The Act Opposition has accused the Attorney-General, Terry Connolly, of hypocrisy over his suggestion that restricted liquor trading hours should be looked at for suburban areas. Mr Connolly made the suggestion of a 2am closing after police were forced to block a road at Manuka on New Year’s Eve. Opposition Leader Kate Carnell said yesterday that when the Legislative Assembly’s Select Committee on Drugs had recommended a 4am closure in May last year Mr Connolly had said it would be counterproductive. She quoted him from Hansard as saying, “”There would be a tendency for people to swill drink in the hour or so before the curfew came into force . . . At 4am or whatever time it would be, thousands of young people, probably in a fairly intoxicated state, would all be on the streets at the same time.” She said Mr Connolly had got it wrong in refusing a temporary closure of Franklin Street in Manuka for New Year’s Eve and the police had had to do it for him for public-safety reasons. His call for early closing was kneejerk, an attempt to bail himself out and cynical.