Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. I share the Associate Minister of Health's aspirations for tamariki that New Zealand should be the best place in the world to raise a child. I fear that the rhetoric and the reality under this Government are two quite different things. We have family violence rates that are shameful by any measure. We have child poverty rates that are going backwards and have been since this Government came to office. And yet in order to create the environment in which this is the best place to raise a child and in the middle of a great pandemic outbreak we have this bill. Apparently this is the Government's solution to the problem of child raising. Well we will support this bill with serious caveats—Hon Tracey Martin: Who is the member talking to? The schools that have all been asking for it?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: The member interjecting is going to defend this. Well it's defending the indefensible actually because child wellbeing is going nowhere except backwards under this Government and that Minister knows it. However we will support this bill—Hon Tracey Martin: Oh great.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —despite it not being the great dare I say it burning issue of the day—did she like that?And we have concerns. I mean the Minister—talk about gilding the lily. She talks about how the Government listened carefully to the submissions on the stationary vehicle issue. They were lampooned and shamed into making something of a change which is still not materially better than the nonsense that we had when this bill came in at first reading. Apparently we're now talking about campervans when they're used as dwellings but only if they're stationary. So if the campervan is travelling at 80 kilometres along State Highway 6 on the way to Cromwell it's not lawful to have a ciggy but once it's parked up on the side of Lake Dunstan with the windows wound up it's OK. Actually it's still a vehicle. Somebody might sleep in it a child may sleep in it but it's still a vehicle. And if this is harmful and if this is important enough to disallow then it should be disallowed.I also know as the member for Waitaki certainly does the definition of a vehicle used as a dwelling is a very loose one. We know that from freedom camping and the idea of a self-contained vehicle being used as a dwelling. So that is a nonsense. It hasn't been fixed adequately.Then we have the issue of police powers. Now I wanted this bill to come in with immediate effect because the Government's goal is to have an education campaign. Well that's fine. Let's make it an offence now. But actually the offences regime is not going to come in for 18 months so that the police can build the necessary information systems to record the infringements that the very Minister says won't be issued because they'll take an education approach. Well if that's the case why not take the education approach from day one? Why wait for so long before those infringement regimes take effect?And why on earth are we even involving the police who have enough to do in this country frankly? And yet they are now in addition to all of the serious violent offending which again is going up on this Government's watch and the victims of crime also—and we have the police now being expected to check whether somebody is having a ciggy in a car with a child; something that is not appropriate. It should be discouraged. It should be made culturally a bad thing to do. And now we're going to get our police to enforce that. I think that is a complete waste of police resources.Michael Wood: The member's voting for the bill to create a law. The police enforce the law.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: That's right. Says Mr Wood The police enforce the law." And boy some people have said we've become a police State lately because they're knocking on doors now without a warrant taking a head count to see whether or not there are more than 10 people in a house just because there's a few cars up the driveway. That's a strong democracy! That's what we really need! The Attorney-General chuckles but he knows it's not that funny because that's exactly the sort of police powers the State has been granting them—Hon Tracey Martin: Has had for years.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —and now they're going to check on the ciggies. Well—oh no. You see the Minister for Children says "Oh it's been like that for years." Well no it hasn't. These are new powers given by a Government drunk on the powers—Hon David Parker: They're in the Health Act. They're not new powers.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Yes they are. We passed the legislation only a week ago. The member forgets. Reasonable cause without warrant entry into people's houses to check numbers of peaceful occupants going about their private business: that's where we've got to and now we include smoking in cars.Well I know what the police think about this. They cringe because that is not what they were sworn to do. That is not what they want to be doing. They want to keep our community safe but this isn't a safety issue. This isn't a matter for police. Yes let's pass the legislation if that's what the Government wants to do. But are we really going to divert police resources to this? I very much hope not. It's not going to change the world. It's not going to make the lives of our children materially better. Actually laws—if it was as easy as passing laws to prevent crime well we'd have no crime. But people—the human nature that they are is such that they will continue their habits regardless of the law and the thing that changes it is their fear of getting caught. And their fear of getting caught is a direct correlation with police's actions. Poster campaigns aren't going to change behaviour; the actions of police are going to change behaviour and that's what worries me about this. This is a very very strong step in that direction. I don't think police are going to spend much time on this and I hope I'm right because it's not what they should be doing.With all of that said we're going to support it. We're got to support it because as my friends on the other side continued to tell us for nine years it's unlikely to do any harm. But let's not pretend for a moment it's going to do a material amount of good. And if this is so important that the House's time right now should be dedicated to this then I fear for the next few months when the economic tsunami hits and this Government has run out of ideas. The response has been pretty good; the recovery is going to be woeful if this is their idea of what's important right now."