look scrappy, or you want to put some money into it, over the horizon you have potentially zero confidence that you will be able to carry on that business next year because the licensing process could take your legs out from underneath you in a way that is not related at all to your conduct in any way. When it comes to renewing a liquor licence, if a store or a restaurant with a liquor licence has a terrible reputation, keeps on breaking the rules, is a centre for endless riots and trouble and strife, and has a reputation for selling liquor to 13-year-olds and all that sort of thing, I think everybody would understand that it would be justifiable not to renew the licence.

But what this bill is doing means that if somewhere in the process a liquor or alcohol plan suddenly decides that there shall be no stores within a kilometre of a school, for example—which they could—when your licence comes up for renewal and you’ve been, for 50 years, 800 metres from the school, suddenly you could be out for no other reason than that. What I want to understand is not whether it may or may not happen; it could happen. The point is that under this legislation it could happen and there would be no way back. So how does the Minister justify that?

My second question, as I have another two minutes, is around clause 12A, where we’re talking about special licences, and, again, any person may object. I’d be keen to hear from the Minister some examples of special licences where this might take place. So, you know, you’re trying to organise a wedding somewhere in a unique position somewhere out in the bush or whatever, out the back of Coromandel, with a special licence, and you can have—

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: There’s some very special licences in the back of the Coromandel.

You could have a special licence out the back of the Coromandel for a special event, and once more that busybody from Invercargill can come along and object. So I just want to know whether he thinks that’s practical or reasonable.

The next one is section 203A, “Licensing committees must establish appropriate procedures”—this is in clause 14. This legislation brings in a new rule. It does not permit parties or their representatives to question witness of other parties. So I’d be interested to get a clearer understanding of the thinking behind that. So if anybody is wanting to renew their licence—say you’re in Auckland and you’ve been in business for a long time and you’re wanting to renew your licence—and our friend from Invercargill turns up and says, “You’re a crook”, or “You’re a bad influence on the community and you keep selling to under-age people” or whatever, this bill is saying that they should not be allowed to be questioned in any way. That’s it—they say their thing, there’s no questioning, there’s no cross-examination, and there’s no way of testing that in any way. I’d just like to understand the logic behind that.

I’ll be brief because we are covering ground that I’ve already covered here. I think the member betrayed himself a little as to what’s going on here when he described the local alcohol policy as liquor plan rather than a local plan—rather than a local alcohol plan. That’s the point.

💬 Hon Paul Goldsmith: You got me.

That’s the point, though, isn’t it, Mr Goldsmith, because this is about reflecting the views of the local community. So when and if a local alcohol plan is developed—and the whole reason we’re here doing this is because it’s been very hard to do that under the legislation as it was passed—it will be reflective of the local community and therefore when it comes time for a renewal of a licence, you would expect that to take into account the views of the committee as now articulated.

And that would be my answer to the last part of the member’s approach as well. This is ostensibly a bill to make sure that the community’s views are heard and that people have an opportunity to do that in a way that is fair and is not about distorting market competition. That is because these are the problems that have existed in the community since the legislation was passed.

So I think the member is philosophically coming at the bill from the opposite direction—which doesn’t surprise me because it would be consistent for the member to do that—of the purpose of the bill, which is to facilitate greater and better community participation. And, Madam Chair, I think I’ve answered his other questions.

The question that immediately arises from the Minister’s commentary to the House is: what constitutes the local community? Because if it’s open to anybody anywhere in New Zealand to object, that is not a local community. That is, the prohibitionists in society are given an opportunity to have a rant every time they see someone either going for a renewal of a licence or for a new licence. And then, of course, we also know that under these local alcohol plans, when they’re advertised, etc., the vast majority of people who are quite comfortable with the licensing arrangements in their area don’t make submissions because they assume that this is something that society allows. So those who are opposed tend to have the louder voices.

And I think the problem with this, too, is that not only is that group of people who give their assent—and remember it’s only a few years, certainly in the member’s lifetime, that the whole question of prohibition was taken off the general election ballot each year. The question of whether an area wanted to remain a trust area was taken off that ballot because the assumption was that people, after generations of saying yes, accepted that these facilities would be available in their local community.

Now, the other problem I’ve got with this is there’s no specification in here about who might sit on those licensing applications. Look, the member can laugh, but throughout the country there are people who are in those positions who take extremely dim views of anything that comes out of a bottle, particularly if it’s got alcohol in it. And I think that’s a consideration that needs to be taken into account—should be taken into account.

The idea, too, that someone who’s operated successfully for a long period of time and complied with the law and any conditions of a licence could lose it because of an objection is also very unreasonable. If someone is operating outside the law, they’re acting irresponsibly, they’re behaving poorly, then yes, you’d understand why they would lose their licence or they would have special conditions put on them or whatever. This makes it too easy for anybody to raise objections that could see someone else lose not only their investment, their livelihood, but also a loss in a community. It might be a great win for the small group of people who don’t want it, but there’s been no reference to the larger volume of people who are quite comfortable with that facility being there.

And then I’d raise the issue of—in Christchurch we have, alongside the river in the central city, what was once known as “the strip”; a sort of series of bars, a very well-organised entertainment area. Now with all the laneways and what have you, there are smaller bars all throughout that facility; bars, cafes, small restaurants, etc. What if the local people there decide, or some big objectors get in there and say, “No, we don’t like that.”? Something that the whole city is quite proud of, quite pleased with, but then a small group of people put the knife in and go and convince the local hearing panel looking at the local alcohol policy that it should be shut down.

Now, look, the Minister over there shakes his head and says, “This couldn’t happen”. Lots of things happen as a consequence of law—lots of things happen as a consequence of law and this is a law that’s being imposed on the basis that it’s good for community participation, but essentially is going to ignore the vast majority of the community and simply give a voice—a much louder voice than is reasonable—to those who are opposed to this just on a principle basis. So my question is: what constitutes a community?

Just in terms of the appropriate procedures in proposed new section 203A—“allow for tikanga Māori to be incorporated into the proceedings”—I don’t see “tikanga Māori” defined anywhere. So I’d just like to have a clear definition from him as to what that means, thank you. Well, the tikanga from Ngati Porou might well be very different to somewhere else. So I just want to know what we’re talking about here. That would be helpful—that would be helpful.

Now, the other thing is—and maybe I’m misinterpreting this; it’s possible, who knows?—clause 15A strikes out a whole bunch of things in terms of directions of hearings, and it strikes out clause 205C, giving the power of a licensing committee to decline—may direct that the evidence or the brief be struck out of it is frivolous and vexatious. That’s been struck out, and I just want clarification. Does that mean that they no longer can do that or is it being referred to somewhere else in the legislation?

Just briefly on the last point, I’ll check, but I’m sure it is because they do continue to have the right to strike out vexatious submission or to consider a person who makes a submission to be vexatious. So that will already be dealt with elsewhere in the Act.

In terms of the only other new points that the member has raised around tikanga, he actually answered his own question in his statement, which is that a definition of it in the Act would not be reflective of the different tikanga in different parts of the country. It relates to Mr Brownlee’s points, which is that there is still a role here for local government and the entities and committees that get created at a local level. There will be a variety of people with a variety of views on those committees, as there will be a variety of tikanga in different parts of the country. Local authorities and local committees such as this already know how to run themselves. And, normally, it is the Opposition telling us that we should not be telling local government how to do their job, and this bill holds the principle that local government will be able to—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: That’s the job they shouldn’t have.

Well, that may well be the case, Mr Brownlee, but that’s not what this bill is about.

Thank you. Thank you for that non-answer, Mr Chair, Mr Speaker—whatever he is; he’s “Minister”, I think. I suppose the final and broader point—and I don’t know, I sense a slight determination on the part of the Minister to get on with it and just ram all this stuff through one week before an election, and we worry about that. But the broader point I want to make is around the impact that it has on this being an example of a Government that has had a tendency to add regulatory costs particularly to small businesses but all businesses very freely and with surprisingly little thought given to the impact that it has on consumers.

Because ultimately all the cost of this filters through the system and ends up adding to the cost of beer and wine or whatever in this case. But there are many other—countless—examples. If you think in the area of housing, for example, if you pass all the regulations around expectations around XYZ, there’s no magic. It doesn’t come out of the air. Somebody has to pay for it. And then, ultimately, in the case of housing, it ends up with the renters having to pay for it.

So in this area, what we’ve got in total is we’ve got flinging open the doors wide when it comes to any objectors from anywhere. Not just sort of saying it should be individuals who object, but it can be organisations, the temperance union or whatever from anywhere can come and object to anything. And then it lists all the sorts of things that have to happen in terms of translation being offered. It should allow for an unspecified set of tikanga that could be incorporated. So a whole lot of extra ability for these things to go longer and in a more convoluted fashion. The one countervailing thing that the bill does offer is the fact that you can’t ask any questions of the people who make objections, and so you’ve just got to sit there and listen to it and then, ultimately, pay for it.

I suppose the thing that worries me is the kind of assumption that the small-business operations, which are by far and away the largest number of licence holders—small operations, little mum and dad operations—can just soak up all this and if it takes a few days to grind your way through this process, so be it. And if it costs you $2,000, well, so be it and that will magically sort of just appear from somewhere and it won’t have any impact on the costs.

Then, secondly, whether it will have impact on—so, I mean, what we’re trying to achieve is to reduce the harm of excessive liquor consumption in our communities. But we’re also trying to balance the fact that we also want a vibrant hospitality sector. And I’ve heard the Minister in the chair wax lyrical on many occasions, particularly in the context of the Rugby World Cup and FIFA and all that, about how wonderful this is for the hospitality sector and how important the hospitality sector is. Yet at the same time they’re passing legislation which may have an enormously profound effect on participants in that sector if they fall foul of the views of somebody from anywhere and the local alcohol plans, if they are unduly restrictive.

So the two sort of comments that I’d like to hear from the Minister is: how is he so confident that this process won’t lead ultimately to higher costs to consumers and is he confident that the hospitality sector in general is supportive of this legislation and that they’re calling out for it and that they think that they would be treated reasonably under it?

I move, That the question be now put.

Motion agreed to.

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

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

The bill is set down for third reading immediately.

Third Reading