Woodhouse MichaelSMOKE-FREE ENVIRONMENTS (PROHIBITING SMOKING IN MOTOR VEHICLES CARRYING CHILDREN) AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingDebate resumed from 20 June.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Well thank you Madam Speaker. It was only last Thursday this bill was first introduced and as stated at that time the National Party will be supporting this bill but with some serious qualifications. I've got to say that my near-namesake Michael Wood—if I can revert back to the previous speaker on the last bill—has I think a future in stand-up comedy because he was the guy that said that we in Opposition aren't doing the work. Well if there's any illustration of a Government that isn't doing the work in Government it's in this bill the Smoke-free Environments (Prohibiting Smoking in Motor Vehicles Carrying Children) Amendment Bill. I remember my last words last Thursday were that I was going to speak on the merits of this bill and I can't find any to be honest. We are supporting this but this is a seriously lazy piece of policy work that needs some significant panel beating. Let me go through why. This was the Government that was going to act with urgency on banning smoking in cars and the legislation doesn't become effective for 18 months after the law is passed. Now probably at the very best with the Christmas break and a few other things going on next year we are probably going to see the bill passed into law this time next year and then it's going to have an 18-month hiatus. So we are going to go into 2021 the end of 2021 before this has any effect whatsoever. That will only have effect if indeed the people that are charged with enforcing it and upholding it—that is our proud men and women of the New Zealand Police—actually divert resources away from preventing detecting and prosecuting crime and check out whether adults are smoking in their cars. Now I talked about the difficulty that I have with this from a philosophical perspective. Where does the long arm of the State end and the sovereignty of the family begin including the sovereignty for parents to make bad decisions? It's actually against my sort of philosophical leanings that I support this bill. But what's the point of having the bill if it's not going to be effective? What we know from any legislative process which involves a sanctions regime is that people's compliance with it is commensurate with the likelihood that they're going to be caught and the consequences of getting caught. The answer is that there's very low likelihood that they're going to get caught and it's a wet bus ticket if they do. Frankly I hope the New Zealand Police don't give more than a passing nod to this—perhaps when they're doing I don't know drink-driving checks or hopefully in the future drug-driving checks but there shouldn't be an iota of resource diverted away from Crimes Act issues and into smoking in cars. Then of course there is the ridiculous situation we have where one is committing offence by smoking in a car with a child unless the car is a dwelling. Well now that says two things to me—the Government have absolutely given up on solving the homelessness problem which has got worse on their watch not better. They're now saying not only will there be people living in cars but they're allowed to continue to smoke with their children.Now we had the conversation Mr Eagle and I. We were talking about our particular childhood experiences—the Pall Mall filters and the Holden Special station wagon with the window down and the cigarette going out the window the smoke being blown back into the back of the station wagon and the children coughing and spluttering. I think I survived it although as I said my growth was stunted a little more than Mr Eagle's was. But the issue is this: that seems to be illegal now unless you're actually living in the car and the smoke won't blow out the window then but that's OK. That's actually allowed under this. Now the Minister introducing the bill said that that wasn't the intention; it was about holiday homes. Well hang on this is the laziness of the policy work that's been done. That's not what the bill says—Andrew Bayly: Oh hang on hang on. Mr Wood said we were lazy. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —that's right—and yet they can't even tell the difference between a car and a holiday home and as a consequence a car now is a dwelling one where the adult can smoke around their kids. So that has to be fixed. These are things that the select committee will be working on. The other issue is of course it's unlawful to purchase cigarettes if you're under the age of 18 but it's not unlawful to smoke them in your car—that's fine. That actually sends a real signal to our youth—youth whose prevalence of smoking under the previous Government by the way dropped from 15 percent to 3 percent. Only 3 percent of 15- to 17-year-olds now smoke one cigarette or more a day and the House should be aware that that progress—that significant progress in an important group who shouldn't even start—was made with strategies other than legislation. How many times did the National Party in Government hear from the Opposition that education was the answer not legislation and that punitive measures were always subordinate to good education and prevention strategies yet here we are. My colleague the Hon Nicky Wagner described it in her first reading speech as a big bunch of virtue signalling. I could not agree more. This could be argued to be a complete waste of this House's time and a busy Health Committee's time but I have confidence and I have some optimism that actually this can be sharpened up. This can actually be a bit better than it is—a lot better than it is. Frankly it couldn't be much worse. So that will be the task of the Health Committee. I look forward to the submissions. I have no doubt that clauses around allowing children to smoke in cars if they're under 18 and allowing cars to be used as houses and allowing that to be OK to smoke in front of children is going to eliminated from this bill. It would be quite difficult actually to support it in subsequent readings if those improvements were not made but in the meantime we will hold our noses and we will support this interference into the sovereignty of the family for the sake of the children. But in order to be able to do that it has to be effective and it has to be made better.