G/TBT/N/NZL/62/Add.1  
 
17 February 2014  
(14-0962)  Page: 1/2  
Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade  Original: English  
 
NOTIFICATION  
Addendum 
The following communication, dated 12 February 2014, is being circulated at the request of the 
delegation of New Zealand.  
 
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 TITLE: Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill: Introduction to 
Parliament of new legislation for plain packaging of tobacco products. 
AGENCY: Ministry of Health 
ACTION: Introduction of legislation to Parliament SUMMARY: The New Zealand Ministry of Health has previously notified the TBT Committee (in 
G/TBT/N/NZL/62) of a proposal to introduce mand atory plain packaging of tobacco products in 
New Zealand. Legislation has now been drafted and the Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain 
Packaging) Amendment Bill was introduced to Parliament on 17 December 2013. The New Zealand 
Government is consulting on the draft legislation. 
It is proposed that the legislation will: 
- ensure that tobacco products are not manufactu red, distributed, or sold unless they comply 
with the requirements set out in the legislation and regulations made pursuant to it; 
- enable regulations to be made to set out the detailed requirements for the design and 
physical appearance of any packaging used or  intended for use with tobacco products, and 
of the tobacco products themselves; 
- permit the product packaging to display th e brand or company name for the product and 
 certain other manufacturer information, but only in accordance with the regulations; 
- amend existing regulation-making powers relating to health warnings on tobacco products to 
broaden their scope to include warnings of wider adverse social and economic effects and 
also to enable positive health promotion messages; and 
- create new offences with significant penalties to effectively deter and punish any non-
compliance (and increase the penalties for existing offences related to advertising, 
promoting, or labelling tobacco products to bring these into alignment with the penalties for 
the new offences). 
The implementing regulations will be developed at a later date. At an appropriate time, the 
New Zealand Government will conduct further consultations in respect of those draft regulations. 
The legislation will give effect to the Government's decision of 18 February 2013 to introduce a 
plain packaging regime for tobacco products in New Zealand. The policy objective of the legislation 
is to further reduce the ability of the tobacco industry to market tobacco products, and in 
particular, to prevent tobacco promotion and advertising from occurring on tobacco products and tobacco product packaging, in order to: 
- reduce the appeal of tobacco products an d smoking, particularly for young people; 
- further reduce the  wider social acceptance and approval of smoking and tobacco products; G/TBT/N/NZL/62/Add.1 
 
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  - increase the noticeability and effectiveness of mandated health warning messages and 
images; and 
- reduce the likelihood that consumers might acquire false perceptions about the harms 
caused by tobacco products. 
Combined with the existing package of tobacco control measures, this specific measure will 
contribute to the broader objective of improving public health by: 
- discouraging people from taking up smoking, or using tobacco products; 
- encouraging people to give up smoking, and to stop using tobacco products; 
- discouraging people who have given up smoking, or who have stopped using tobacco 
products, from relapsing; 
- reducing people's exposure to smoke from tobacco products; and  
- supporting New Zealand in meeting its international commitments and obligations under the 
WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, particularly in relation to the guidelines developed to support implementation of Articles 11 and 13. 
DATES: The Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Pl ain Packaging) Amendment Bill was introduced 
to Parliament on 17 December 2013. The Bill received its first reading in Parliament on 11 February 2014 and was sent to the Health Select Committee for consideration. 
COMMENTS: Comments can be sent to tobacco@moh.govt.nz  and will be accepted within 60 days 
from the date of this notification. 
URLs:  Draft legislation:  
http://www.parliament.nz/en-nz/pb/legislat ion/bills/00DBHOH_BI LL12969_1/smoke-free-
environments-tobacco-plain-packaging-amendment   
2012 Consultation document and Regulatory Impact Statement:  
http://www.health.govt.nz/con sultation/plainpackaging  
 
  
 
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