van Velden BrookeBROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to be here on behalf of the ACT Party tonight in opposition to this piece of legislation. The ACT Party is standing opposed to the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill. I firstly want to acknowledge the hard work that was put in by my colleague Toni Severin who was sitting in on the Health Committee while this bill was being taken through select committee. I know it took an awful lot of work from the committee staff and I also want to acknowledge Toni's role in the ACT Party on this bill. But I want to start by getting out of the way many things that I believe that Government MPs and other people across the public may wish to say about the ACT Party not supporting this piece of legislation. So I want to make some statements to make it perfectly clear that personally I don't smoke. That is not our reason for not supporting this. In fact I've never had a cigarette. And secondly I don't condone smoking. I don't take a huge step in either direction; it's not our reason for opposing this bill. But what is really important is that we're bringing laws to this Parliament that are actually good public policy and they're based on principles and they're based on putting in place legislation that will actually see better outcomes. When I look at this piece of legislation I don't see better outcomes. There are many actions that people take in life that I wouldn't personally do myself. I take another example here: I think about a year ago I stood in this Parliament saying that I would support the drug pill testing legislation. You know personally I've never had one of those either. But that doesn't mean that we should be putting in place legislation to ban those types of drugs. And I take Chlöe Swarbrick's point before—and I'll come back to it later in this speech—that it's good public policy that should define the laws that we make in this House. So when we look at this law the ACT Party cannot support it because it's bad public policy plain and simple. Whether it's tobacco law or drug law we need to be based on principle and we need to make sure they will make New Zealand better off and this does not do that. So let's go into it a little bit further in detail. So the Government has a goal of reducing smoking in New Zealand. Well what else do we already have to reduce smoking in New Zealand? Well we already know that we have public information campaigns to promote the risks associated with smoking; we know that we already collect taxes from smokers to help pay for the added burden that smoking can have on the health system; we also know that we have cessation treatment supports and smoke-free environments. But after all of these measures—after all of these measures—some people still smoke or they choose to smoke. And the Government here is deciding that even though there are some people that can know the risks and willingly take them and some people who are willing to pay the extra costs to pay for their own burden to the healthcare system they have to be stopped at any cost by the Government.So what is the Government doing on top of all of the other measures to stop smoking in New Zealand? Number one they say that they're going to reduce retail availability by significantly limiting the number of retailers able to sell smoked tobacco products"; two "reduce the appeal and addictiveness of smoked tobacco products by enabling limits or prohibitions to be set on the quantity of nicotine and other constituents"; and three "prevent young people and future generations from ever taking up smoking by prohibiting the sale of smoked tobacco products to anyone born on or after 1 January 2009." I'll go through these bit by bit because I believe all three of these will make New Zealand worse off. Number one: reducing the retail availability. It's a bad policy because it's anti-competitive. Essentially what we're putting in place is allowing one person in New Zealand the Director-General of Health the ability to pick and choose retail businesses and decide which ones will survive and which ones will completely fail. And you know I've spoken to so many small retail businesses up and down New Zealand people who have come out to ACT Party meetings people that we've met in the community who are really really struggling. They've been struggling with ram raids they've been struggling with robberies they've been struggling feeling safe even going into their facilities. And on top of all of the hard work that they do to be a cornerstone to our local communities the Government is now on top of that saying that if you are not the retailer that the Director-General of Health will pick as the winner in your neighbourhood you could potentially go under. Forget all of the hard work that you do all of the work that you try to do to support the community the Government will intentionally be anti-competitive and stop you being able to trade. You know people don't just go in to a dairy to get cigarettes. They go in to buy their bread their milk their butter all of their small convenience goods alongside it. So a lot of retailers will take a huge hit. The committee is proposing that of the 6000 retailers only around 10 percent of them will be allowed to stock and supply tobacco products. So that's around 600 retailers that would be allowed to continue. I would question whether it's acceptable that a Government would create policy that is so blatantly able to hurt and be anti-competitive to small businesses. I don't believe that is acceptable and we really feel for the small retailers who will be harmed on top of the robberies and the ram raids and the cost of living that people are going through but now with the Government being anti-competitive. But on top of all of that this in some ways will make a bigger target for the dairy owners who will still supply tobacco. Because you see now we have robberies we have ram raids we have people in our community harming dairy owners but there'll be fewer of them and they'll be easily picked off by criminals and those cigarettes will end up on the black market as a result of this law. And so I really feel for the target that will be on the back of those small retailers who will in fact be allowed to survive. Number two: the limits on the quantity of nicotine. This bill will limit the amount of nicotine to 0.8 milligrams per gram to reduce the appeal and addictiveness of cigarettes. I believe this will have two consequences. Number one people who are addicted will simply smoke more cigarettes to get the same hit that they would have originally. Number two they will find they will find the quality of the cigarettes that they're wanting on the black market. I sincerely hope that Customs is ready for the huge amount of illicit tobacco that will come through the border on containers in imports because people know that they want these products and they will get them. But they won't get them in the retailers; they'll get them in the criminal economy. This legislation will only help the gangs and fuel criminal activity and illegal activity in our communities. Number three: prohibiting the sale to anyone born after January 2009. Now if there's one thing that we know from the drug prohibition laws it's that not allowing young people drugs doesn't mean they won't get them. Young people still will want the ability and the choice for these types of products. Just trying to ban them and saying anybody under a certain age can't have one legally does not mean that people won't get them illegally. So I believe that this will once again go to increasing the illegal trade of tobacco in our communities. It will see criminal activity increase; we'll see more ram raids we'll see more robberies we'll see more people taking nicotine illegally from shops. But importantly we will see a huge increase in the amount illegally coming through the border into the black market into the criminal economy into the hands of young people. So we oppose the bill."