Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Madam Chair. In respect of the rather unusual comment by Minister Jenny Salesa that implied I think that somehow my Supplementary Order Paper 481 because it was tabled only last night had less force or effect or was less worthy than hers it was—Matt Doocey: It was signalled in the committee stage. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Exactly right Mr Doocey. It was signalled very clearly in the select committee it was signalled very clearly in the second reading and it has been tabled well in advance for members to have a look at it. It's really simple—delete a stupid clause—and there was a very good reason I think why we should which I've articulated. I want to go on to another matter that the Minister raised and that is the role of the police in this. She said words to the effect that it's not about police stopping cars and issuing infringement but it's about prevention. Well that's true except the issue of prevention—and the example the Minister used was that Well you know we got our smoking rates down because of the public stigma around people smoking." That's why people smoke in cars—because they can't smoke in bars and they get harassed when they smoke in the street. The car is actually one of the few places or the few—up until this bill is passed—safe havens where they don't get seen as easily or identified and stigmatised in the way they might in other parts of society. The UK example was a very good one. The question isn't whether there were lots of infringement notices issued Minister. The question was actually whether it genuinely resulted in fewer people smoking in cars. I think it is a much much longer-term issue to answer that question because we know with the cellphone ban which was introduced when Steven Joyce was the Minister of Transport—so it must have been around 2010 or 2011—nine years later there is still unacceptably high cellphone use while driving. The police periodically have a blitz and one has to wonder whether if we don't have the same stigmatisation of smoking in cars that leads to a reduction in its incidence the police will be asked to go on a smoking blitz. That in my view is an appalling use of police resources. We now know that when victimisation rates in this country are going up massively under this Government when violent crime is going up and when gang membership is going up we're going to worry about whether someone's having a fag in the car. The Government says "Well that's not our intention." except in Part 1 there is the most extraordinary section that I have ever seen. It basically treats police like idiots. It's in new section 20E in clause 9 and is entitled "Constable's powers" and it goes on to say that "(1) A constable who sees a person smoking in a motor vehicle that is on a road [blah-blah-blah should] (a) signal or request the driver of the motor vehicle to stop the vehicle as soon as practicable: (b) require the driver to remain stopped for as long as is reasonably necessary for the constable to make the inquiries and complete the exercise of powers under this section:". It goes on. There are another two paragraphs here Mr Mark Mitchell that your former colleagues are going to be treated like complete idiots and like they somehow don't know how to exercise a discretion—including the discretion to do nothing—because they've got better things to do. Instead they've got this cookbook ABC "Here's what you do if you see a person having a fag in a car." It completely undermines the Government's statements that this is not about prosecution when they put a whole page of what a constable should do in this situation. Hon Tim Macindoe: That should go in the regulations bonfire. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Absolutely. The first up into the bonfire Mr Macindoe—a very good point. I think the question of infringement is one that was answered in the select committee around what we're really trying to do here. We were told by officials that it's not about infringement but we were then told by officials that the bill can't come into force for 18 months because that's how long it's going to take New Zealand Police to adjust their IT systems to enable infringement notices that they'll issue to be recorded. I will speak more about the commencement date at the appropriate time because I think it's ludicrous that we're going to pass a bill and go "Nah it's OK. We're not going to do anything about it for 18 months." That really calls into question the Government's commitment to Smokefree 2025."