Legislation on alcohol went to a conscience vote this week, and the result was a reminder how some parties still tend to vote as a group on such issues.
Conscience voting is a concept where every Member of Parliament is enabled to vote individually rather than along party lines on a bill or motion, but some parties still tend to vote as a group.
Occasionally in Parliament conscience votes are held on what are often described 'moral matters' such as abortion or euthanasia. Alcohol related bills are also generally subject to conscience votes, and this is what happened on Wednesday night when Green MP Chloe Swarbrick's Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Harm Minimisation) Amendment Bill, a Member's Bill, had its first reading.
The first part of Swarbrick's Bill would have empowered local councils to regulate alcohol sales, trading hours, and locations for drinking grog by abolishing the Special Appeals process from Local Alcohol Policies, the current system in which alcohol sellers have demonstrated an ability to frustrate council efforts to curb them - it's partly why you see lots of bottle shops in poorer and more marginalised communities.
When kicking off the first reading, Swarbrick referred to it as an "uncomfortable debate about how we treat and think about our country's favourite drug".
"Alcohol is consumed by around 80 percent of New Zealanders. And of the adults who drank last year, 25.4 percent of us did so hazardously. We drafted this bill to reduce that drug harm. The Bill does that with mechanisms long researched and recommended to Governments of both stripes over the past 10 years."
The Bill's second part looked to ban alcohol advertising and sponsorship in sport, pursuant to recommendations from a Ministerial Forum on Alcohol Advertising and Sponsorship established by the previous National-led government a decade ago.
Chance to fix
Both the National Party and the Act Party opposed the Bill, warning of threats to businesses from the proposed legislation and concern about the impact on "natural justice".
"It's important that we have natural justice in our laws. There are consequences of this bill on our small businesses and members of our community, and they have a right to their voice," said Act's Brooke van Velden.
In response, Swarbrick reminded van Velden that "we're talking about special appeals; we're not talking about removal of judicial appeals"…