Turei Metiria: Inquiries — Inquiry into the Tobacco Industry in Aotearoa and the Consequences of Tobacco Use for Maori —Report of Maori Affairs Committee 
Turei Metiria: Inquiries — Inquiry into the Tobacco Industry in Aotearoa and the Consequences of Tobacco Use for Maori —Report of Maori Affairs Committee 
[Volume:669;Page:15954] 
METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I was very privileged to be part of the inquiry into the tobacco industry and its consequences for Maori. I thank Hone Harawira for bringing the inquiry to the Maori Affairs Committee. I acknowledge the work of all of the advisers to the committee especially the specialist adviser Chris Cunningham and I also acknowledge a number of people who were very supportive in terms of their expertise: Dr Prudence Stone from the Smokefree Coalition Moana Tane from Te Hotu Manawa Maori Shane Bradbrook and Ben Youdan from Action on Smoking and Health—ASH. These people have spent many years committed to making the changes that are reflected to some degree at least in this report. 
I will raise two issues. The first is about the industry and the second is about wahine Maori and their tamariki. 
At the moment most of our approach to tobacco has been to control smokers and to support the industry—of that there is no doubt. We must turn that round. We must control the industry and support smokers to quit. We must not underestimate the power of these corporations and the efforts they will go to to protect their profits while our whanau die from their poisons. Just this week my colleague Dr Russel Norman revealed that the multinational tobacco company Philip Morris is using trade agreements to try to stop Governments from introducing anti-smoking measures in their countries. Philip Morris is targeting New Zealand’s Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations which are under way right now to ensure that Philip Morris will be able to sue the New Zealand Government if it attempts to introduce controls on packaging or controls like the graphic warnings that are on our packets or to introduce plain packaging for example. Philip Morris argues that plain packaging of cigarettes is an expropriation of its property right. Philip Morris wants to be able to sue the New Zealand Government in some international tribunal somewhere around the world in order to protect its investment. 
It is not an empty threat because right now Philip Morris is taking action against Uruguay’s proposed laws requiring 80 percent of cigarette packaging to carry graphic warnings—just like the ones pictured in this document—against smoking. The World Bank will decide whether Uruguay will have to pay compensation to Philip Morris if it does that. It could mean that Uruguayan people will have to pay compensation to Philip Morris if they want to use their own laws to protect themselves from the harm that tobacco causes. 
Members should take note: this report and all the work that has gone into it will be redundant unless we can control this powerful industry which is selling a dangerous drug that kills 600 Maori every year—men women and their babies. Wahine Maori suffer significantly from the effects of smoking. They have the highest mortality rate from lung cancer in the world and they suffer from other diseases associated with smoking like diabetes cardiovascular disease breast cancer and cervical cancer. The harm to wahine Maori from smoking is painfully evidenced through the loss of their pepi their babies from sudden infant death syndrome—SIDS. The number of Maori babies who died from sudden infant death syndrome during 2003-07 was 202 and these babies made up 62 percent of all the sudden infant death syndrome deaths in that period. It is reported that 46 percent of Maori deaths from sudden infant death syndrome is attributed to smoking. We must focus on protecting the 65000 Maori women who are of childbearing age who smoke. If Maori women are helped to give up smoking their babies will have a much healthier start in life and it will help to prevent deaths from sudden infant death syndrome. Their babies will grow up in smoke-free homes and smoke-free cars. It will help to address the issue of young Maori girls who smoke during pregnancy. About 45 percent of wahine are still smoking when they register with a lead maternity carer at about 14 to 18 weeks of pregnancy. Their whanau will be helped by having more income available. We will have Maori women growing old enough to be our kuia. 
It is Maori women who smoke the most and who are at the most threat from the industry that peddles this drug which kills them. They need the help the most. Our future literally depends on it.