Hague Kevin: Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Hague Kevin: Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:673;Page:19715] 
KEVIN HAGUE (Green) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to stand in support of the Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill. I think it is one of those occasions where—I am not sure about the ACT Party—pretty much everyone in the House is likely to be voting for a bill. Indeed we may well all be giving more or less the same speech in this debate. 
I commence in that tradition by joining other speakers in expressing our appreciation of the work undertaken by officials from the Ministry of Health in assisting the Health Committee in its work on the bill. This is a complex area of legislation surprisingly but the officials were diligent and provided good quality advice I felt to the select committee. I also acknowledge the good heart and spirit with which the committee considered the bill. As others have mentioned the distinctions between the parties on the Health Committee on this issue would not have been obvious to anyone coming into the room because the members of the committee worked as a single unit and it was a pleasure to be part of it. 
The submitters were an interesting bunch. I will comment about them in a moment. There is one person I will single out for some praise at this point in my remarks and that is Iain Lees-Galloway. I single him out not for his role on the Health Committee but for having advanced to this House in the first place his member’s bill to ban the retail display of tobacco and tobacco products which was drawn in the ballot. I suspect that that may well have been the spur that brought this bill to the House and I commend Mr Lees-Galloway for that. 
As I said the submitters were an interesting bunch. I think it would be fair to say that broadly speaking with very few exceptions the submitters said that they supported the legislation or supported its general thrust. From that point they broke down into two broad categories. The first of those was a category of submitters who said that yes of course they support the goal of New Zealand being a smoke-free country and yes of course they support the broad thrust of this legislation but there are some really specific reasons why the time frame in this bill will not work for their particular organisation or business or why the particular way that the bill applies its restrictions to retail displays will not quite work for them and therefore they should be exempted from it. I particularly recall an example from a submitter on behalf of the duty-free retailers at Auckland Airport who said that although they were broadly supportive of this legislation it could not apply to duty-free retailers because of the inconvenience that that would cause to travellers and because the efficiency of airport operations required that passengers were able to make their duty-free purchases as quickly as possible. Covering up the displays of tobacco products and requiring a further step of uncovering those tobacco products in order for passengers to be able to make their purchases would impede the efficient operation of airports. I did not have a lot of time for that argument or indeed for the other flimsy excuses that were advanced by the submitters in that group. I am very pleased that the select committee resisted any temptation that may have existed to succumb to such arguments. 
There has been a small compromise made on the commencement of the measures. I think that was a sensible change to make but that in itself was counterbalanced by another change that the committee made which was to greatly increase the fines. Some other speakers have already spoken about that. 
The other broad category of submitters that I would refer to are submitters like Action on Smoking and Health the Smokefree Coalition and some of those others that Kris Faafoi for example just spoke about in his contribution. Those people were excited about the fact that Parliament was taking this step. They were very strongly supportive of the goal of a smoke-free nation and of concrete steps being taken towards that goal. Those submitters in general were saying that what this bill does is fantastic but there are other things that the bill could also do at this time. For example they spoke about the need for a register. One of the practical problems that is being encountered by people who are out there in the field trying to enforce New Zealand’s smoke-free environments legislation is that it is very hard to keep track of who actually is selling tobacco and tobacco products. They argued very strongly for the need for a register of people selling those products. They were supported in that by the agencies—regional councils public health providers and the like—that do that enforcement. I think the case for a register is extremely strong and the provision of a register would have indeed been an extremely sensible addition to this bill. It is a matter of some regret that we did not take that step. 
The other area that those submitters were suggesting the committee could advance in the bill—to advance the cause of smoke-free environments legislation—was to pick up some more of the recommendations of the Maori Affairs Committee. I have very considerable sympathy for that point of view. We were presented with a rare opportunity of an extremely well-founded and thorough investigation by the Maori Affairs Committee. We know that the committee travelled the length and breadth of the country. In an extremely thorough process it heard from the tobacco industry as well as from all of us who strongly support that goal of a smoke-free nation. 
On the basis of that very thorough inquiry which was supported by all parties the committee came up with a comprehensive set of regulations—plain packaging for tobacco products for example. I believe that there was an opportunity to incorporate more of the recommendations of the Maori Affairs Committee into this bill. The public will reasonably say that for goodness’ sake this perfect vehicle—the Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill—is going through Parliament so why on earth does Parliament not take this opportunity to advance that programme of actions so that we can move at a faster pace towards the goal that pretty much everyone shares? That is a reasonable question: why on earth have we not taken that opportunity? 
I have no doubt at all that the denormalising of tobacco products that will occur as a result of this bill being passed into law will be an extremely positive step forward. Other speakers have referred to herbal smoking products and to the changes that were made and those that were not made. I think Paul Hutchison may need to check the officials’ report because I am not sure that his characterisation in his second reading speech of what the bill does and does not do is entirely correct. I think sellers and producers of herbal smoking products should be on notice that the expectation of the select committee is that at some point in the future we will consider changes in order to bring those products in line with tobacco products. 
In closing I join others in praising Minister Turia and indeed those other members of the House who were involved with the inquiry by the Maori Affairs Committee: Tau Henare as the chair; Hone Harawira a former member of this House; and the other members of that committee. This is a good bill. It could be better but the Greens certainly will be supporting it. Thank you.