Alcohol Reform Bill – Committee Stage

Wednesday 24 October 2012

Te Ururoa Flavell, Māori Party MP for Waiariki

Tēnā koe, Mr Chairperson. Kia ora tātou katoa. I wanted to take an opportunity to look at a fair chunk of Supplementary Order Paper 81, which I have presented to the House.

But to set the scene and to make sure that it is in a context, one in five Māori will have an alcohol disorder at some stage in their lives. One in 10 will become dependent on alcohol. Those most likely to have alcohol abuse and dependence issues are those living in the very poorest households and communities. Alcohol use in low socio-economic communities is associated with high levels of crime, educational underachievement, poor economic prospects, and chronic welfare dependency. That is where the Māori Party does not want our people to be.

Lifting the standard of living in these communities means addressing alcohol issues. Māori make up a disproportionate number of the clients in alcohol and drug treatment services. Māori tamariki and rangatahi are seen by alcohol and drug treatment services at least three times the rate of non-Māori the same age. So from the Māori Party perspective we have much to do. Although the Alcohol Reform Bill does go some way towards addressing some of those issues, clearly, across the House, as we have had the debate over the last two days, there are some of us who feel we could go a little bit further.

There are a number of key clauses that I wanted to identify to the House in my opportunity to speak. Pretty much most of them are captured in this part. The first one is relatively straightforward, and it is talking about the notion of a sinking-lid policy, if you like, on off-licences. What we are talking about here is starting to bring down the number of liquor stores while allowing relocation of existing premises and not to disadvantage those who are already there, but certainly look toward the sinking lid policy, if you want to call it that.

When I was a young fellow in my home town of Ngongotahā, which is just north of Rotorua, there was one pub, full stop; one pub. Whether that is a good thing or bad thing I will not say, but it was a vital part of the community. I listened to the Hon Judith Collins talk about her circumstances when she was younger, and pretty much—my mother, in particular, visited that place, and it was good for the community. It was good for the community. My dad, I can be proud to say, bless his soul, was known as a sly-grogger at Mangakino at the power station at a time when Maori were not allowed to buy alcohol. So there is a bit of a context there.

But coming back to Ngongotahā, there was one pub for that small community. If you go through Rotorua heading to Tauranga on the back road, you will find it. Now there are two bottle stores, two pubs, and a supermarket, all selling alcohol. I digress from the topic.

What I am saying, and other speakers have talked about this, is that the proliferation of venues that sell alcohol has grown. I am talking about my small home town that, as I said, had one small pub that was a central focus. Now it has five places that you can buy alcohol. It just does not seem right. We have heard from other stories. Louisa Wall talked about Manurewa, her electorate, or Ōtara; the smaller places where you can walk around and at every corner you will find a liquor outlet. Small outlets that can even fit in half the size or even a quarter of the size of this House, set up to sell alcohol.

We have got to do something about that, and my amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 81 is about moving in that direction; bringing a sinking-lid policy while not disadvantaging those who are already in that business, I suppose.

So that is the first point, and I hope that the House gives some serious consideration to that. Another part of the amendment that I bring to the House is changing and adapting the trading hours from 8 a.m. to 4 a.m., to 10 a.m. to 3 a.m. That is a change in the opportunity, again, to sell alcohol. The other element that is brought in here is for on-licence premises to have a one-way door policy, meaning that once you are in the premises, you are stuck there. If you go out, goodbye, do not come back; after 1 o’clock, it is time to go home.

Very often, I know from having taken some young adults from home into Rotorua, they tend to move around, for whatever reason, and in doing so, they consume more alcohol as they go. It is likely they have some in the cars, because they want to visit all of the nightclubs. This is one way of dealing with this particular angle of young people moving from place to place. Once you go in the premises, you are there. You are stuck there, and if you go, it is the end of the story between the hours of 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. We think that this is a good provision that will, hopefully, be supported by the House. I note some of the comments made by the Minister of Justice earlier about the trading hours—many comments, actually—that there are only 3 out of 24 hours when alcohol is not available to be sold, at this point in time. That is wrong. That is wrong.

The third part of the amendments that I have put forward are talking about the proximity to schools in respect of being a part of the deciding factors about whether a licence can be issued. I know that Louisa Wall talked about that, and some have talked about perhaps having a distance. What we are talking about here is making sure that it has a little bit more bite to how those licensing authorities actually go about their work. Again, we think this is a sensible thing. It gives a little more clout to licensing authorities to give more consideration to where schools are in terms of determining whether the place that is selling the alcohol is allowed to have a licence and, in fact, set up a premises in that proximity.

The last one that I wanted to touch base on in the bit of time I have got available, without diverting too far, is to talk about this question about the appointment to licensing committees within territorial authorities. In a sense, because Māori for all intents and purposes have been at the bad end of some of the statistics—and I opened with some of those comments—the view is that it would be appropriate to have Māori representation as of right, if you like, on those territorial authorities. So the Supplementary Order Paper is asking that there be provisions, or rather that the provisions in respect of the appointment of licensing committees within territorial authorities are amended so as to provide for the appointment of Māori members by local iwi or hapū to those committees. In the amendment, it proposes that "3 [members] are appointed by the territorial authority for that ... district; and 1 [member] is appointed by local iwi or hapū ...".

What we found, even in places like the Rena, and we spoke about it in the Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act Repeal Bill recently is that not only the impact but also the ability of Māori to be a part of decision-making processes within those authorities by hapū and by iwi is an important ingredient to getting buy in. It would seem to us, back on the experience of the Rena disaster, that having Māori involvement at that level—at the decision-making level—brings about buy in. Certainly it does at a hapū level, because these appointments would be made by hapū and iwi people, therefore there must be a link back to the local community.

In that regard, we would hope that the Minister looked carefully at this one. It is not a big ask—one person, an iwi or hapū delegate to be appointed on to the territorial authorities to be able to give some insight, if you like, into not how Māori think about alcohol, because sometimes thinking does not come into it, but certainly to be able to have input about the disastrous effects that it has had on Māori hapū, iwi, and kāinga.

So those are pretty much the main thrusts of the amendments, certainly around the licensing requirements and conditions. I have not touched on minimum pricing, because I think we will hold that one for a little bit longer. But certainly we believe that these amendments that are here are fair, are considered, and may well add or at least contribute in some way to dealing with some of the issues that members across the House have raised. We ask the Minister to give serious consideration to amendments in that order.

I very much appreciate the opportunity just to sort of wrap up the contributions that are encompassed in my awesome Supplementary Order Paper, which I think most of the Committee is going to support, and that is this question about pricing. I appreciated the comments from the Minister, Judith Collins. I was watching up in the office and listening to the debate, and did acknowledge some of the points that she made, but, as she said, we all come with a view to trying to make some contribution. I think she talked about this bill being a moderate bill. We would hope that we would take “moderate” on to a little bit better than moderate, and that is why all of us are contributing today.

Just to wrap up, in terms of a number of the parts in my Supplementary Order Paper I wanted to talk about minimum price. There are two parts to this, and if I just refer to the explanatory note, which pretty much wraps it all up. I am talking about a new provision that would be added to set a minimum price per unit of alcohol and to outline the offences related to the sale of alcohol below the minimum price. I acknowledge that minimum pricing is a, sort of, one-shoe-fits-all. It certainly targets the younger ones where, you know—I think one of the speakers talked about a box of “woodies”. That is not anything that I know too much about—a box of “woodies”—but I hear our young people talking about it a lot. It is so easy to go in and just get those sorts of drinks, and there are others, of course. There are all sorts of mixtures that I do not see too much of. And then, of course, at the other end of the scale you have got the older people, and I think the Minister referred to those who have their regular bottle of sherry every week. They might be hit by really exorbitant prices and costings, which would be unfair to them. One of the best days that I have ever had in this Chamber was one night when we were talking, I forget the bill, and the best thing about this day was the Hon Simon Power was the Minister of a particular bill and he took the time out one night—one of the few times I have seen in this House—and he listened to the debate. It was obviously a controversial issue that I cannot remember. One of the other members may be able to recall it. Was it Justice?

Oh, OK. It was one night when he actually came down and made a change, and I suppose the point I am trying to make is that there is opportunity to make change to this bill, and although I understand the concept of one shoe not necessarily fitting all—both situations, dealing with the young ones, and yet possibly disadvantaging the older group—I think there may be room for movement. If it was good enough for Simon Power on that particular occasion, I would kind of like to hope that it is good enough for the Minister to make adjustments, if appropriate, to deal with this issue.

Someone mentioned, how do you actually apply some sort of formula to recognising and dealing with the whole notion of minimum pricing? And lo and behold, I can help you out because in my Supplementary Order Paper there is actually a formula that is based on a minimum price per unit versus the strength of the alcohol versus the volume of the alcohol in litres. How we got to that formula I am not exactly sure, but I think we were given advice by those far more knowledgeable than me about working out formulas.

But if the Minister was looking for a formula, well, there is a starting point at least. So it is possible to work it out. The question about minimum prices is one question, but another one is talking about raising the price of alcohol and whether that does contribute in any way, shape, or form to minimising the harm. The evidence that I have come across and other speakers have talked about is that raising the price of alcohol is internationally evidenced as the best strategy for reducing alcohol-related harm. It stands to reason because it is the same philosophy, the same drive, that has moved the Minister, the Hon Tariana Turia, with respect to cigarettes.

So there has got to be something in there. Clearly, as was also evidenced by a number of speakers, cheap products are favoured by younger drinkers, who are more likely to spend some of the pocket money they might get from their parents on those cheaper drinks. The evidence shows that widespread availability of cheap alcohol products encourages excessive and harmful drinking. In the last decade alcohol has clearly become more affordable relative to income, with the cheapest alcohol available at around 74c per standard drink.

ends

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