King AnnetteHon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): I too commend this bill to the House on behalf of the Labour Opposition. I agree with the Associate Minister of Health the Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga that this is a very important day in the fight against tobacco and the use of tobacco and its impact on the health of New Zealanders. We join with the Minister in congratulating this House on reaching the third reading and the final passage of this long-awaited bill. The Minister has set out what this bill is about. It is about to give effect to a decision that was made on 18 February 2013 to introduce a plain packaging regime for tobacco products in New Zealand. In fact it was in a speech that the Associate Minister Tariana Turia made on 17 December when she introduced this particular bill. I thought it was worthwhile going back and looking at Tariana Turia's press release because she has been and was a very very strong advocate for reducing tobacco consumption in New Zealand. She was when she was in the Labour Cabinet and worked closely with me and with Stevie Chadwick to have tobacco control and a number of measures; she continued when she came into coalition with the current Government. What she said on 17 December 2013 was: I look forward to taking the legislation through its Parliamentary stages in 2014. That will include a select committee phase and the opportunity for people to make submissions on the bill." She went on to say the Government was pushing forward with the legislation without delay because it was convinced that plain packaging is an important step and it will stack up against our World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations. I have quoted those words from Dame Tariana Turia's press release on the introduction of this bill and it was her dream that we would have passed this before the 2014 election. Certainly Kevin Hague me and Barbara Stewart—we did our best to try to get it through before the election in 2014. We sat through those submissions. Particularly memorable ones were in Auckland where we had an overwhelming number of people—the majority except for the tobacco companies—who came and said we need to pass this legislation. So Minister if I am going to make a criticism at all—and you know it has to be made—it is about the delay in passing this bill.Hon Simon Bridges: It doesn't. It doesn't Annette.Hon ANNETTE KING: It does need to be made because although the member opposite Mr Bridges—"Mr 10 Bridges"—says we do not need to make the point it does overlook Minister how many people's lives could have been saved by more measures to reduce consumption of tobacco. That is something that I know from the Health Committee is very important to members on both sides of the House—an extremely good select committee. I have to say at this point and it is perhaps the only time that I will be able to say it that we are going to miss Kevin Hague. He has been an amazing member of the Health Committee and Kevin I have to say that I was looking forward to in Government having you as my associate in health. You would have made a fine Associate Minister of Health. But seriously Kevin's influence and impact on health policy in New Zealand has been huge. He brought with him a very down-to-earth can-do approach to health and one of the issues he was promoting along with the Health Committee has been this particular legislation. My disappointment Minister—it is not this Minister's fault. I am going to give that to him because he got the job only late in the piece. He probably wondered how the hell he got it actually but he got it late—Grant Robertson: We were wondering.Hon ANNETTE KING: And we are wondering. That is true. But he has been hamstrung not by his own desires but by the desires of his Cabinet. This is where Cabinet did not show the internal fortitude that was needed to get this bill through in a timely manner. Unlike Tariana who said that we are convinced that plain packaging will stack up against our WTO obligations—she said that. She believed that as an Associate Minister. She came up against a Cabinet led by Mr Key and Mr McCully and Mr Joyce that would not allow us to pass this bill just in case the Australians were found to be in breach of WTO regulations. I sometimes have a dig at the Australians even though my grandchildren are now Australian but I have to say that I felt rather miffed that the Australians beat us in a health policy because we have led them for generations. They have followed much of what New Zealand does because we are a small nimble nation that is able to do things as a nationwide service. We do not have to worry about state and Federal Governments and some funding for hospitals some funding for primary care and some funding for elder care in different jurisdictions. We can go ahead and put together the sort of health policy we want to implement. They have admired us and when I went to those ministerial councils they were a little jealous that we are able to do so much because we are a small nimble country. But we were beaten by the Australians in the passage of this bill. They said: "We couldn't give a damn what the WTO thinks. We believe that the health of our Australians is more important than what some tobacco company might think." So they went ahead and they passed the legislation. Well I have to say—Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: Why are you being so political? Celebrate. Annette just celebrate. Be happy.Hon ANNETTE KING: Do not worry Minister. Do not take it personally. Whenever you are in a third reading you rehearse what has gone before. You say what has happened and this is what has happened. Minister your name will be on a piece of legislation and there are not going to be many members opposite who will ever have their names on a piece of legislation. It will go down in history as a very important tool that was put in place to meet our obligations that we signed up to many years ago under the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. It is an important day but it has to be said that when we come to the next measures to reduce tobacco consumption let us not wait to see what some other country does. Let us be the first movers—the first movers—not the slow second third or fourth movers. Minister I know you have got a few other things up your sleeve to try to reduce tobacco consumption. The Minister has told me in written questions that he is interested in stopping smoking in cars with children in them and I would have thought that would be the next cab off the rank from the Minister. Oh the other one Minister that I hope that you are looking at is stopping duty-free cigarettes. That has been put up as a proposal. Why do we allow people to bring in duty-free cigarettes? There is no gain for New Zealand in that except cheap fags and we are arguing that they are not good for your health. So there are a number of measures. I am sure you have got some of them there Minister and you are going to share them with us over the next year as you run out of time to hold this portfolio. So well done—well done to this Parliament that we are passing this bill today. It is not the panacea; it is one of the measures and it is a measure that is going to ensure that regulations can be put in place that will set out the detailed requirements for design and the physical appearance of any packaging used or intended to be used with tobacco products. The Minister has shown us—and Minister you might want to hold that up again for people who did not see—the kind of plain packaging or standardised packaging we are going to have. For those who are listening I have to tell them it ain't plain. It might be standardised but it is not plain. It is graphic and the photographs that will be on tobacco and cigarette packets show what can happen to people who smoke. In conclusion I want to congratulate as I have said the passage of this bill. But let us not rest here because we are now being told that unless we take some more measures that lofty goal of smoke-free 2025 will not be achieved. Already we are falling behind meeting that target in 2025. That is not said by me but said by those who are monitoring it Minister. We are falling behind. We will not be smoke-free in 2025—more measures like this will be needed."