It has been interesting attending suffrage events over the past week or so. Through people’s stories, historical re-enactments and so on we have been reminded that the suffrage campaigns arose from an organisation called the Women’s Christian Temperance Movement. The goal of getting suffrage was, for the WCTU, to bring women’s influence to bear on the waves of misery and despair caused by uncontrolled drinking, usually by the male head of household. In essence, they argued, that to see alcohol from a women’s perspective is to abhor the effects it has on the society as a whole.
I have viewed the temperance stories this year from a somewhat different perspective, as I am currently working with Community Law Centres Aotearoa on a ‘community champions’ project, aimed at providing legal support and advice to communities wishing to oppose alcohol licences.
The 2012 legislation was set up specifically to allow people to apply for licences, and to allow communities (and some agencies) to object to or oppose them. The idea was that the parties would come together and decisions would be made at the local level.
The trouble is that the law treats the alcohol industry and communities as if they are equal. But they are not. Since the Act was passed, the alcohol industry has used immense financial and legal resources to fight Councils wishing to develop Local Alcohol Policies. Christchurch alone has spent over a million dollars trying to develop its own policy, and has been stymied all the way by industry lawyers, intent on ensuring that maximum hours and minimum conditions operate across the country.
While community members can object, there are huge barriers. They first have to find out that an application has been made, and often that is difficult within a tight timeframe. Then they have to make an objection in the prescribed format. Some people do not have internet access, have disabilities and / or may have other difficulties in completing their objection.
If they do object in time, here comes the rub: The High Court has ruled that the District Licensing Committee is able to assume that a person has lost interest in, or does not mean, their objection, if they do not come to give oral evidence at the hearing. People are at work, or disabled, or elderly and not mobile, or are not confident in speaking. For many people, the notion that they are going to be cross-examined by lawyers is a huge turn-off.
Therefore, many people with valid objections do not get heard. Recently, a number of community organisations have sought to get over this problem by taking up the baton in areas of high deprivation. The wonderful Barrister, Grant Hewison, has been involved in cases on behalf of Communities Against Alcohol Harm all around the North Island. He does not get paid for this work, but does it out of concern for the people.
The response from the alcohol industry has been to challenge the status of that and other groups to be heard. The law says that any person wanting to object must have an interest greater than that of the average person. The law, of course, frequently uses the term ‘person’ to refer to groups (so any applicant, for a licence, individual or company, is a ‘person’), but in this case the term is being taken as evidence that Parliament did not intend any groups to make submissions on applications.
In a long submission made in the name of the Buddle Finlay law partnership, the case is carefully made out how this small community group, busting its guts for no fee, should have no jurisdiction because it is not a ‘person’. If the rights of this and other groups to make objections are revoked through legal action, then communities are thrown back on their individual resources, and alcohol outlets continue to proliferate, causing alcohol harm in communities.
Two recent reports are relevant here. The first is a WHO report showing that one in twenty deaths are attributable to alcohol in part or whole.
The second, released last week, was from the Bar Association (i.e. Barristers) trying to find solutions to the chronic lack of access to justice for ordinary people in Aotearoa.
The alcohol industry is a large and wealthy one. There is plenty of money to be made. But it is important to understand that it is also a harmful one, as recognised by those women 125 years ago. In principle the law now recognises the right of communities to stand as equals and oppose harmful applications. In practice, wealth, power and lawyer’s writs seek constantly to quash the practice of an equal say.
In my new role I am sure I will have more to say on this matter over the next few months.
Dr Liz Gordon began her working life as a university lecturer at Massey and the Canterbury universities. She spent six years as an Alliance MP, before starting her own research company, Pukeko Research. Her work is in the fields of justice, law, education and sociology (poverty and inequality). She is the president of Pillars, a charity that works for the children of prisoners, a prison volunteer, and is on the board of several other organisations. Her mission is to see New Zealand freed from the shackles of neo-liberalism before she dies (hopefully well before!).
