Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. In light of the fact a number of people are sharing their past experiences with the culture in which they grew up around smoking and tobacco and cigarettes it probably is incumbent on me to talk about my experience when I was thrown out of class—I think in year 1 or 2—at primary school—David Seymour: For smoking?CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Not for smoking Mr David Seymour but for creating a small business in class whereby I cut up pieces of paper and emulated what I saw my dad doing which was to create rollies cigarettes and I sold them for about 50c each. That was how cool smoking was when I was in primary school. Fast forward a number of years about 20 and my little brother is now 13 years old. I'm really stoked to say that smoking is no longer seen as a cool thing for kids of his generation. However it is unfortunate that when he finds himself on the internet falling down the rabbit hole of YouTube videos he is exposed to advertising for vaping and that has led him to think that vaping is really cool and that it may actually be harmless. So what we need to be talking about here is figuring out how we strike the balance between harm reduction—recognising that vaping is a really important tobacco smoking cessation device and that we need to have some consistency in our approaches to addictive substances which I'll get to later but also that what has occurred so far with regard to vaping and the market that has emerged around it has occurred as a result of self-regulation. What we've seen in that process of self-regulation is that there has been advertising. There has been advertising which some would argue appeals to children and there has been the likes of these YouTube ads but there's also been what some may be familiar with here known as influencer marketing. That is the more subtle way of having people who have profiles online utilising these products in their daily lives and presenting them as cool or important in their daily life. I think that that form of marketing needs to be all the more transparent. But I diverge from the point of this legislation. The importance here is that we have the potential to get more people off of a really harmful addictive substance. It's really critical that we acknowledge as well that vaping is not 100 percent safe. In fact it also comes with its own raft of potential health ramifications; a number of which we're still researching and are coming to light. But they are still far less harmful than what we know with the decades of research that we have amassed on the smoking of tobacco. One of our bottom lines in working with the Minister the Hon Jenny Salesa in supporting this legislation as the Greens was to make sure that we didn't cut things off at their knees in that potential for smoking cessation so that we didn't move ahead with what was floated in the cultural conversation around potentially removing all flavours bar three. The important thing to us is that there were limits to access particularly for younger people. But for those who were getting off of tobacco smoking and moving towards vaping if it was a certain flavour that got them on board with that then they should still be able to go and purchase and utilise that through a specialised shop. So I think the other really critical thing to speak to here and what some have conflated this conversation around vaping regulation with is the number of deaths that have occurred overseas particularly in the United States. It's important that we put on the record that all of those vapes that were associated to those deaths and to those illnesses—colloquially known as popcorn lung"—are vapes that came off of the unregulated black market. That is the importance of regulation here. This experience that we've seen with vaping moving towards self-regulated kinds of standards but also through the black market to me really emphasises the importance of regulation and the consistency that we should have around a harm reduction approach when it comes to all substances. I'd like to say that the Greens are probably the party with most coherent kind of approach to all substances—that being that we would like to see similar kinds of standards applied to alcohol with regard to the reduction or complete removal of the ability to advertise and sponsor. I'd love to see the major political parties in this place take up that mantle particularly given that it was work progressed under the former National Governments which they kind of dusted under the rug but again I digress.What we know—and this is research out of the Global Commission on Drug Policy which canvasses both licit and illicit substances—is that you see the peak in societal harm with the use of a substance when the supply of that substance is controlled either by the underground black market under a complete prohibition which is what happens when we force substances or practices underground or when you have a complete free market; that being complete corporate control. In both of those instances in both of those polar ends of the spectrum you have entities that have an incentive to exploit vulnerable communities in order to make a quick buck. So what we're trying to do here is to narrow that spectrum away from those extremities and to introduce regulation that reduces access reduces harm and changes the cultural conversation. So I'd invite any New Zealanders who are interested in this conversation to submit before the select committee. We are really looking forward to watching how this progresses. It's been fascinating watching in particular regulation unfold in the United Kingdom who jumped on this quite a while before us—about a decade ago I believe. They have put forward some really meaningful approaches which we've adopted actually in this legislation—including the ability I might add for health practitioners to give advice and recommendations about vaping products to a patient or client who is looking to move away from tobacco smoking. The bottom line should be that we are not trying to create a new big tobacco market. We are not trying to create a new addictive substance that can cause more harm in our communities. We are trying to offer sensible regulations for tobacco smoking cessation and at this point in time the Greens think that this bill strikes the right balance. Looking forward to hearing from members of the public. We are proud to support this legislation."