O'Connor Damien: Smoke-free Environments (Enhanced Protection) Amendment Bill — Procedure Second Reading 
O'Connor Damien: Smoke-free Environments (Enhanced Protection) Amendment Bill — Procedure Second Reading 
[Volume:610;Page:7456] 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Associate Minister of Health) 
: 
 Kia ora. I am very pleased to speak today in the second reading debate on the Smoke-free Environments (Enhanced Protection) Amendment Bill. I would like to focus on a key element of this bill that seems to have become almost lost in the race by some to protect the so-called rights of smokers in this country. What about the rights of workers? This bill is not about only public health; it is about workers’ rights. The title of the bill highlights that. The bill seeks to enhance protections for workers in a wide variety of environments in which they work. The Smoke-free Environments Act of 1990 provided valuable groundwork and many New Zealanders now take smoke-free offices for granted. 
The 1990 legislation was successful in reducing workers’ exposure to second-hand smoke from 31 percent down to 21 percent in just 1 year and since then we have seen a further drop to 17 percent. But that legislation progressive though it was at the time addressed only half of the workplaces in which second-hand smoke is a health and safety issue for workers. That half tended to be the white-collar office workers. What was missing and what this bill incrementally expands on is a universal protection for all workers regardless of what type of indoor environment they work in. Those who work in factories warehouses schools hospitality venues taxis shared work vehicles and the like also have a right to work in a place that will not kill them by exposing them to the risks of second-hand smoke. If the Californian experience is anything to go by the bill will hopefully have the spin-off of encouraging more people to adopt smoke-free environments at home for their children as well. 
The bill will provide 100 percent smoke-free protection in all indoor workplaces where two or more people work in a common airspace. It will include volunteers who work in these workplaces. It will include taxis work vehicles passenger lounges internal areas of ships trains and planes marae and other community spaces to the extent that they are workplaces and workplace cafeterias. The Health Committee has considered that some exceptions are appropriate such as workplaces that are a private citizen’s home or a temporary residence. But separate indoor smoking areas for workers will go and with them the need for employers to have a written policy on smoking in the workplace. Employers will still have to comply with health and safety legislation. The bill makes this explicit. Employers will have a duty to take all reasonable practical steps to ensure a smoke-free indoor work environment for workers and volunteers and smokers themselves will have a duty to abide by the same rules. 
Smoking is not just a harmless habit. It is a very serious health issue. Under the hazard identification code in the Health and Safety in Employment Act tobacco smoke is a significant workplace hazard. Second-hand smoke contains about 4000 chemicals 200 poisons and over 40 cancer-causing compounds. The sidestream smoke that others breathe in is actually more dangerous than the mainstream smoke that smokers inhale directly from a cigarette. Exposure to that second-hand smoke is a known health hazard that kills nearly the equivalent of our total road toll each year—an estimated 388 people. There would be an outrage if we did nothing to reduce our road toll because of the rights of a few dangerous drivers. Similarly tobacco smoke as something that fits the health and safety legislation’s top category of workplace hazard cannot be tolerated or minimised. It must be eliminated entirely from the workplace. 
We tend to think of bars restaurants and clubs primarily as places in which we can have a drink and a meal and socialise. However for more than 10000 New Zealanders those hospitality venues are their workplaces. The 100 percent smoke-free workplaces policy proposed in this bill is about consistency. It will include those previously neglected workplaces and the workers themselves. The provision will also include sports clubs Returned Services Associations and recreational clubs if they employ workers or if they have a liquor licence. As the Health Committee found there is overwhelming support for a level playing field for all hospitality venues. Hospitality workers should not have to choose between their job and their health yet this is the situation for many because there is no level playing field for the health and safety rights of workers. 
Hospitality workers are particularly vulnerable because they are exposed to high levels of second-hand smoke on a daily basis. I tell Mr Jones that non-smoking workers in hospitality venues breathe in smoke for up to 8 hours a day whether or not they like it. A 2001 study found that New Zealand restaurant and bar workers faced up to four times the exposure to second-hand smoke as compared with someone who actually lived with a smoker. 
Employers also pay the cost of smoking through lower staff productivity higher accident compensation premiums and the risk of occupational safety and health prosecution for failing to provide a safe workplace. We as taxpayers pay too. Our health system is burdened with unnecessarily sick workers and the estimated $200 million per year cost of all tobacco related illnesses. We also pay emotionally with the unnecessary pain and distress of loved ones falling ill or dying from the effects of second-hand smoke. So what is the answer? Well last year the Irish Government facing the same smoking and worker-health issues as New Zealand commissioned an independent report from a working group of experts on the effects of second-hand smoke exposure. Their advice was very blunt. Current ventilation technologies are simply inadequate for protecting workers. They reported that despite attempts by the tobacco industry to play down the possible danger from environmental smoke the only viable way to ensure protection from the deadly effects of exposure to second-hand smoke was to have a total smoking ban on every indoor workplace. 
 If Ireland California New York Sweden and Norway can live with smoke-free pubs then why cannot we? The answer is increasingly clear to the rest of the world too. An increasing number of Australian states and Canadian provinces are phasing out equal amenity provisions—or ventilation options as they are called—in favour of 100 percent smoke-free environments. They are realising that having smoking and non-smoking areas in the same premises just does not work. It is about as useful as dividing a swimming pool into the peeing and non-peeing areas! Smoking in workplaces may have been tolerated in the past but we now know a lot more. In the 21st century we know too much about the risks of smoking and second-hand smoke to let the practice continue. 
Unions are behind the legislation. They know the value in protecting the workers. I have every sympathy for those smokers who continue to be addicted to nicotine. Most got sucked in when they were still teenagers—I was one of them. I take my hat off to those who have the courage and strength to succeed in quitting. Three-quarters of New Zealanders do not smoke and we demand the right to have a smoke-free environment. Yet strangely time after time during the second reading of this bill I heard members of Parliament stand and apologetically defer to the so-called “rights” of smokers to ruin the ability of the rest of us—the vast majority of New Zealanders—to enjoy a quiet beer and conversation with our mates down at our local because of the smoke they endanger us with. I do not accept the claims made by the hospitality industry and the tobacco industry that business will decline if we can all enjoy smoke-free workplaces and hospitality venues. The experience from California shows that business increased after the introduction of smoke-free environments. I compliment the Health Committee on the work it has done and I look forward to the passage of the bill through the House.