Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Well the first thing to say about this bill is simply this—Hon Jenny Salesa: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I move that the Smoke-free Environments—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Oh no—we do that at the end. Sorry. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Thank you Mr Speaker. The first thing to say about this bill at the outset is it's about time. This has taken far far too long to get before the House. It would have been understandable. The Associate Minister of Health Jenny Salesa said regulating vaping is not that simple. Well guess what! It's not that difficult either. One of the reasons why it was not that difficult was they had a virtual carbon copy of this bill handed to them because of the work that the Hon Nicky Wagner had done as Associate Minister of Health in the previous Government and then as a member introducing a member's bill into the ballot. It took years.Even the Ministry of Health was imploring the Minister to get on with it. I understand these things are complicated but the Minister has an army of resources not only ready willing and waiting to help but telling her that they wanted to get on with it and get the bill into the House. We're here now—2½ years in and with not sufficient time—Darroch Ball: Do it once; do it right—not like the National Party.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Do it once and do it right says Mr Ball; it's about time they just did it. Talk's cheap Mr Ball. Governments need to deliver and in order to be able to keep their citizens safe they need to do it a great deal more quickly.Hon Mark Mitchell: He's misguided.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well I suggest that he's probably strolling through the situations vacant in The Dominion Post as we speak because one thing's for sure: he ain't gonna be here in six months' time.We offered—we offered—to support the Government on vaping and the Minister's reply to the Leader of the Opposition and my offer to get around the table with officials so that we could speed this up and to help that process was We look forward to that once the bill's introduced." Now that was six months ago.What they're doing now according to the Minister's first reading speech in her introduction is that we are now going to rush it. They've spent years getting it here and now we're going to rush it through the select committee process. We're going to support this bill but for reasons which we will come to—and they're pretty obvious—in the debate on the report-back motion we will strongly oppose that because we believe there are plenty of things still to be done in this.In fact while I describe Nicky Wagner's bill and this one as carbon copies there are some very important things that are in Nicky Wagner's bill that are not in this bill. It doesn't require for example vaping products to be child-resistant. I would have thought given the debate that committee of the whole House has just had that that would have been front of mind for the Government. Requiring vaping products to have a mechanism for ensuring refilling without leakage restricting refillable vaping tanks to a capacity of 2 millimetres and constant dose monitoring and reporting for the vaping devices—all really important things that I think the select committee will hear about and want to discuss.Now I also want to point out something that I'm not sure the Minister mentioned and that is that the Attorney-General has—and this is another reason why this needs a thorough going over—issued a report under section 7 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (BORA) saying that the restrictions on advertising in the absence of scientific evidence on the harm associated with vaping is a restriction on freedom of expression that cannot be justified under that Act. Now we know a bit about that because we've just had the funded family carers bill that the Minister seriously criticised the previous Government for ignoring a BORA vet. Well I'll be fascinated to know what her attitude is to this vet because we have again been asked to consider a piece of legislation that is going to have a significant curtailment on the freedoms of New Zealanders to do certain things and I think for that reason this really behoves the select committee's consideration.But all of that aside I think actually the bill comes to this House and will be referred to the select committee in pretty good shape. I think the policy framework is there for the intent to be achieved and that is to encourage people who are addicted to tobacco products to transition to the significantly less harmful vaping products at the same time as not encouraging people who don't currently smoke to take it up and particularly our young. I agree with the Minister that that's a delicate balancing act that in the absence of a regulatory framework has actually been let go where these so-called responsible vaping traders have—there's no doubt in my mind—created a marketing framework that is designed to attract people who are not currently addicted to nicotine to try vaping. I have relatives who are adolescents teenagers young adults who admit to me that that's exactly what's happened and they can't probably say why they did it whether it was peer pressure or whether it was just what you did at a party or whether it was to some degree a part of that seductive advertising—the colours the flavours the groovy sort of advertisements you're seeing on the TV.So we've got to take a really really close look. I understand what the Attorney-General is saying and I highlight potential inconsistences in the Government's response to that but I think we've got to be really really careful about striking the right balance between that freedom of expression and the goals of making sure our young people don't take up vaping. I see the Health Committee chair Louisa Wall nodding in agreement with that. We heard—didn't we?—from some fantastic submitters from Wainuiōmata and the Hutt Valley about what they are seeing in their schools.Action for Smokefree 2025's report into the incidents of vaping by year 10 children is probably unhelpful for two reasons. One is that if I was a fourth-former I wouldn't be admitting to vaping if I did. I was smoking behind the bike sheds in fourth form—Dan Bidois: Ha!Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —and I wouldn't—only smoking behind the bike sheds Mr Bidois—admit even in an anonymous survey that that was the case.The second thing they told us was that actually this is a thing that starts in years 12 and 13; it's the older kids as they get to 17 18 years old and they're going out to the first XV parties and they're doing those other things—that's when the pressure comes on. I think if we were to do a survey on the incidence of even casual vaping on those age groups we would be seeing a different and much higher and in my mind more concerning incidence and prevalence of young people vaping.So I think we've really got to take a good look at whether we've got the balance right. I think it's a really really good start but we're going to hear from the vaping industry. I think we're going to get some really slick submissions. As members of that select committee know I had a pretty big BS radar for the smoking industry coming into the select committee; I'll be turning that radar on for the vaping industry recognising that they actually have an important role to play in this and they have advised me that actually they haven't been part of the development of the bill to date. So that's going to mean that if the House does prevail in the Minister's request for a three-month report back we're going to need to be on our toes I think to give really good consideration to those submissions.I want to just put on record the issue around flavours. Again I think the balance between specialist vaping stores and other retail outlets like supermarkets service stations and dairies is about right as a starting point. But I've got a concern and I've been misconstrued in the articulation of that concern around flavours. I don't oppose flavours; actually I think they are a pretty good tool to transition away from tobacco if that's what the smoker wants. But I am concerned that constituent products in those flavours despite having been approved by things like the Food and Drug Administration in the United States and other jurisdictions is not appropriate for inhalation; they were approved for eating. So if you're putting vanilla essence or cinnamon or other flavours into these vaping products and then you inhale them into your lungs there could well be a harm that is not known for a long period of time. So regardless of where we land on that I think it's going to be important that the officials follow the longitudinal studies globally participate in them and make sure that when we see signs of bad outcomes as a consequence we need to be quick to act to restrict those flavours. The Minister's nodding in agreement I'm sure she understands that and supports it.It is a problem though because we didn't know—and the Surgeon General in the United States used to endorse certain brands of tobacco; it was years before we realised how harmful it was thanks to the tobacco lobby before we actually got the regulatory framework in place. So I hope we can be more nimble if we see the harmful effects of vaping emerge and I hope it's earlier than that.With that caveat and with overall I think a very strong support for the start point where we're at I want to commend the bill. I look forward to the select committee process."