Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in opposition to this bill but there's one part that ACT could have supported and that is the restriction on the advertising towards and the sale to minors of vaping products. In the Epsom electorate principals of our schools are beside themselves at kids getting access perfectly legally. We have stories about people in the back alleys of Newmarket with suitcases of vaping products that they are selling to kids legally. This Government for two years has done nothing about it. Stunned like possums in the headlights they haven't been able to do something as simple as banning the sale of vaping products to children and the advertising targeted at children. If they were to bring forward a bill like that I'd vote for it and I'd support them rushing it through select committee to get it done as quickly as possible but that's not what they're doing. They're doing the worst of all worlds.You see vaping is one of greatest—in fact probably the greatest—success story in ending smoking: one of biggest killers in our country. Except and here's the problem vaping has been a private enterprise success story and this Government can't handle that. If people doubt that vaping is saving lives let me recount a conversation on a plane with one of New Zealand's foremost public health experts from the University of Auckland. I asked him Well honestly what do you think about vaping? Is it really safe or is it really saving people's lives?" And he said "Well last year in the United States 400000 died from tobacco and one person died from vaping so what do you reckon?" I thought he put it pretty clearly. Of course he's backed up by the evidence that vaping is saving lives because it's the nicotine that addicts people but it's the tar that kills. Because vaping does not have tar in it it is saving people's lives when they satisfy their nicotine addiction by vaping instead of tobacco. That's the right thing to happen.What does this legislation do? Well it restricts the advertising and it restricts who can sell flavoured vapes. It makes it harder for people to find out about and access vaping that is safer than the smoking and the tobacco that's killing them.I met another man recently—a man from China originally—who had a job he didn't like very much and he thought "I'm going to promote vaping within the Chinese community." Well within a year he had helped 15000 people convert to vaping. How many bureaucrats in the Ministry of Education have helped 15000 people in an ethnic minority quit smoking in a year and do it while making a profit? I think I know the answer to that—not many if any. This is private enterprise helping people be healthier and what this Government is doing is banning people from being able to advertise their wares and access people who need help and promote their product. How are they going to do it? How are they going to manage which stores can sell flavours? Presumably the Government is now going to have some sort of taste testing regime or some sort of regime for measuring the amount of flavour in a particular liquid—that's the only way they can do it. So we see even more bureaucracy that is not going to make people safer.In actual fact it's going to stop people from entering into contracts to buy things to make their lives better. It's actually going to make people less safe and people are actually going to die as a result of continuing to smoke when they might have found out about and accessed vaping which is safer. All of that occurs after two years of delay and this Government failing to introduce very simple laws and regulations that would have said "If anyone sells or advertises vaping products to kids then they will be prosecuted and fined." The Government should have said "Don't be surprised if it uses mystery shoppers to catch them." That's what this Government should have done about the problem of children vaping but unfortunately it hasn't. Instead it is going to stymie private enterprise efforts to save people's lives. What a great shame. I'm proud to oppose this bill. Thank you Mr Speaker."