Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. It's a pleasure to stand on behalf of the Green Party on the second reading of this legislation tonight and I just want to acknowledge as others have the Minister for bringing this legislation before the House. I also want to acknowledge the Health Committee for indulging me; and also the officials who were incredible; an impeccable display of—again indulging many questions from members' scattergun approach of just canvassing every single thing that came out of submitters and submissions effectively to ensure that we were getting the most robust and most tested version of legislation possible. And there have been a number of changes that have been made to this legislation throughout that select committee process and I'll get to those in a minute because that select committee process was—as others have alluded to—quite profound. It was incredibly profound to hear from community members who have been directly impacted by losing loved ones as a result of this product of tobacco but also to hear from many public health experts and advocates and those who work in cessation treatment—and I want to acknowledge the many who are in the gallery tonight.But I also really want to acknowledge one of the many tamariki who came in front of our committee—the committee that I was subbed in to—to express her aspirations for the future of Aotearoa. And I promised her that I would read this in the second reading so here it is from a few months ago. This is Tiger who came with her mum to submit to us at select committee. And she said and I read from her declaration to our Health Committee Tēnā koutou katoa. My name is Tiger. I really want tobacco to get out of Aotearoa because it is bad for our whānau. It is bad for their lungs and their heart. My nanny died from smoking tobacco. I miss her so much. That's why I want them out of the shops and out of Aotearoa. No reira tēnā koutou tēnā koutou katoa." That's kind of the point; that's why we're doing this. And I also want to acknowledge some of the good-faith interactions that I think have been demonstrated by some members of the Opposition. However I would like to see them extend that same logic that they throw out around evidence-based approaches and concerns about the black market to other substances that they're very happy to hand control over to the unregulated black market. Because when we're talking about substances whether they be cannabis or alcohol or tobacco you're effectively provided with a spectrum of different regulatory opportunities which we in this House have the opportunity to legislate for. On one end you have a complete commercial free market and on the other end you have complete criminal prohibition. And at both ends of that extreme without interventions for harm reduction and recognising the fact that we aren't going to completely eradicate some of these substances from planet Earth—because by God we've been trying for the past few decades and ratcheting up penalties as a result of that trying throwing more and more people in prison and not getting any better outcomes. At both ends of that spectrum what you see is the maximisation of harm. That can really be whittled down to an equivalence of—whether it is in the complete free legal market or under complete criminal prohibition you have entities whether they are commercial entities or criminal entities who are operating from an incentive to exploit vulnerable communities in order to make a quick buck. How do we draw back from those extremes? Through regulation through sensible regulation of supply and dealing also with the reality of that demand and no meaningful regulation to reduce that harm is going to be able to not grapple with either side of that equation.So to speak to some of the things which we did end up chewing through in that select committee process—and I'd here refer members to my first reading speech where I also spoke about a sense of unease with some of the untested provisions in this legislation. We really did kick them around and pull them apart and it's why I feel particularly stoked about the introduction of the review clause—which the chair doctor Tangi Utikere has mentioned—because that review clause was really important to us in the Greens to make sure that we ended up with ultimately looking at whether these novel measures were having the efficacy that they were promised to with regard to reducing smoking rates and getting us towards that goal of Smokefree 2025. So too it was really important for us to look at penalties because we did not want to see those structurally marginalised communities—who happen to be the exact same communities who are suffering the brunt of harm as a result of tobacco—to be those who end up criminally prosecuted or penalised or in trouble or experiencing even further harm as a result of our criminal justice system with the introduction of new penalties. So I think it's really important for people to know that there are no new criminal penalties in this legislation; there are civil fines. And that again is a really important mechanism when it comes to drug harm reduction. However still outstanding as others have canvassed in their speech—and I think it's actually acknowledged in the select committee report and I think many members of the Health Committee even on the Government side will be completely upfront about the fact that there's still so much more work to do on vaping. You know it wasn't until last term when we finally introduced Madam Chair with some of your leadership—some controls around vaping. I don't think most New Zealanders recognise or understand or know that until that point of that legislation last term it was entirely self-regulated. That's why we had the proliferation of advertising in YouTube advertising and storefronts and billboards and everything else. It is a really hard process to bring things back under control after that genie is out of the bottle. But again there is still more work to do. There's some important provisions in this legislation for testing vaping products and that may go some way particularly for making sure that consumers know what they are getting. But again there's still more work to do there. There's also more work to do in the space of education and cessation support and this is a point made particularly by Māori and Pasifika advocacy organisations. My understanding and what was put to us in the select committee is that while we've seen across demographics a reduction in smoking rates for pretty much all groups we haven't seen that same reduction in smoking rates amongst Pasifika. There is a real need to ensure that we are supporting those at the coalface at the grassroots who are doing that work to support people and understand their experiences and how to get them out of that trap of addiction—again that's a basic tenet of drug harm reduction. Finally this is just a funny one that I think I picked up on as a Green which is cigarette filters. I did not know that cigarette filters are pretend drug harm reduction. Cigarette filters do not make cigarettes safer; all they do is make cigarettes more palatable for the people who are consuming them. They are a faux drug harm reduction device which tends to make consumers think that smoking is safer when in fact it is not but makes the product nicer and easier to consume and therefore something that is all the more addictive—and then they end up in the ocean eaten by the fishies. So obviously as a Green interested in evidence-based policy and also wanting to save the fishies—acknowledging my colleague the Hon Eugenie Sage—we need to be acting on this. It's daft single-use plastic which is being taken by consumers to be making their product safer when it's not; it's just making cigarettes nicer to smoke. And frankly that's daft. We shouldn't be enabling that. So finally I just think it's also really important for us to reflect on the pace of progress and how both structural and cultural norms—structural being kind of the laws that all of us in this place debate the framework or the blueprint of how we're supposed to run our society but culture really being the thing that validates those laws but also kind of brings them to life. It was only in 2015 seven years ago—it was only in 2015—when smoking was no longer allowed on the forecourt and the lawn of this Parliament; it was only 2015. And as other members have spoken to I remember growing up going to restaurants and to cafes with my family and particularly in restaurants experiencing being in those smoke-filled rooms. And obviously as the research continued to develop; obscured really intentionally by the industry—and once again that points to the real challenges and the problems when it comes to drug harm reduction: being that profit and that commercialisation. But that change has happened inside of my lifetime and it's happened inside of all of our lifetimes. And obviously as all of us have spoken to the reason that we're doing this is for future generations and is for our tamariki who will grow to be our rangatahi who will grow to be our rangatira who will grow to be the leaders of this country. So I just want to acknowledge Tiger once again in my closing remarks her mum who obviously inspired her to be in that place and to give that submission to the Health Committee. And I want to commend the House and commend the select committee for really really pulling this bill apart and seeing the best that we could possibly do with it because while there are novel and untested measures in this the fact that there is a review and there will be the opportunity for reflection is important. There's so much more to do but the Greens on balance have come to the conclusion that this is a really important first step for continual tobacco harm reduction in this country so I commend this bill to the House."