Goff Phil: Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoff Phil: Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 11 February 2014. Volume:696;Page:15808. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): I agree with some of what the member Shane Ardern who has just resumed his seat has said. But it was a curious analogy with bicycles was it not—that people should not ride bicycles because they would be better off and safer in big cars. I would just like to remind the member that unlike tobacco bicycles do not kill 50 percent of the people who use them in the manner in which the manufacturer intends. Tobacco has the unique—Iain Lees-Galloway: Characteristic.Hon PHIL GOFF: —characteristic—thank you—of actually killing the people who use it in the way that it is intended to be used. I have absolutely no time for big tobacco for its selfish vested interest reasons sending the message to this House and saying: “You’ve got no right to control our product.” We have got every right to control that product. They are lucky that we even tolerate the legality of the product and frankly if I thought that prohibition worked then I would be inclined to support prohibition. But it does not and this at least is a step in the right direction.I want to congratulate Barbara Stewart the New Zealand First contributor to this debate. I know that she was in a very difficult position. I am sure that she had her leader leaning over her shoulder as she delivered that speech. New Zealand First is at least going to support the referral of the Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill to the Health Committee and I want to say this. I hope that New Zealand First takes an evidence-based approach—Barbara Stewart: We will.Hon PHIL GOFF: —and Barbara Stewart says that she will—because an evidence-produced response will come up with what the Ministry of Health has found. It said: “Tobacco packaging has been demonstrated to be a highly effective form of tobacco marketing. Research has indicated that current tobacco packaging glamorises smoking and can mislead consumers as to product safety. Research has shown that the primary role of tobacco packaging is to promote brand appeal particularly to youth and young adults. With increasing restrictions on tobacco advertising promotion and sponsorship throughout the world tobacco packaging has become the tobacco industry’s key marketing tool to attract and retain consumers.”That is an evidence-based approach. That is why we are supporting this legislation not because we think that is a silver bullet solution. Together with the other things that have been done such as increasing the tax and therefore the price of tobacco such as stopping point-of-sale displays and such as the smoke-free environment bills introduced under Labour Governments we can have a real impact. That is why smoking is declining as Shane Ardern said—because we have acted.I want to congratulate Tariana Turia on this bill. I think she deserves credit in moving the National Party from its traditional vested interest support for the tobacco industry.Jonathan Young: Oh!Hon PHIL GOFF: I say that in a rather measured way. It is true Mr Young. It is true that the National Party opposed every single measure of tobacco control introduced under the last Labour Government. That is a fact and the members of the National Party from those days should hang their heads in shame about that act. Bill English in the 2002 election campaign promised to reverse the Smoke-free Environments Act if National was elected.Iain Lees-Galloway: What did he do again?Hon PHIL GOFF: Bill English promised to reverse to repeal the Smoke-free Environments Act if he was elected. No party in this House today would do anything so crazy or would be so irresponsible. Times have changed and we are finally taking the action that we need to take. I understand where Tariana Turia is coming from and theMāori Affairs Committee which did very good work on this as well. The Māori community has disproportionately been a victim of addiction to tobacco.In supporting this bill I am not attacking smokers. Smokers are addicts. Nicotine is an addictive substance. When the tobacco industry has finished promoting the product to get people to use it for the first time it then sits back and relies on the addictive qualities of tobacco to ensure that those people are hooked in. We should have sympathy and we should provide support for smokers but we should provide nothing but condemnation for the tobacco industry’s outrageous attempts to allow it to continue to promote a product that is a lethal product.The facts again if it is an evidence-based approach are very clear. Smoking is the single biggest cause of preventable deaths and disease in New Zealand. What is it about that that any New Zealander does not understand? It kills 5000 people a year who die directly of smoking-related diseases. It shortens the long-term smoker’s life on average by as much as 15 years. That is the reason why this House should take every step that it can to reduce the appeal and to stop the promotion in any way of a product that kills our fellow New Zealanders.I want to add another condemnation. It is a condemnation of not only the tobacco industry but the fellow travellers and the apologists for that industry who would pretend that they can dictate to this country about what we should do in terms of tobacco promotion. It is a long list: the Emergency Committee for American Trade the National Association of Manufacturers the National Foreign Trade Council the US-ASEAN Business Council the US Chamber of Commerce and the United States Council for International Business. Shame on those groups which in many other aspects of their work do responsible work that they should act as apologists for a product that kills people.They may pretend that the debate is about intellectual property. They may pretend that the debate is about removing barriers to trade. I am a believer in reasonable protection for intellectual property and I am a strong believer that we should remove barriers to trade but neither argument stacks up to defend the promotion of a product that kills people if used as the manufacturer intends. Neither argument stands up. They are red herrings. Those councils those vested interest groups should butt out of our debate. New Zealand as every country does must have the sovereign right to legislate and to regulate for the public good.There is some question about what the Trans-Pacific Partnership might do in regard to this legislation. I want to say that I have got a letter in front of me signed by the Minister of Trade and he makes the point—and I rely on his assurance and will hold him to it—that our Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement will be based on the trade agreements that I negotiated with China and with ASEAN which do not allow companies corporates to succeed in suing New Zealand when we regulate or legislate for the public good whether it be for the environment for health or to do the things that are for the well-being of New Zealanders.I think that the Philip Morris case against the Australian Government is a disgrace. The Australian authorities tell me that they will succeed in that case. We should not lack the courage to confront the vested interests that promote for their own material benefit the peddling of tobacco as a lethal product. We should not be frightened to confront them. We should not be frightened to bring in this legislation on the date that we consider appropriate and to take on those corporates because we would have the support of the World Health Organization. We would be aligned with the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. That has been passed internationally by a responsible body and I do not believe for a moment that another international body the WorldTrade Organization would in the end defend the right of companies to kill people with their products. It just does not stack up. It is not credible.I support this bill. I commend those with the courage to vote for this bill now and I urge the Government to bring it into effect as soon as possible so we can stop that last bastion of promotion of a lethal product by the vested interests of big tobacco.