Recall that when that legislation was before Parliament the headline issue was whether the drinking age should be raised from 18 to 20. The Greens were all for it, as were most Labour MPs. The bill had its genesis in the previous Labour Government when pressure came from public health campaigners to reverse the liberal licensing trend of the late 20th century.
The raising of the age was narrowly defeated on a free vote in the House but headline issues are not always a reliable indicator of the underlying direction of public policy. Farmers may have won an exemption for small employers in the workplace safety legislation this week but you can bet the rest of the new health and safety regime is a regulator's picnic like the liquor law.
The era of deregulation is now a distant memory, discredited by leaky buildings, binge drinking, Pike River and the collapse of two faulty constructions in the Christchurch earthquake. We are heading now to the other extreme, where any risk is unacceptable.
When business despairs at "compliance costs" I used to think it was a minor grizzle. That was before I started running my tennis club's bar.
To provide a glass of wine or a beer after a game we discovered we needed a liquor licence. To get it we first needed a building code consent. The building is a pavilion with glass ranch sliders along the front wall, opening on to decks that step down to the courts. Code consent required us to install, among other things, illuminated "fire exit" signs above two conventional doors we are least likely to use in an emergency.
Next we discovered the signs had to be tested several times a year by an "IQP" (independently qualified person) at our expense. An IQP turned out to be a company. Now its inspector has found we have an exit button for an electronic lock on one of the designated fire doors and it also requires several inspections a year and certification, which the company cannot do. The firm that monitors our security alarm can do it, at further cost.
Whole industries are growing on this nonsense. The cost to the economy doesn't bear thinking about. The cost to my club is worrying me enough.
Our licence is now a year old and to renew it we have had to submit the same pile of paper we supplied last year, plus a renewal fee, plus an annual fee. Then there are fees for managers' licences.
These sorts of costs arise from dull legislative details written in Parliament's committee rooms where only the Greens may be awake. They probably have no idea of the perverse consequences they create.
Our bar is a tiny operation run entirely by volunteers but I'm beginning to see why the bar in some other clubs is no longer ancillary to their sporting activities. They stage tournaments and other events mainly to recover bar costs. Regulations are forcing them to sell more of the stuff the regulations are supposed to restrict.
The regulatory instinct has seldom been exposed as starkly as it has been on this one. Greens initially opposed David Seymour's bill outright, then realised they looked like wowsers and offered to support it with restrictions. Even minor restrictions mean applications, inspections, permits and the rest, as they knew.
Thankfully Parliament voted for a simple blanket right, to the chagrin of those who've never seen a regulation they didn't like.
