Hague Kevin: Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hague Kevin: Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 26 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5711. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
KEVIN HAGUE (Green) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take a call and in particular to follow up on the contribution from Paul Goldsmith because he did state—and he is the first Government member to speak in this debate—that the Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill is a bill intended to improve the health of New Zealanders. That has been one of the topics that has been debated in this Committee stage of the bill and also in the second reading debate that we held earlier this week. 
I think it is interesting is it not that there does seem to be general support from the House for this bill. I think all parties will be voting for it—I am not sure about New Zealand First but all other parties will certainly be voting for it. 
Brendan Horan 
: Have to wait and see. 
KEVIN HAGUE 
: We will have to wait for someone to come back. But despite the general support for the bill none the less there are many suggestions about improvements to the bill that have been canvassed both in the debate and also by the Finance and Expenditure Committee and by many of the submitters. It is an unusual thing it seems to me that in the select committee’s report it refers to amendments to the bill that it would have made had they been in scope. I think that is an interesting point is it not because it suggests that there are further public policy measures that we as a nation ought to be taking around control of tobacco-related harm and that this bill does not do the things that we need it to do. Iain Lees-Galloway has mentioned that it is a better approach than has been used to excise tax increases in the past and I would agree with that. I think it is a step forward. But given the opportunity that the bill presented it is unfortunate that it did not go further. 
I quote again from the letter to the  
New Zealand Medical Journal  
from Associate Professor Nick Wilson and George Thomson from the Otago school of medicine from earlier this week. They very clearly raised the question that has been raised by several speakers over the debate in this stage and earlier about what the purpose is of the bill. In fact what they said in their letter was: “We suggest that Parliament makes it explicit in the tobacco tax legislation that: the primary purpose of the current Bill is to reduce smoking so as to prevent harm to health and to prevent premature deaths rather than to increase Government revenue.” They also say that the purpose clause that they suggest would say that “The Bill is a key part of the Government plans for achieving a smokefree nation in 2025.” So that is placing into statute in fact that goal. 
If indeed the linkage that Paul Goldsmith has mentioned tonight is the Government’s intention—that that is what this Government is about—then I invite the Minister in the chair to bring a Supplementary Order Paper to the floor of the House to add exactly that kind of purpose clause. It has been drafted for the Government by the professors at Otago medical school. 
I think it is apparent is it not why that confusion has arisen. Those who believe that the bill is or ought to be about reducing smoking-related harm would then look at the options that were canvassed by the various agencies who were supporting the select committee on this bill and note that the option that was selected for inclusion in the bill and which is reflected in the bill that has been reported back was the option that actually had the least positive impact on improving New Zealanders’ health. So either there is some kind of goal confusion going on and one suspects that that may be the case—and if that is the case then perhaps a purpose clause along the lines suggested by those Otago professors would be helpful to everyone to the public and to the Government and would be clear about what it was that it is trying to achieve—or else there is something more insidious and that is certainly the theory that we have heard espoused in the debate tonight. The Government is able to settle that point if it was to take up that suggestion about inserting a purpose clause. 
The select committee rejected the more aggressive measures that would have had a more positive effect on health and in doing so it also made some further comment in its report to this House about in fact its doubt about whether the measures that were being passed into law would be adequate to meet that 2025 goal. It suggested that there should be some ongoing monitoring by the Government of progress towards that goal with a view to determining whether further measures are required. Again the Minister in the chair may or may not be in a position tonight to indicate what the monitoring regime is that the Government intends to put in place to determine whether or not progress is adequate towards that goal. Again that would be a useful insertion into the bill by the Government—the monitoring regime that it intends to use to determine whether or not these measures are achieving the goal. There is certainly a lot of doubt about that point. It was raised by virtually every submitter to the select committee and certainly all of the experts. Indeed the advice from the officials themselves suggests that the measures in this bill will not be adequate to achieve that purpose. I am certainly very keen to hear from the Minister about what that monitoring regime will be. 
I also want to touch on one other point in relation to Part 1 and that is the matter of duty-free tobacco concessions. This is the issue on which the select committee said that had it been in scope it would have recommended an amendment to the bill to change the duty-free concessions. I think what that suggests is that the recommendation that the select committee does make which is that the Government needs to consider this matter—to consider the consistency of the duty-free concessions with that smoke-free Aotearoa goal—is clearly another point that we want to hear from the Minister on. What is it that the Government is going to do to assess that consistency? What is the legislative programme that we might expect to see to close that gap? 
I think the evidence is pretty clear as New Zealanders move through airports or otherwise access duty-free stores or duty-free supplies that the availability of duty-free tobacco and tobacco products is increasingly an anachronism in an environment where our strategy as a nation is to denormalise tobacco. Well the massive stands of cigarettes that we see in duty-free stores—I guess we do not see them now but that we are used to seeing—actually are the epitome of the normalisation of that product. This is a point that does not perhaps affect very large numbers of people but it is an important symbolic step towards the goal that the Government has adopted of having a smoke-free nation. I look forward to the comments from the Minister in the chair on exactly what it is that the Government will do to close that gap.