1. The sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012 (SASAA)
What's working and what needs a tweak?
Murray Clearwater
Chairperson/Commissioner
Wellington, Taupo & Tauranga District Licensing Committees

2. WHAT’S WORKING
Councils that have appointed competent personnel to their DLCs are producing quality, robust decisions;
Chairs/Commissioners must have a good grasp of the legal framework, effective decision writing skills and a sound knowledge of the licensing environment both past and present;
List members must bring a good grasp of the licensing environment and most importantly local knowledge of the community to the table;
In Wellington we have been devising some generic sets of conditions for the main licence types with the very able assistance of our Super Principal Advisor Clare Needham . We intend to offer them to you for your use if you wish via LGNZ once we have fine tuned them and are happy that they tick the boxes;

3. It is so important that conditions are relevant, necessary, clear & concise and enforceable. The Licence needs to be a working document not a process record.
Permissive conditions are often helpful and are constant reminders to licensees and punters as to the requirements made of them. Restrictive conditions can only be imposed by consent or after a hearing where evidence has been adduced from both sides in a balanced fashion. The DLC members will then decide what conditions are required;
Many councils are publishing their decisions on their websites improving the transparency of the process, many are not. I encourage you to get your decisions available on your websites as these are helpful to the agencies and the public at large.

4. Challenges
The delays in getting necessary amendments to the Act are not helpful e.g. Temporary Authority and Temporary Appointment quorums; (ARLA Annual report)
Those DLC’s that are still operating as DLA’s need to get their act together and make the necessary changes so that they operating lawfully and can contribute to the new regime and the Object of the Act;
The Purpose says this is a NEW system of control not the same old same old;
Hearings must be undertaken lawfully and competently and the written decisions well constructed clearly setting out the reasons for the decision and the decision itself;
Bill of Rights issues Section 27 Natural Justice right to be heard and be treated fairly/ Judicial review

5. The decisions must be made available to all parties to the application and especially the reporting agencies. See S.211(3). Often we will compliment officers for collaboraction, for example, or we might give them a gentle poke if they have erred in the rationale of their argument. If they don’t get to see our decisions and why we did, or did not, impose the conditions that they have recommended they will never learn from the experience.
In summary I just want to say that the new roles in the DLCs require commitment, and the application of skill and knowledge to be able to effectively contribute to the minimisation of alcohol related harm in our communities.