Mark Ron: Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill — Referral to Health Committee Procedure In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Mark Ron: Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill — Referral to Health Committee Procedure In Committee 
[Sitting date: 15 October 2003. Volume:612;Page:9241. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 When people look back on this bill it’s passage will be characterised by misinformation by tactics of deception by tactics of deceit by practices that the public are saying are corrupt by bully-boy tactics by intolerance—that wonderful word the Prime Minister uses so often; she often says how tolerant she is—by hypocrisy and by stupidity and misguided priorities. Let us deal with the last one—misguided priorities. I would say to the member who has brought this bill to the House that if she is seriously concerned about saving lives—and she likes to tell me how concerned she is about my people—why does she not focus on the two issues that are affecting Maori diabetes and obesity? More New Zealanders will be killed by those two conditions than by smoking in spite of the concocted figures she likes to purport are figures that represent deaths caused by smoking. 
Then there is intolerance. I am a non-smoker. I dabbled a little bit with smoking when I was at school but quickly gave it up because I did not like it. Throughout my entire life I have not smoked. However I live with associate with and socialise with good friends people I know people I have a lot of time for who smoke. On the occasions I do not like their smoking I simply ask them whether they would mind not smoking and nine times out of 10 they are only too happy to stub out their cigarettes. Tolerance is a factor. I like going to places where people socialise and if I go into a bar that is smoke-filled then it is my choice whether I stay. The market on those occasions does dictate. These sorts of tactics are absolutely intolerable. It is intolerable to have a bunch of nannies and others—some of whom will never be nannies as long as their backsides point to the ground—ramming down the throats of people what they should and should not do. 
Another factor is deception and deceit. One of the things I cannot stand is listening to Labour Party people who purport to represent working-class people. The facts are now—and everybody is talking about it out there—that this Chardonnay sipping spa-bath collection of socialists have no more in common with working-class people than the Tories they criticise. Let us see why. In the old days there was a time when labourers workers would proudly stop for smoko. “Smoko” now is a banned word. Now those people have to stop for a cup of tea or maybe to sip some Chardonnay. There used to be a time when shearers would knock off and go outside and have a fag. But of course that is different nowadays because the fags Labour is interested in are totally different things altogether—and that is acceptable but having a cigarette is not. That just goes to show and it has been talked about and I have heard the accounts here of what people have walked into in bars—[ 
Interruption 
] I say: “Good on you Chris.” 
I went into the Abrahams bar in Lincoln Road—and Mr Robson should listen up because it is on his illustrious leader’s back door—and there I met a man who is a jockey. [ 
Interruption 
] I am talking fags and back doors; the member is getting confused. But it is in his own electorate right? The young man a jockey said exactly the same thing that has been recounted by Mr Shane Ardern. He looked at me—he had a cigarette—and said: “Are you going to vote for this stupid smoking law or not?” I replied that I was voting against it. He said: “Good on you mate.” I then told him: “Your local man here will be voting for it.” and he said: “Well yeah but he’s probably never done a hard day’s work in his life and he wouldn’t know what it’s like to get up at 4 o’clock in the morning go and exercise and train horses work a full day then go down to the pub and have a beer and a cigarette with his mates.” But of course he will not be able to do that any more because these Chardonnay sipping spa-bath socialists who no longer go to smoko—they go to morning tea—do not understand that any more. 
Those members have done more to attack working-class people through their taxes and levies—which they promised they would never do when they came to power—than any other Government in the past 9 years that they like to ridicule and that is a fact. I say to those people that they should vote for this legislation fill their boots and have their day because come the next election I say to Steve Chadwick when they have finally thrown the white towel we will have our day. All those blue-collar labourers out there the working-class people do not like what the Government is doing. They do not like being told how to live their lives and they do not like the hypocrisy the stupidity or the deceit that is wrapped up in this. 
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a second call in this debate and to make the point that elephants never forget—and neither will New Zealanders when this bill goes through. I think it is high time that some members across the way went to visit a public bar and actually talked to people about this bill and about its impact on their communities. 
I have actually been doing a bit of a pub crawl around the Dunedin pubs and the very interesting thing is to see posters of Mr David Benson-Pope and Mr Pete Hodgson on the walls with bright lettering saying: “Give us our rights back.” It is interesting to talk to people this bill will have an impact on. A number of them said: “I have voted Labour all my life but next election I will not forget this and I am going to change my vote. I don’t like someone interfering with my life and my ability to choose. I work long and hard.” It is interesting to see how out of touch those members are with some of the workers they purport to represent. I say they should get off their butts step inside a public bar and have a drink. I doubt that they have even been to a pub in the last few weeks because if they had they certainly would not be voting for this bill. 
 It is interesting that this change is being made in the name of safety—the safety of staff. A fascinating thing is that a number of pubs I visited do not have any staff. The people in those pubs say: “This is my home. Why should anybody tell me that I’m not allowed to do what I want to do in my own home?”. I tell members that when I visited the Greater Green Island Town and Country Club the people there could not understand why this bill allows people to smoke in prisons in hospitals and on marae but not in their community’s equivalent of a marae—their meeting-place for their community. They are not allowed to smoke in the Greater Green Island Town and Country Club. They will not forget this. 
Let us look at some Otago pubs. They are focal points for the community—Foxy’s Lauder Tavern in Lauder. There is not much else there but it is a place where people meet to talk with one another and catch up on things that are going on. In those communities there are no other places for people to meet and participate. Some of those people are going to stay at home now rather than go out to their local community. What worries me is that although we are talking about licensed premises and pubs it is actually about businesses. Some of these businesses have told me they will shut their doors. Most of those that I visited said that between 60 and 90 percent of their patrons smoke. They choose to smoke. They go to these places to enjoy a bit of company and to talk with one another. It was very interesting to hear some of the comments made by some of the non-smokers in these places. They said that although they did not smoke and did not like smoke with the ventilation system they barely noticed it and they would defend the right of their friends to come in after a hard day’s work to enjoy a drink and to have a cigarette. 
How did the Government ever decide that it had the right to get in and meddle with people’s lives like it is doing today? What next! Is it going to prescribe what people eat for breakfast? Is it going to tell us we will have to wear matching tracksuits and all go for a walk around the block? This Government is meddling in the day-to-day decisions that most people feel they are able to make for themselves. Sure Governments get in and look at regulations that determine how people live their lives but Governments do not get into the trivialities of what people do. What will be next? Maybe there will be alcohol-free pubs. 
The arguments that are now being used to ban smoking in pubs could equally be used to ban alcohol in pubs. One may laugh at that suggestion but 20 years ago people laughed at the suggestion that smoking might be banned. It comes back to some of the old guys I have spoken to who went to war. They say: “I fought for my country. I fought to have freedom in this country and now they’re telling me I can’t have a cigarette. What next!”. A lot of these people are Labour voters and I tell members opposite that some of those people are really het up about this. They are not going to forget. Jill Pettis says that some of those guys at the Returned Services Association clubs are just going to die but most of them say they will be around for a couple of elections yet. They are determined to live long enough to change their vote and for some that will be the first time in their life. They certainly will not forget this. We are defending those small pubs here today.