Locke Keith: Smoke-free Environments (Exemptions) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Locke Keith: Smoke-free Environments (Exemptions) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party will be voting against this bill both for health reasons and to uphold people’s rights particularly the right to be in a healthy environment if they so choose. I have noticed in the hotels that I have frequented that the employees—the people who deliver the beer—are very thankful for the recent change in the law. They are very thankful because it is a much nicer and healthier environment for them. We have to think of them. Someone who is serving a long shift in a very smoky bar as these workers used to do is in a very difficult situation in terms of both discomfort and health. It is calculated that these employees had several times more risk of cancers and other diseases than people who actually live with smokers because bar workers were constantly in a smoky environment under the old system in the smokiest of pubs. 
This bill contains a provision that if all employees agree then smoking may be allowed in a bar. But I cannot see that it is very likely that employees would purposely put themselves in a smoky environment. That is not what we have heard when talking to such employees. It may be that employees who are desperate to have the job and the money coming in would sign some consent form but they would not really be doing so of their own free will; it would just be to keep the job. 
Another point that has been raised is the question of patronage. We are in a transition phase as Steve Chadwick pointed out. It may be that in the interim patronage goes down in some hotels. The hotel I went to the other day Galbraith’s Alehouse at the top of Symonds Street in Auckland was packed to the gunnels as it was—and it was fairly full—in the smoking days. A good pub where a good atmosphere is created will be well patronised. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
KEITH LOCKE 
: Before the dinner break I was saying that we are in a period of transition to the new situation and there may be a bit of a drop in patronage during that transition but when we look at the statistics and see that cigarette smoking has declined to 25 percent of the population it makes sense that there will be more people like me—non-smokers who did not go to a club or a hotel very much because of the smokiness of it. I mentioned early in my speech when Muriel Newman asked me that I go to Galbraith’s Alehouse on Mt Eden Road at the top of Symonds Street. I do not think I am allowed to advertise in Parliament but I point out that I used to go there but could not stay very long when it was very smoky. They did not really get much out of me because it got too smoky. Now I go there for a longer period. I am sure there are more like me coming back. 
Sure non-smokers have been desocialised a little bit. That is because we could not stand the smoke in the pubs for a long period and we got out of the habit of going to pubs. We are getting back into the habit now although not over-imbibing when we go. John Carter and others have told us stories about the old diggers at the RSA and it is true that a higher percentage of the older generation they represent smoke so that does create certain problems for them. 
But we need to look at the health questions. It is a question of health rights—not just of individual rights but of the rights of everyone whom smokers are putting health risks on. For example those old diggers with emphysema on their last legs almost are forced to be in a smoky environment at the RSA and we have to think of them as well. We know that all the options put up in this bill—ventilation etc.—do not work. That is how I see it—it is a rights issue. It is about the right of people to have a smoke-free environment. There are options for smokers in terms of smoking taking breaks to smoke in other environments but not in the pubs where we all socialise.