Verrall AyeshaHon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour): Madam Speaker may I congratulate you—and your colleagues who are presiding officers—on your election to that role. I have admired the contributions you have made in Parliament and I also admire all of those who step forward to be presiding officers. It often involves putting the custodianship of our Parliament and our democracy ahead of one's own personal ambitions in Parliament and I'm grateful for the fine line-up of people we have seen take up those positions so thank you for your continuing contribution. It was a pleasure to join with other members of Parliament to hear the Speech from the Throne and hear the new Government outline its plans yesterday; congratulations to those who have been able to form the Government.I have been listening carefully to the contributions from the other side during the debate and in particular to those by Mr Bishop. And Mr Bishop I think took exception at some of the criticism that has been made of the new Government and the Speech from the Throne: that it seemed to be about very little. And I think he tried to project an idea of Well that's what it's meant to be" as a believer in small government. But I have a different hypothesis about why the Speech from the Throne sounded like a series of repeals and a long list of what would not be done. I think it's because those three parties can agree on very little and that's why their agenda is not one that is framed in the positive of common aspirations but one framed in the negative; one that will take us backwards. It was an unusually political Speech from the Throne in parts including reference to the Government's talking points of strong and stable Government while actually being the most unstable Government arrangement ever agreed under MMP and we have seen evidence of that—and we will go into that in more depth in my contribution.Since the formation of the Government I like many New Zealanders have been absolutely shocked by the idea that smokefree legislation is intended to be repealed and a law that was not campaigned on by the National Government—a law that would have had tremendous impact; will have tremendous impact for young people. It is a law that is incredibly popular: surveys released yesterday showed over 70 percent of young people are happy with the changes that are proposed and in fact it is—Simon Court: Not with smokers.Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: And to the member opposite I can also reassure him that 70 percent of smokers also want to quit. These laws would have been tremendously beneficial and I was shocked like many New Zealanders to hear that the Government proposed to repeal these laws in order to fund their tax cuts. I am outraged by this change and I will not stop holding the Government to account and there will be no letting up in the pressure. In his first day in the job—in fact before he even got the job—Dr Reti has managed to mobilise the entire health sector against him. To be honest I almost feel sorry for him because I'm not sure if the Minister of Health has ever had such a bad start to his job. Māori and communities oppose him. Those people who hold up our community—the Cancer Society people the health workers the principals of our schools—are opposed and many of them have mobilised in a rally that will be held here in Parliament next week. So unpopular were these changes on her first day on the job—Nicola Willis did a Q+A appearance and she started to introduce this change as if it was New Zealand First and the ACT Party's idea. I think she had no idea that they were a Government and needed to collectively take responsibility for this. It took a while for Dr Reti to front up for interviews on this issue but he did for at least one—but only to try and pass the blame to his coalition partners. And that's what you saw in the House in question time earlier today: further efforts to try and dodge responsibility. Don't they get it? They are responsible now. They are responsible for the lives they will harm—for the amputations for the strokes for the heart attacks for the health costs for the congested hospitals. I will not stop reminding you of this while I have a seat in this House. And I am also going to call out the casting of doubt on these measures because that is a typical tactic from the tobacco industry: to say that something won't work to say that there's some minor objection that means it can't be implemented when the policy benefit that comes from the implementation is just so great—this Government needs to take responsibility for this.And they know over there that they are the laughing stock. Within 24 hours the internet has named the Minister of Health "Dr Cigareti" and named the finance Minister "Nicotine Willis". On the way in in the taxi this morning I was pleased to hear Jono and Ben talking about how the country plans to raise youth smoking and comedian Chris Parker—I saw his contributions on Instagram. Members from Hastings will be interested—actually this is this is advertised on the Napier City Council website: in Napier and Hastings they are hosting a play called Make Cancer Great Again! and this takes aim at the health Minister and the Minister of Finance. Ordinary people up and down the country are laughing at you because of the ridiculousness of funding your tax cuts by making more people smoke. Another example: today the cartoonist Yeo shows Luxon slipping on a banana made out of smoke-free. On Tavlova's account claims the Government puts pressure on Wellington Rugby to change its name to "Durricanes" before the footy season. I don't think the National Party caucus—the grown-ups in the room—wants to be the laughing stock of this country but that's what you're going to hear this summer when you go to your barbecues back in your electorate. Ordinary people will be saying "Why are you doing that? Because for 50 years we've known that smoking's no good. Why are you bringing that back?"We want to see the Government change course on this and we will give them every opportunity to do that. But we will not stop holding them to account and there will be a relentless series of opportunities for them to prove that they have taken evidence into account and changed their mind. This is so shocking as well because of the campaign that we heard of the pressures on the health system. It is true that our health system has faced tremendous pressures and we want to see as the Opposition Government held to account on its commitments to improve it in particular its commitments of matching the Labour Party's health funding promises at the election. I am deeply worried about the concern that those promises will not be met because of the Government's unfunded tax plans and we will be watching the contributions to health cost pressures in the Budget and earlier budget reports incredibly closely.We'll look closely at the commitments made to the health workforce about how new health workers would be trained and retained and our health system. In particular we are eager to see that there is close scrutiny of arrangements that will lead to more medical students being trained for New Zealand medical students that we desperately need but which during the election campaign we saw the light—"light" would be giving it too much credit—the non-existent scrutiny by the National Party health spokesperson in developing that policy. It was written by the Vice-Chancellor of Waikato University not by the National Party.We will hold the Government to account on its commitment to have modern medicines more available in our communities—yes for cancer but also available medicines being delivered by pharmacies as we have done by removing the $5 co-payment across the country. That type of access to medicines needs to be maintained. We were interested to see that the very important commitment to primary care—which is the backbone of our health system—made by the ACT Party didn't make it into the coalition agreement but they dangled a 13 percent funding increase for general practice in front of them during the campaign. Well while in Opposition we will keep being the voice of the need to improve primary care so that people get better services in their communities.And finally we are going to hold the Government to account for its targets. Targets are not an ability for the Minister to turn around to the system and say "You're not measuring up you're not good enough". The Minister has to deliver on targets and we will also make sure that the targets are representative of the wide breadth of service people expect from our health system. But finally I want to say that one thing that seems unbelievable is hearing those people over there—when they were sitting here going on and on about outcomes—say that they are bringing smoking back. It's a disgrace."