Robertson H V Ross: Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill — Referral to Health Committee Procedure In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Robertson H V Ross: Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill — Referral to Health Committee Procedure In Committee 
[Sitting date: 15 October 2003. Volume:612;Page:9230. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member is right and I apologise. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT 
: Dail Jones was talking before about the good old days. I have to say that recently I was on the Speaker’s tour to Japan and it really did take me back because we were in a select committee room at the Diet and on the table were a whole lot of cigarettes. 
Simon Power 
: How were they? 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT 
: I did not bother to have one but some of the members of Parliament did light up. That really did take me back to the days when even our workplaces were not smoke-free. I can remember those days and having to get in the car with my mum when she was smoking and how dreadful that was. I think that New Zealand has come a very long way because 70 percent of New Zealanders no longer smoke and that is a very good thing. 
I shall tell members a bit more about my mum. She suffered from every single complication from smoking that one could possibly imagine. First off she had a heart attack then clots from her heart attack went to her brain so that she had strokes. She tried her best to give up smoking but she could not. It then got to the point where she had an aortic aneurysm—she was only in her sixties when all this was happening—and then they told us she would lose her legs if she did not stop smoking. But still she could not stop smoking. She died suddenly from another stroke before she could give up. [ 
Interruption 
] It was not. It was the smoking. People have to understand that smoking is extremely bad for their health and so is second-hand smoke. If we can stop any young person from smoking that is a very good thing and that will save this country millions of dollars in health dollars. 
I am extremely disappointed about what we found out last week about the Ministry of Health contracts. Many anti-smoking groups and non-government organisations have had money for health promotion and no one disagrees with that. No one disagrees with health dollars going to health promotion programmes. But they crossed the line. The State Services Commission has put out a lot of information stating that State sector employees cannot engage in political lobbying especially political lobbying for Labour members’ bills and certainly not the prostitution legislation or the smoke-free legislation. That is crossing a line and the Ministry of Health contracts in 2000 and 2001 were changed to include that. 
The Government used a whole lot of spin to try to pretend that the contracts from the 1990s were exactly the same but they were not. Those clauses were added to lobby for the Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill. I am speaking for this bill but the fact is that that line should not have been crossed. They should not have been lobbying for a specific bill. They should not have been seeing MPs especially the Maori caucus. Where are they tonight? Are they over there standing up for what they believe? We know that people over on that side of the Chamber do not believe in this bill but they are not standing up for it. I am standing up on this side of the House giving my views and standing up for what I believe in and for my principles. Where are those members today? They are not here. They do not have anything to say. They are probably out having a smoke but they will not come in here to stand up for the people who put them into Parliament. 
Simon Power 
: Suppressed. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT 
: They are totally suppressed and totally whipped into shape by this Government. They do not have the courage of their convictions. At least we can vote according to our conscience but those MPs cannot. They are whipped into line and told what to do how to think and they have to toe the line. This is Helen Clark’s bill. She absolutely hates smoking and that is why we are here. 
Simon Power 
: She’s not a happy person. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT 
: No she is not really a happy person. The specific line that was crossed by $2.1 million of scarce health money going to political lobbying should not have been crossed. I hope that the Government will have a real look at changing that type of action. It knows that the State sector cannot do it so non-government organisations are paid to do its bidding for this member’s bill and it is just not acceptable. I shall tell members a little bit about why second-hand smoke affects people when they go into a pub.