Roy Heather: Smoke-free Environments (Enhanced Protection) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Roy Heather: Smoke-free Environments (Enhanced Protection) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:6619] 
HEATHER ROY (ACT NZ) 
: 
 I stand to speak on behalf of ACT New Zealand to oppose this bill. I think we are the only party that in its entirety is opposing the bill although we would still all be opposing it if it were a conscience vote. That is because this bill is another nail in the coffin of freedom in this country. [ 
Interruption 
] The Minister has just reminded me of another good example of the loss of freedom in this country with another tax that we discovered today: the “fat tax”. But we are here to talk about smoking tonight. Before we go on to discuss this any further I would like to talk—[ 
Interruption 
] I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. If the Minister— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I take the point. Members in the House wish to hear the person who has the call so I ask for there to be less interjection please. 
HEATHER ROY 
: I would speak Maori if I were able to; it would probably be more effective than the Minister chipping in all the time. I invite her to take a call if she has so much to say. Anyway we are back to the special report that I was trying to explain to the House a minute ago before I was so rudely interrupted. I would like to explain that when the bill was reported back it did say that all the amendments were passed unanimously. That was in fact not the case in the Health Committee: the ACT party opposed all the amendments. The special report that I would like to draw to the attention of the House goes on to describe that. I refer to the sentence at the bottom of the first page which states: “We do not consider the House should take that to mean that all members of the committee voted in favour of any or all of the suggested amendments.” I bring that point to the attention of the House because it has already been said in this Chamber that those amendments were passed unanimously which was not in fact the case. 
But I go back to the bill. In essence the bill aims to ban smoking in all indoor places that are accessible to the public. It covers premises already covered by workplace legislation but it goes much further than that. It does not allow for separate smoking and non-smoking areas in cafes bars and restaurants. 
ACT New Zealand put forward a minority view in the select committee. We opposed this bill for a large number of reasons. Firstly from a personal perspective I would like to explain that as a physiotherapist I have treated a large number of people with smoking-related diseases—emphysema and chronic bronchitis to name just two. It would be fair to say that I am against smoking myself. I dislike it and would not from choice go into a cafe or bar that was laden with smoke—and if I never see another sputum pottle in my life it will be too soon. 
However this bill is not just about health. Many people would say that this bill is not about health at all; it is about a breach of private property rights and that is the main reason that ACT New Zealand is opposing this bill. Owners of premises will no longer have the right to allow smoking in their public premises even if everybody in those premises—including the workers and the owner—are smokers. What sort of legislation are we putting forward in this country when people are not allowed to smoke in their own premises even with the agreement of everybody in the premises? 
Secondly we are very concerned that responsible employers who have created non-smoking policies and procedures will be fined if smoking occurs in their workplace. The penalties are quite interesting. Labour originally said that it did not want any penalties at all and that it just wanted this to be an educative process—which prompts the question why do we need a change to the law at all? The law now includes fines of up to $400 for individuals who break the law and up to $4000 for organisations that allow patrons to light up. There is a problem with that because how will the law be enforced? I am told that 17 part-time smoke police are employed by the Ministry of Health to go around and find the few transgressors who can actually be caught. 
Several pub-owners have come to me asking how this will ever be enforced and saying they do not believe it ever will be. They are responsible for imposing those regulations on their patrons and they say: “We’re going to lose all our patronage. What’s going to happen to my business?”. At the end of the day they say: “We know that we’re not going to be caught and we’re going to allow patrons to smoke anyway.” What sort of law is it that sets itself up to be broken in that way? It is no sort of law at all. 
Thirdly Mr Dail Jones from New Zealand First spoke at length about the scientific evidence. The scientific evidence that was presented to the select committee was at best inconclusive. Everybody who came before the committee used the statistics to best suit their own argument. Action on Smoking and Health and other lobby groups came along saying they had conclusive proof—which they were not able to give good reasoning for—to say how harmful second-hand smoke is. Then at the other end of the spectrum the tobacco companies came along saying that it is not very harmful at all. The truth probably lies somewhere in between but we do not know exactly where that point is. ACT believes that the scientific evidence regarding the effects of second-hand smoke is inconclusive. We are concerned that honesty has not been involved in this decision-making process and that the legislation has been based entirely on that evidence. We believe that that is not a good basis for legislation. 
We also note that it will be illegal to smoke in public places even when there are ventilation systems to extract smoke. Many businesses believed that the bill would come back saying that ventilation systems were OK with a minimum air standard and in some cases they have spent tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in installing those ventilation systems to find now that their patrons will not be able to smoke in those places anyway. 
It is very interesting to note United Future’s change in stance. In fact one could say that it has done a bit of a U-turn really with regard to ventilation systems. Certainly ACT New Zealand was the only party supporting ventilation systems. The National Party partly supported them but had some reservations. We were saying that–[ 
Interruption 
] I am glad that I have convinced the member. That is very good but I would say that a little consistency would be good. Bar owners have spent huge amounts of money on ventilation systems and now find that the systems are not able to be used. ACT New Zealand says that those systems would have been a very adequate compromise would have been a compromise between the rights of smokers and non-smokers and would have been a happy conclusion. We will be supporting that amendment because it makes good sense. 
Organisations and institutions such as returned services associations and tertiary institutions which involve consenting adults should be able to choose for themselves whether their buildings or grounds should be smoke-free. The returned services associations are a particular example. The Government gave many of their members cigarettes when they were young men and went off to war and— 
Steve Chadwick 
: They probably died. 
HEATHER ROY 
: It is interesting to hear that member speaking up now because she showed some concerns too for the people in the returned services associations. She had some sympathy for them. I sent out a letter to returned services associations and to workingmen’s clubs asking them their views on this legislation and I had an overwhelming response. There was an almost 20 percent response and virtually all members were supportive of ACT New Zealand’s stance on the smoke-free legislation. They said that they felt they themselves should have the right to choose. Many of them had been members of the clubs for many many years. The non-smokers in the clubs also filled in the forms and said that the smoking did not bother them and that if it did they would stay at home. When consenting adults are put in this position they should be able to make decisions for themselves. It is a very arrogant Government that seems to think it can make personal choices for the citizens of its country. 
We also found evidence from the prison service very strong. Smoking in prisons should be at the discretion of the prison authorities. They have a very tough job and they gave very strong and compelling evidence to the select committee to say that allowing smoking or not was one of the few ways they had often of controlling situations. Certainly ACT New Zealand is very supportive of the fact that the service should be able to make such decisions. 
ACT New Zealand believes that if a person chooses to smoke despite the risk that that poses to his or her health that person must accept responsibility for the consequences. Legislation that bans smoking in public places will have a small to almost negligible effect on the incidence of smoking-related diseases but will have a large effect on property rights.