Unscheduled remit prompted trust bill

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33929, 23 August 1975, Page 7

Unscheduled remit prompted trust bill

(F.-om CEDRIC MENTIPLAY)

WELLINGTON.

An unscheduled remit which was carried with acclamation at the Labour Party conference last May is likely to remove local licensing trusts from the control of the Licensing Control Commission. It could also destroy the citizen’s right of appeal against decisions of these and other trusts.

At present, New Zealand has eight district trusts, 12 local trusts, and five suburban trusts. The effect of the licensing Trusts Amendment Bill would be to allow the suburban trusts and some of the local trusts to become district trusts. This would have the effect of removing

them from the jurisdiction of the Licensing Control Commission, to which district trusts are not responsible. It would allow such trusts to make their own decisions on the siting of liquor-sell-ing premises (including liquor shops), and would remove the right of a local citizen to lodge an objection and to have it heard by the Licensing Control Commission. The original Licensing Trusts Amendment Bill had a sub-clause allowing objections to a site to be referred to the Town and Country Planning Appeal Board. If the board upheld the objection, the trust could not build on that. site. In the present version of the bill, however, this sub-clause has been removed. 82 ABSENT It has been assumed that the three bills brough down by the Minister of Justice (Dr Finlay) were a means of implementing the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the sale of liquor, which made its report last December. Inspection of the measures indicates, however, that only 10 of the 92 recommendations made by the commission have been incorporated. Perhaps the most important recommendation of the commission related to the establishment of an alcholic liquor advisory council. The council was to work towards combating the harmful effects of abuse of alcohol. It was to be funded by a levy on sales by clubs and trust, and was to be strongly supported by the Liquor Industry Council. It has been discarded, apparently because there has not been enough time to assemble the relevant structure. NO CRITICISM When the commission’s report was released, Dr Finlay made a long and sympathetic comment on it. He made no criticism of the commission’s recommendation “that the jurisdiction of the Licensing Control Commission should be extended to enable it to exercise its ordinary powers of supervision, and to carry out its normal statutory functions, in all district licensing trust areas, with proper safeguards to preserve and protect existing preferential rights of trusts." The legislation introduced yesterday is opposite to that proposed by the Royal Commission. It will release large suburban areas, notably in Auckland and Wellington, from any supervision by the Licensing Control Commission or by local committees. Where hearings are set up to deal with objections, the district trusts will be their own judges as well as advocates. “NOT LEAPING IN” Speaking to the Licensing Trusts Association earlier this year, Dr Finlay suggested that although he had an intervening power, he was not persuaded that a Minister was an ideal person to hold such power. He added: “I will not be leaping in hastily to alter the present scheme of things.” For some time, Labour i Party gatherings have considered strongly supported remits calling for the replacement of suburban trusts by district rules. At the 1976 Labour Party conference, one remit opposed district trusts’ coming under the

Licensing Control Commission, while another proposed that the Portage and Waitakere trusts be made into district trusts.

“ROAR OF APPROVAL” According to one observer at the Labour Party conference “the most traumatic expression of unified purpose at the conference was the roar of approval which greeted on unscheduled resolution.” The remit was: “That legislation be passed by Parliament this session to enable any suburban trust which wishes to become a district trust to be able to do so.” Support of this view in Auckland and Wellington went far beyond the Labour Party. The chairman of the Johnsonville trust (Mr Egan Ogier), who is prominent in National Party circles, said in support of this action: “It will allow each trust to establish small community cof-fee-house size drinking lounges, single-purpose bottle stores in shopping centres which are too small to have a tavern, and where provision of a large tavern would encroach on the immediate residential area — and it would allow the trust to plan its future without reference to anyone other than the community is it selected to serve.” After this and other statements, the Liquor Industry Council sent a telegram to Dr Finlay. The telegram called for the Licensing Control Commission to be established as a single authority over all licensing trusts, including the district ones, so that a single standard could be maintained. The telegram was not answered. The Liquor .Industry Council was not consulted before the bills were introduced. In the meantime, a number of other apparent anomalies have come to light. The hearings of the three bills before the Statutes Revision Committee will be long, and they may not be completed by the time Parliament rises.