van Velden BrookeBROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party and my caucus colleagues in opposition to the third reading of the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill.We stand opposed to this bill because it's a bad bill and it's bad policy—it's that straightforward and simple. There won't be better outcomes for New Zealand; there will be worse outcomes for New Zealanders because we need to look at what the effects—the true effects—of this law will be on our communities and our people within our communities. That's because when you create a law you need to look at the costs and the benefits and you also need to ask the question of Well what will happen next from us passing this law; what will be the flow-on effect of this law?"Now this law says that it has the goal of reducing smoking in New Zealand. That's a nice goal and it sounds nice in theory but the devil is in the details. Nobody wants to see people smoke—I don't want to see people smoke—but we live in reality and we know that it happens and some people will smoke. This bill rather than helping our communities is simply nanny-State prohibition that will cause more problems in our society because in reality the effect is it will create a large black market it will kill off our community dairies and it will increase illegal activity and harm in our communities. So the ACT Party believes that it's a poorly thought-out feel-good policy that sounds nice in theory but it comes with huge downsides and I want to go over a few of those in detail with the time that I have.This bill has three policies within it to bring about the goal of reducing smoking in New Zealand. So starting with the first goal to significantly reduce retail availability by restricting sales of smoked tobacco products to retail outlets approved by the Director-General of Health. There are around 6000 community retailers that currently have the ability to sell cigarettes amongst all of the other types of goods that they sell. This bill will reduce the number of retailers that can sell cigarettes and smoked tobacco products to 600. That is a huge reduction. It's estimated that around 80 percent of these retail businesses will go out of business—they will close.Let me tell you a little bit about some of these retailers because I've had a lot to do with them in recent months. Some of our retailers in our communities have faced the hardest time in New Zealand. They are constantly being attacked they're constantly being robbed they're at threat of ram raids they have a threat of being attacked working in their own shops and it's not good that in our community we have anybody going to work who feels like they might get attacked just for doing their jobs in the local community. That's not OK. But we have a lot of retailers who get up they work hard and they're just trying to do their best to serve their local community and that's really tough to see.But on top of all of that on top of all of the crime that they have the Government is now coming along and saying "Forget about all that hardship that you already faced; we want to put you out of business. We want the ability to pick and choose which one of you will be able to survive into the future." It's not fair. It's not the Kiwi way. We have community retailers who won't be picked and they will find it really hard because this bill is anti-competitive. You know if they're not able to sell cigarettes or smoked tobacco products that's not just that cigarette or smoked tobacco product that they're not able to sell; it means that that customer who would have come in to buy that good now won't come in to buy the bread or the milk or the water bottle or even the newspaper that might have come alongside it—all of that business now goes to their competitor. So it's not just the effect of not being able to sell the cigarettes; it's not being able to sell all of those other goods that people buy when they're in the shop as well.So I believe that's disrespectful. It's disrespectful for the way that we go about doing business in New Zealand and it's disrespectful for the hard-working Kiwis who want to serve their local communities. It is wrong.But the second part of this policy is that even worse on top of all the crime it puts a bigger target on some of those retailers who have been affected by crime and who have been affected by ram-raiders because now there's a smaller pool of them to be targeted. I think that is going to be a terrible consequence of this bill. It also means that it will lead to a larger black market because you see a lot of people like accessibility. They like to know that they can pop down to their local shop and they can get what they need when they need it. Now if you're moving a store further and further away from someone they either have the ability to drive further take a bus even further or walk further or they can go to their local gang member and get it from there. They can get it around the corner. And that is what will happen. Illegal activity will increase. Because you know who's smart? Criminals. They know that this is wanted in their communities and they will be there arms wide open providing illegal cigarettes on the black market.The second point that I want to talk to is reducing the appeal and addictiveness of smoked tobacco products by setting a limit on the quantity of nicotine and enabling limits or prohibitions to be set on other constituents. This creates a radical reduction in the amount of nicotine content within each cigarette and I think there are people in our communities who are addicted to cigarettes. The effect will be that those who smoke and are addicted and who can least afford it will spend more on their habit because instead of having one cigarette to get their hit they'll have two—they will increase how much they're smoking. The effect of that is that if they're smoking more cigarettes to get the same hit they're going to be increasing their tar intake which is actually worse for their health. This will affect families who can least afford it the most because more of that money will be going to an increase in buying cigarettes for a habit rather than going to other costs of living that that family need.The second part is the alternative—they don't smoke more cigarettes for their habit they once again go to the black market to find exactly what they were looking for originally. I hope that Customs and our police are ready for the increase in illegal activity that will happen. We are going to see more illegal cigarettes come through the borders through customs and through containers than we've ever seen because people will want these products and the gangs will be there to give it to them.Number three is preventing young people and future generations from ever taking up smoking by prohibiting the sale of smoked tobacco products to anyone born on or after 1 January 2009. Now if we know anything from history it's that prohibition does not work—it absolutely does not work—because a great example is drug law in New Zealand. You know we have a lot of illegal substances in our communities and we say we don't want young people using pills at festivals. We know it happens and we know people supply it to them. This is the same thing. Prohibition doesn't mean that the problem goes away; it just shifts to the black market. It's really that simple. A ban on a problem does not make it disappear; it will increase criminal activity in our communities and make us less safe.So who are the losers out of this policy? Well it's the dairies and the people in our community who want to serve our local communities; it's businesses knowing that the Government thinks it's acceptable to pick and choose winners and to have bureaucrats sitting in Wellington decide who the winners of a business environment should be rather than the local community; and it's all New Zealanders. New Zealanders are worse off knowing that the Government restrict business activity in New Zealand—they cannot see the flow-on effects of the policy which will increase harm in our communities yet they create feel-good laws that actually make us worse off. The winners of this policy are the crims and the gangs."