Hague Kevin: Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHague Kevin: Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 11 February 2014. Volume:696;Page:15802. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KEVIN HAGUE (Green): I begin my contribution this evening on the Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill by welcoming the near-unanimity of this House in being determined to minimise the harm caused by this scourge tobacco. We Greens have often in the House been criticising successive Governments over time and it is a great pleasure I have to say to be able to praise instead successive Governments since 1990 for a succession of measures to reduce the harm associated with the consumption of tobacco products.I want to give special praise as others have to Minister Turia who has contributed a very great amount to this cause while she has been an Associate Minister of Health. I also want to acknowledge the role of the Māori Affairs Committee and Tau Henare and Hone Harawira also who played a pivotal role in achieving that Māori Affairs Committee landmark report because the target that we have bought into as a nation—of having a smoke-free Aotearoa by 2025—is a powerful motivator for Government action.Just in the last month or so we had some very good news about our progress towards that goal. We heard that there has been a substantial drop in smoking rates since 2006 up until the current census so overall we have a smoking rate that is now well on track to being much lower. But it is still not fast enough to achieve the goal of a smoke-free Aotearoa by 2025 and what is more although the overall figure looks great there are still very substantial inequalities. Prevalence rates amongst Māori and amongst Pasifika people are still much higher and rates in those communities are nowhere near on track for reaching that smoke-free goal by 2025.What that says is that we absolutely still need that comprehensive strategy and we need more urgent action than we have implemented to date if we are to achieve ourcollective goal. That comprehensive strategy is an approach of regulating this product proportional to its amount of harm and tobacco remains the single greatest cause of preventable death in this country—the amount of harm it causes is astonishingly high.A number of speakers have referred to the 5000 deaths each year from tobacco. What that translates to is 13 preventable deaths every single day from this product. I believe and I think that most members of this House believe that that kind of death toll—that enormous harm caused to our country and to our population—is reason enough for urgent and dramatic action. Other speakers have put this particular measure into that broader context and I will not dwell on that. But what I do want to point out is something that I think is important to this debate and that is around the fundamental role of Government. What is in fact more fundamental to the role of a Government than to prevent the death of its citizens?Shane Ardern: Nothing.KEVIN HAGUE: “Nothing.” I hear it said and I agree with that member Shane Ardern. This cuts to the very heart of what a Government or a State is about. It is deeply disturbing therefore that the Government is proposing to delay the implementation of this bill until such time as the various court cases and actions against the Australian Government are settled. Others have mentioned this. Iain Lees-Galloway spoke about the commencement process—on a date appointed by an Order in Council or during a period up to 18 months after the date on which the bill is passed. I do not believe that that is acceptable. In the face of the size of this problem and the role that this measure can play in solving that problem I do not believe that that kind of delay can possibly be acceptable.Tobacco companies are scared of this bill. They are scared of this measure. Indeed it falls into a pattern that has existed for every one of the tobacco control measures that has been implemented in every country every time. Tobacco companies have fought them tooth and nail and the ferocity of their fighting has been proportional to the likely effectiveness of the measure being considered. Their sole motivation is profit maximisation. That is not a goal that our State our Parliament ought to share.Members will recall the vigorous and expensive advertising campaign that the tobacco companies unleashed upon our nation and I would put it to this House and to the nation that that is evidence that the tobacco companies are aware of how effective this measure will be. It will be effective at stopping new people taking up smoking it will be effective at undermining the reinforcement of smoking behaviour of current smokers and it will be effective at assisting those who have quit to stay quit—all of which the tobacco companies resist and oppose and all of which this Parliament should be supporting with its whole heart and whole effort. So the Government’s caution in terms of implementation is inconsistent with that need for dramatic action.What we need instead is a clear and urgent timetable to enact this legislation. I signal thanks to the US Chamber of Commerce and its fellow traveller organisations for putting out just so clearly their intention—that those international agreements ought to undermine this country’s sovereignty—with their threats to this country over the last couple of days. I agree with Dr Paul Hutchison who said that every nation has the sovereign right to protect the health of its people. I agree with that and the Greens say that if that sovereign right is threatened then there is all the more reason for the Government to stand up and protect that sovereign right.Delaying the implementation of this legislation is caving in to the threats extortion and delaying tactics of an evil industry. Thirteen deaths every day demands urgent action it demands the exercise of that core Government sovereignty and it demands that this bill is brought into law as soon as it possibly can be.