Curran Clare: Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCurran Clare: Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 11 February 2014. Volume:696;Page:15810. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Three years ago I lost a very good friend to lung cancer. He was not only a good friend; he was a mentor. I miss him. I started smoking when I was 15 years old. I used to smoke Rothmans and some dreadful menthol product before moving on to Camel cigarettes and Marlboros. It took me 20 years to kick that habit after several attempts and that is not an unusual story. But do you know what? My kids say to me these days: “Mum how could you ever have put poison in your lungs?”. And it is really quite difficult to answer that question other than to say it was addictive and there were really really strong marketing campaigns targeted at people like me. That is why we have so many people in our country and in our world who smoke—because of the really clever marketing and because the product is so addictive.In I think it was August 2013 the day that the High Court decision came down in Australia to uphold the world’s first plain packaging law—and I know they are not there yet but that was the date—the then Attorney-General in Australia Nicola Roxon and the then Minister for Health Tanya Plibersek said: “This is a victory for all those families who have lost someone to tobacco-related illness. No longer when a smoker pulls out a packet of cigarettes will that packet be a mobile billboard.” Those Ministers said that plain packaging was a vital measure “which removes the last way for big tobacco to promote its deadly products. Over the past two decades more than 24 different studies have backed plain packaging and now it will finally become a reality.” Well it is not quite a reality but it is pretty close and I really am proud of this Parliament tonight for sending this bill to the Health Committee.I want to say that the argument that is used by big tobacco—the apologists who pretend that this is a debate about intellectual property rights or removing barriers to trade—is wrong and that that has been proven. The sovereign right of Parliament to make its own laws on matters of public interest should be something that we should all fight for.I want to refer quickly to a paper calledPackaging Phoney Intellectual Property Claims: How multinational tobacco companies colluded to use trade and intellectual property arguments they knew were phoney to oppose plain packaging and larger health warnings. And how governments fell for their chicanery. I urge everybody to track down this paper and to read it. The synopsis states: “It shows that the companiesdecided to fight plain packaging on trade grounds because it provided them a more solid footing than allowing health issues to enter the debate. For this reason they focused their energies on the Intellectual Property agreements governed by WIPO and the investment protection contained in NAFTA agreements … Despite being told repeatedly by WIPO”—that they had no legal basis for their arguments that there was no legal basis for any of those arguments and—“that their analysis was flawed the companies persisted in telling the government”—and this was Canada—“and the public that plain packaging would be inconsistent with international intellectual property protections. Following the industry’s misrepresentation of international trade law new health ministers in Canada and Australia forsook plain packaging as a tobacco control measure they mistakenly believed to be contrary to their countries’ obligations under international trade agreements.”Finally this battle is moving towards a conclusion. We are seeing it in Australia. We should not be taking notice of big tobacco’s argument that this is an intellectual property argument because it is not. There is no basis in law for that argument. This Parliament should be commended by every New Zealander tonight for sending this bill to a select committee and for seeing it through the House.