Turei Metiria: Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTurei Metiria: Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 11 February 2014. Volume:696;Page:15811. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): Kia ora Mr Deputy Speaker. For every person I love who smokes cigarettes that cigarette is a direct threat to their life. That cigarette increases their chances of dying of some horrible disease much much younger than they would otherwise. Tobacco kills people. It is a drug that kills people but it is a legal drug in this country. And so it is treated quite differently in the law and in policy and even in people’s minds although that has changed over time because of its legal status. So it becomes a real issue for policy makers then as to how the risk that this drug that kills people should be handled in policy and in law.I agree with my colleague Kevin Hague who today stood up and asked what greater significant role does a Government have than to regulate or control industries that kill people. There is no other. So it is really fantastic that this legislation is before the House and that there is so much support for it proceeding. I join with Kevin Hague and with others in congratulating the Associate Minister of Health Minister Turia on her relentless advocacy for this law change and for further law change and Hone Harawira on bringing to the Māori Affairs Committee the inquiry into tobacco control which really opened my eyes not just to the personal effects that tobacco has on the people I love but also to the wider issues that affect so many of the Māori community and everybody and all the people that they love too.What is most important to me about this legislation is that it controls the industry. This legislation does not punish individuals for what is an addiction. Nicotine is addictive. Some people are able to kick that addiction and it is great to have supportive services available for those people but it is an addiction and there are hundreds and hundreds thousands and thousands of people who simply cannot kick it. We can continue to punish those individuals for the fact that they have succumbed to a terrible addiction to this drug or we can also control the industry that makes significant profits from this drug. I am extremely pleased that the Parliament that I am a member of at the moment is making that significant change because it is about time that we make those who profit from the peddling of this drug that kills people pay some of the consequences.I watched the industry come to the Māori Affairs Committee and argue that making changes like this in the legalisation would make no difference to the smoking rates of the people whom we love. Actually the argument by it really was: “We want to keep our branding; we want to keep control of the industry.” If it is the case that the way the packaging on cigarettes looks does not make any difference to people’s smoking then itdoes not make any difference if it has got the tobacco companies’ brand on it either. Frankly it was a ridiculous argument that they should never have thought they could pursue.As long as this industry is legal it does require serious regulation and it is important for us to hold the industry to account for what it does. We do have controls on advertising and other forms of regulatory control over the industry but more is needed and this is a great first step. We—the country the Government the community—are being threatened by the tobacco industry. We saw in today’s paper that there are further threats by the tobacco industry for the consequences of this policy. We are quite right in saying so be it bring it on. We are in the job of making good policy for the health and well-being of our country and none of us make any apologies for that whatsoever. If that causes a cost to an industry that peddles a drug that kills well then so be it. They bear that cost. They are in that industry. That is a cost that they have to take. Thank you. We support this legislation the Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill.