Reti ShaneDr SHANE RETI (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. National has never disagreed with the end point of nicotine reduction—never have and we don't here today—but we do disagree with the process that purportedly is going to get there.Let's remember we offered a bipartisan view. We offered an alternative and the Government said No." So before they point the finger and say "You don't want to play" that is not what happened. National supports nicotine reduction. National supports the smoke-free goals. In 2011 the National Government announced the smoke-free 2025 goals—let's remember it was goals in our hands. And this arose from the 2010 Māori Affairs Committee recommendations that by 2025 we would be smoke-free. Is that going to be true? Are we going to be smoke-free by 2025? That's not possible and I'll tell you why it's not possible.In 2018 interim targets were set. In the baseline in 2011—when the National Government started down this mission—the smoking rate for all adults was 16.3 percent so interim target rates were set. That interim target rate was in 2018 10 percent. And what happened when we got there? When we got there it was 13.1 percent. So in 2018 we'd already failed the target. And this Government's presuming that what they're doing here today—that all this hurry and rush at the expense as I'll talk to later of retailers—is because they want to hit the 2025 goal. It will not happen. It is not possible. You don't actually start retail reduction until 2024. You don't start denicotinisation until 2025. It is not possible that this Government will reach the 2025 goal.So given that is a statement of fact what is the hurry to get rid of small retailers and cast aside others in their ambitious rush for the sound bite and for the virtue signalling? What is the hurry? This Government will not reach the 2025 goals and they knew it in the very beginning. Yet they've used the argument of urgency and a need to get to this goal to justify their poor processes.Our positioning on this bill has been to achieve nicotine reduction with the least collateral damage possible. Sounds reasonable doesn't it? Labour's position is to achieve nicotine reduction regardless of the collateral damage. Under Labour who is the most affected? Who is the most damaged? The same hard-working retailers who are currently being damaged by their ram raids and their burglaries—our corner dairies who open all day to provide the convenience that we want. How ironic then it is the same convenience on behalf of the Government that will close their corner dairies for the sake of their virtue-signalling experimental initiatives. It is convenient to sacrifice small retailers.This didn't need to happen. There was an alternative pathway that could still achieve large amounts—take the better pathway towards a 2025 goal actually than what's being put on the table here today—but Labour didn't want to hear about it. All they saw was the sound bite arising from "We'll do a smoke-free generation." Remind me who's implementing that? How's that gone? Or do retail reduction? Remind me who's implementing that? How's that gone? We'll denicotinise—now that does have some weight to it: it's being deployed in Colorado as we speak. It actually does have a pathway that is successful but they didn't want to know. Remember go and look at the Facebook page. We offered to collaborate and they didn't want to know.This Government has chosen to do retail reduction first and reduce dairy selling tobacco products from 6000 to 600 retailers. It is the milk and bread and other products that people also purchase that generates their living not the low-margin tobacco. But no retailers were—as the Minister said to us—easy to implement. What she also said was retail reduction has much uncertainty. We know that already; that's why it's a foolish thing to be starting with.This was unnecessary. The National Party proposed denicotinisation first and then retail reduction if needed. The Government wanted the easy hits—the sacrificial lamb on the altar of virtue signalling. We could have had both.When the local dairy is closed and you have to drive further consuming more petrol emitting more fumes thank a Labour Government who didn't protect these people and didn't protect their livelihoods. They were expendable for the sound bite. Corner dairies: you are expendable for the sound bite the Labour sound bite.The first sound bite came out last year when it was announced around about December the smoke-free generation and the retail reduction. There is no epiphany to this. This is no original thinking from Labour; it's been on the cards for years. No one deployed it for several reasons; (1) no one was sure it was going to work; and (2) the risks and the collateral damage were too great. So no new thinking here. Both here or internationally this has been discussed for decades.I think there's also a point to make to people who are saying reducing smoking will reduce ram raids. Well that's kind of circuitous logic because what we also know is that the ram raids also attract attention towards alcohol and towards vaping products. I think that's a circuitous logic to say reducing the number of retailers is going to reduce the ram raids. I don't believe that. We also put on the table which wasn't mentioned here today in the Minister's speech—which for the very first time actually occupied her full 10 minutes. So unconvincing is this bill that in her first reading it was eight minutes and 27 seconds; in the second reading seven minutes and 13 seconds. We'd sat down before we had to get up again to answer her—that's how unconvincing she was and is on her own bill.We put forward at the committee of the whole House a number of Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs). The first SOP proposed the change in scheduling that I'm enunciating here. The second talked to vaping; the second to the Local Government New Zealand remit that said "Can we do something about the proximity of new specialist vaping retailers when they go for their application?" We thought "You know that kind of make sense." And they gave the example of Dargaville and I won't reiterate that—we did that in the committee of the whole House.So we put forward a very reasonable proposal supported by Local Government New Zealand saying "Could the Director-General of Health please take into account the proximity of other specialist vape retailers when they issue new licences?" The Labour Government didn't want to hear it. They didn't want to hear that community voice.We also put forward an SOP that talked to doing a better job with underage vaping. I honestly believe that across the House we probably are all concerned with underage vaping which has tripled roughly from 3 percent to 9 percent is some of the figures that I'm hearing. Yes it has achieved the goal that we wanted to achieve with adults—and I believe it will continue to do so and that is a good thing.But we always had that concern that it would be a gateway. It looks like it may well be—not quite as much as we thought but still a gateway. We also had that concern that it would start to disrupt social networks and that even the small amount of nicotine that's in vaping could be dangerous to a developing teenage brain. These concerns remain. These concerns have been brought to us and I believe brought to every single person in this House. I defy anyone here to say they haven't received an email from parents schools and principals saying "We have a problem with underage vaping." As the newspaper headlines said "An epidemic of underage vaping."So this was a gentle SOP proposing that maybe we should be applying more resources maybe we should be particularly indicating that we are concerned for underage vaping and the mechanism to do that was to step up the compliance monitoring around underage vaping.Parts of the bill attended to this—looking at online self-identification making sure that they truly were over 18 years—but there was more that could be done. We could have sent that signal to communities to schools and to principals that "Yes we've heard. Yes we believe. Yes we agree. And so we're going to encourage the director-general to particularly have emphasis on under-age vaping"—and have emphasis on the two-minute bell that hasn't rung.But what we're also saying here: this was a very important SOP that was gentle it didn't ask much of anyone. It didn't cost much at all to say "Can we please apply ourselves to underage vaping?" Schools principals the community are saying they're concerned but this Government didn't want to know. It was way too much of a distraction from the sound bites that they want from the virtue signalling that they want. They didn't want to do the real work. They didn't want to listen to schools and communities and so they'd marched off into this fanciful horizon that will not deliver a 2025 smoke-free goal.So we're going to stand here today and of course we're going to oppose this. We're going to oppose it not because we disagree with the end points. I've seen as much clinical harm from smoking as anyone in this House but we do disagree with the pathway and the process and we will not tolerate collateral damage when those goals could have been achieved with a different mechanism—in fact this Government's own mechanism. All we asked for was a change in schedule and they said "No." They can answer to small retailers. They can answer to communities when small retailers leave. This will be part of your collateral damage that you will answer for.This bill is flawed; this bill will not achieve the 2025 goal. We believe in that goal; we want to get there. This is not the pathway to get there. We have an alternative proposal; we have a plan. Thank you."