Dunne Peter: Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill — Procedure Referral to Health Committee In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Speaker Recalled  Speaker Recalled In Committee Procedure 
Dunne Peter: Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill — Procedure Referral to Health Committee In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Speaker Recalled  Speaker Recalled In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:613;Page:9983] 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 I want to speak to the amendment that I am moving to Part 3 to insert a new clause 11A relating to minimum air-quality standards which are one of the key issues surrounding this bill. If members believe the argument advanced by the sponsor of the bill Steve Chadwick in a very simple phrase it is to say that no such things as minimum air-quality standards can possibly be established. She says it is simply too hard to do that. We can put men on the moon and can make all sorts of other scientific breakthroughs in medicine and other areas but according to her we cannot define an air-quality standard. Members should just put those comments to one side and think about the member who has just resumed her seat as being the promoter of those comments when I tell them the  
British Medical Journal 
 of 13 August 2003 has just reported a massive study regarding environmental tobacco smoke which is second-hand smoke. The article states that the actual risks associated with it are minimal and there would appear to be no rational reason why ventilation cannot be approved for use in the hospitality industry. The report states that small-business persons have been persecuted by their Governments for long enough. 
I just want to reflect on that. It is merely the  
British Medical Journal  
stating that and it merely quotes a study undertaken at the University of Glamorgan. There have been other studies undertaken by other reputable international institutions. In our own country the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research undertook a study which the chairperson of the Health Committee now seeks to discredit. Members will recall that she was asked in the House this afternoon about the basis of the evidence she has to discredit the report of the institute let alone to discredit the  
British Medical Journal 
 the University of Glamorgan a whole raft of companies and the vice-president of Firestone International Associates in the United States. They have all talked about the ability and capability of air-quality standards in terms of ensuring the air is filtered and provides a clean environment. That is all rejected by the sponsor of this bill who when asked for her evidence this afternoon had this to say to the House: “I stand by my original comment.” She gave no evidence—no facts—and it was utter prejudice. When the Committee heard her speak a moment or two ago I am sure the comments made by my colleague Gordon Copeland during the general debate this afternoon about political correctness took on a fresh and very relevant air. 
We have here a concerted effort on the part of those behind this bill to deny every fact available in favour of their predetermined prejudice. And their expert so-called is the Ministry of Health. The officials are there in that ministry to tell one about disease illness and health policy. They have now become by their own claim experts on ventilation engineering and all sorts of other issues well beyond their ken. Yet because those officials share the same prejudices as the members who support this bill they are now held up to be the experts. The  
British Medical Journal 
 study can go to hell and likewise the University of Glamorgan. Every other reputable organisation in this country and around the world that has upheld the notion of clean air - quality standards is dismissed and no reason is given for that. They are dismissed simply because upholding that goes against not the prevailing wisdom but the prevailing politically correct prejudice. 
 What I really resent about this debate is the utter absence of the real facts being revealed. This bill is not about the health of workers. Nor is it about protecting unborn children or about all the other arguments that have been raised as to why this prohibition has to be put on. This is about an agenda which those who promote it simply know they could not achieve if they were open about it. They want to stop every smoker in New Zealand from smoking. They know that is impossible to achieve and they know they dare not do it by an upfront prohibition because Dr Cullen would lose several hundred million dollars in excise duty. So they come around by stealth deny the evidence and seek to put in place half-baked measures that will be ignored—and properly so because they are unenforceable. Then when we ask the promoter of this bill to refute the international evidence she says the health department advises her and that she stands by her original answer and has nothing to add to it—as though that gives that member credibility in this field. 
This measure is an outrage and it will make us an international laughing stock. I will have great pleasure when the public around the world laugh and sneer at New Zealand in saying whom the instigators of this measure were.