Swarbrick ChlöeSMOKEFREE ENVIRONMENTS AND REGULATED PRODUCTS AMENDMENT BILLThird ReadingDebate resumed.CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): Tēnā koe e te Māngai. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I just wanted to start my contribution actually firstly by acknowledging the former Minister who had just resumed her seat: the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall. When she was in that hot seat of being the health Minister we did a lot of work on this legislation and I think the former Minister will be the first to admit that the concerns that the Greens came to her with were about the potential for criminal prohibition and the potential of criminalising particularly young people with some of the moves under the headline of the smoke-free generation". What the former Minister did was engage wholesale and fulsomely with us to make sure that we addressed all of those potential concerns of criminalisation. That enabled us to get to a place where the Greens were comfortable with supporting evidence-based harm interventions to reduce substance harm in this country. So I just wanted to acknowledge first and foremost off the bat that what we had here was not only world leading in terms of its ability to reduce smoking harm but also that it modelled a way to move forward without entailing criminal prohibition.Turning to the bill in front of us today. There's been not too much ability to meaningfully canvass the content of it. The reason for that of course is that the Government introduced it today and we started debating it at around 3 or 3.30 p.m. It's now just getting to 11 p.m. and in the blink of an eye in nine to 10 hours of debating time in this Chamber the Government has pushed through under urgency world-leading evidence-based harm-minimisation legislation for one of the most deadly substances that we know of—a substance that will kill 50 percent of its consumers. "Why?" is the fundamental question. Why is this on the House's agenda and why is it necessary to go through under urgency without due public scrutiny and the typical convention of this House? Why? Well so far we've been led round in circles by the Minister who's told us in the many back and forths that we attempted to have in the committee of the whole House that the reason this is happening is because of the coalition agreement between the New Zealand First Party and the National Party to form this Government. Well why is it in that coalition agreement? Well because it's in the coalition agreement. Well why is it in the coalition agreement? It's because it's in the coalition agreement. You can see the frustration in that tautology.Hon Members: The coalition agreement!CHLÖE SWARBRICK: I guess I just wanted to say to members of the Government and the governing parties who are heckling me at the minute that I get that this is a game for you guys at this point. I get that it's kind of you know "We'll back our team and we'll rally behind because this is the thing that we're doing." But these are people's lives. Thirteen New Zealanders die every single day from consuming tobacco—Hon Simeon Brown: We've got good policies.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —the Hon Simeon Brown—and they are going to continue to die at a faster rate than they would have otherwise had it not been for this repeal legislation which your Government is pushing through under urgency tonight because Madam Speaker—noting that the Speaker's just changed—we are confronted with effectively the kind of underlying principle or logic here of "Why save more lives? Why move faster? Why have any aspiration to apply the evidence and to move in a direction that would put us at the forefront of the world when it comes to actually meaningfully addressing these issues?"I think some really salient points have been made including by my colleague Steve Abel in his final contribution in the committee of the whole House on the title and commencement clauses where he made the point about how back in the day we used to live in far smokier environments. I'd just actually invite members across this House to think about the fact that only a few decades ago this Chamber was one of those smoky environments where it was the case that members of Parliament and officers of Parliament and the Speaker could light up their cigarette and do so entirely legally. Because it was recognised that smoking and cigarettes were harmful we moved towards an environment which was less and less smoky and actually fun fact it wasn't until 2016—2016—that the entire premises of Parliament finally became entirely smoke-free including our lawn. That is very recent history and entirely indicative of the reality as this place bares out time and again that everything is impossible until it becomes possible and all it takes in order to get to that place which once upon a time was fathomed impossible is evidence and a little bit of backbone and courage to make it happen.So not only are we left in this kind of haze as to why the Government's progressing this through because the only entities that we saw advocating for the repeal of this smoke-free generation legislation throughout the past year or so were New Zealand First and the tobacco industry but who benefits? Who benefits from the passage of this law? Well it's not the more New Zealanders who are going to be addicted for longer only filling up this Government's coffers by an approximate $500 million per annum as a result of increased excise in tobacco tax; it's going to be the tobacco industry. Sure actually we could potentially reflect on that point that that half a billion dollars is going to add in the short term to the Government's revenue and therefore make them able to pay for the tax cuts that they promised throughout the election campaign. But to contextualise that in the long run outside of the three-yearly cycle we know that this is going to cost us billions of dollars and therefore it sits in entire contravention to the National Party's proposals of social investment.There's actually no cost-benefit analysis that sits alongside this legislation I might add which again leaves us with the question of why this is occurring under the urgency. We heard again similarly circular logic from the Minister to the effect that she was conflating the point that this was simply a part of the coalition agreement with no information or understanding of where that came from provided to the House—but that was conflated with why this for some reason had to be introduced under urgency and couldn't have a select committee process. Then we were kind of ushered towards this hypothetical of what might exist into the future without any meaningful detail as to what that might be or contain.So we've kind of heard all of these weird arguments which on the one side have said that this thing isn't in effect yet so therefore it's not important but yet we have a piece of repealing legislation that is being pushed through under urgency in order to repeal that thing which apparently is also not going to be effective but is also going to be far too effective. If you're not following Madam Speaker that's because there is no consistency and there is no rhyme nor reason nor logic to what it is that we have heard from the Government. I think that is perhaps why every single thing that we have heard from the Minister in arguing for this legislation tonight and throughout this afternoon has come from a defensive proposition. It has not been arguing for an aspirational future. It has not been arguing for evidence or where we should be moving to a vision of a healthier Aotearoa New Zealand; in fact it has been defending a return to the status quo—back on track; or "back on baccie" as my Green colleague said earlier.I just really wanted to also drill into that point of the use of urgency because I think it is a really important and salient one here and one that has been a point of contention throughout the last few days. We've heard time and again from members of the Government that the reason that they feel entitled to push this and other legislation through under urgency is because they won an election—they won an election and they formed a Government so therefore absolutely everything that they want to do albeit that potentially only coming from one of the three coalition parties is somehow able to be pushed through without any of the usual convention associated with the parliamentary process. So that kind of begs the question of whether they believe that authoritarian rule is "all g" simply because every three years we have a general election. Again it simply begs the question of what kind of conventions of Parliament they are going to be upholding if all it takes to undermine those processes and those conventions is the fact that they were able to cobble together a Government subsequent to that election.That then prompts another point which is the point that—Hon Scott Simpson: Remember 2017?CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —they are pushing this under urgency because frankly the Hon Scott Simpson I think they're embarrassed. That's why the Hon Dr Shane Reti is sat in the corner up there—Hon Scott Simpson: Remember 2017 the "coalition of the losers"? Remember that?CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —and not on the front bench as he should be. That is why the Hon Scott Simpson this has been allocated to New Zealand First and not being led by the National Party. They want New Zealanders to forget. They are ripping off the band-aid really really quickly in the hopes that this is swept under the rug amongst all of the other heinous things that they are doing under urgency and super-quickly with hopes that into the future New Zealanders forget it.The final thing that I think is just really important to put forward to New Zealanders out there who have been following along at home probably quite devastated as many who have communicated with us in the Chamber are tonight is that they need to remember not to leave politics to the politicians because that's what happens when you leave it to politicians and lobbyists. We oppose this legislation."