Roy Heather: Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill — Procedure Referral to Health Committee Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Roy Heather: Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill — Procedure Referral to Health Committee Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:610;Page:7963] 
HEATHER ROY (ACT NZ) 
: 
 Before I come to Part 1 I would like to comment on something the Minister said. She suffers of course from the same intellectual dishonesty that many of the other speakers on the Government side of the Committee suffer from. We had a protracted debate on the title about the studies that have been done. I mentioned in that debate that the World Health Organization has long known the very weak link between passive smoking and cancer. 
Hon Annette King 
: Not true. 
HEATHER ROY 
: That is correct and there are many other studies that back that. I come now to the commencement clause. The commencement dates are as the New Zealand First member pointed out all over the place. Some clauses come into effect 3 months after the date on which the legislation receives the royal assent. 
Peter Brown 
: Who pointed that out? 
HEATHER ROY 
: It was the member; it was very well noticed. Other clauses come into force on 1 January 2004 on 1 February 2004 and on 1 February 2005. It is well known that the Labour Government and also the anti-tobacco lobby groups would like the commencement dates to be almost immediate not allowing businesses time to accommodate the changes at all. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: Prosecute retrospectively. 
HEATHER ROY 
: That is absolutely right—they would like to prosecute retrospectively. They will not get the opportunity thank goodness although this Government is getting very good at retrospective legislation as we know from last week. 
I refer for a moment to the anti-tobacco lobby groups and to the fact that they would like to see changes overnight. They have a lot to answer for really. They receive $13.7 million of taxpayer funding a year and last week many of them sent health bureaucrats 25 of them and some of their own activists to Helsinki for a conference as did the Ministry of Health. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: Twenty-five bureaucrats! 
HEATHER ROY 
: Yes 25. 
Hon Member 
: How much did it cost? 
HEATHER ROY 
: It cost a lot of money. I will now give a very conservative estimate of the costs because we do not have the full facts yet. I rang Air New Zealand today and found out that the cheapest return flight to Helsinki economy class is $3000—and I bet Murray Laugesen who has been mentioned in the debate tonight did not travel economy but let us say just for a moment that he did. So $3000 × 25 people is $75000. It was not a cheap conference. The registration fee was about $1100 perhaps a little more. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: Did you say 25 people? 
HEATHER ROY 
: Twenty-five people—just about all of them receiving taxpayer funding. I would be interested if the Minister would stand and tell us whether that money has come from Vote Health. Certainly some of it came from the $13.7 million that goes to the anti-tobacco lobby groups. Action on Smoking and Health Quitline and the like and many Maori health providers receive that money as well. I have not mentioned accommodation costs yet. A conservative estimate of that at least $25000 means that all up we are looking at about $125000 to send 25 people to Helsinki last week from 3 to 8 August in the sun— 
Pita Paraone 
: Double that! 
HEATHER ROY 
: My colleague says to double that. He is probably right but I did not want to overstate the obvious. Those people had a nice little holiday in the sun. The programme was not difficult. I would like to know what they will do. Will they come back and tell everybody? Why did it take 25 people to go to Helsinki to be told that smoking is bad for people? Even this side of the Committee admits that smoking is bad for them. 
Hon Member 
: They don’t trust each other! 
HEATHER ROY 
: That is right they do not trust each other to pass on the information. Members on this side of the Committee know that smoking is bad for people. The bone of contention of course is how bad passive smoking is and that is what this bill is all about. I know it is of great interest that we sent 25 people overseas to a conference but goodness knows why that number was necessary. 
I come back to the commencement dates for a moment. There are groups that will miss out and the commencement date will not apply to all of them. The groups that spring to my mind and that have not been mentioned very much at all tonight are marae. Why are commencement dates not going to have any effect on marae? The reason is that marae are not affected by this bill. It is fine to smoke on marae. People will not be able to smoke in any indoor public place in the country except marae. Why that is I do not know. It is well known that young female Maori have the highest incidence of smoking in the country. They have the highest incidence of lung cancer. What sort of message is this legislation sending to people when it exempts from its provisions those who are most affected? It is no example at all.