Verrall AyeshaSMOKEFREE ENVIRONMENTS AND REGULATED PRODUCTS (SMOKED TOBACCO) AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingHon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Associate Minister of Health): I present a legislative statement on the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): The legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: I move That Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Health Committee to consider the bill. At the appointed time I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 1 December 2022. Let me tell you about a patient—we'll call her Judith—that I met in the emergency department. She was a smoker of 30 years and her lung disease was so bad she couldn't leave her house to walk past her letterbox. He lips were blue. She had come into hospital because she had caught whatever viral infection was going around that winter. I could see her scarred lungs on the X-ray behind her. In fact there was barely any of her lungs left at all after smoking for so long. Of course she knew her continued smoking would kill her and she knew her habit was taking a chunk out of her pension and it was robbing her of time with her beloved grandchildren. She had every reason in the world to quit but she couldn't because tobacco is one of the most harmful and addictive substances in the world.Sadly after working in a public hospital I don't just have one story of a life destroyed by tobacco to share. I saw the consequences of smoking every day: heart attacks strokes emphysema bronchitis asthma blindness amputations and premature birth. It's a tragedy that these impacts fall most heavily on Māori and Pacific communities. Smoking accounts for 2.5 years of the eight-year difference in life expectancy between Māori and non-Māori. It does not need to be this way.By going smoke-free we could live in a country where our tamariki spend more quality years with their koro and kuia where we reduce the number of high-risk pregnancies where strong healthy babies are born at term where there are fewer people in hospital with smoking-related diseases and where people had more money to spend on the things they need and enjoy. This bill is about taking urgent action on stopping the leading cause of preventable death in Aotearoa. This bill enables regulations that are appropriate for a product that will kill half the people that use it. This bill responds to the ambitious goals set by the Māori Affairs Committee for Aotearoa to be smoke-free by 2025. Unless we pass this bill it will take decades for Māori to reach the smoke-free target of less of 5 percent of people being daily smokers whereas Pākehā are currently on track to being smoke-free by 2025.I want to take the opportunity to recognise that these changes to get us to be smoke-free are made possible because of decades of work and Governments of all hues have played their part in driving down smoking rates over the last four decades. The changes in this bill will make smoking less appealing addictive and accessible. By enacting these changes we're telling smokers we've got their back and that we're taking action against the addiction and proliferation of retail outlets that undermine their efforts to quit. These measures are essential components of our Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 Action Plan and that plan also includes strengthened community health promotion enhanced quit services and increased mass marketing of quit messages.To achieve our smoke-free goal this bill amends the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Act by making three changes. Firstly the bill will restrict the sale of smoked tobacco products to approved retailers only and allow a maximum number of retail premises to be set in a certain area. We know that people trying to quit are at greatest risk of relapse if they live in an area where tobacco is readily available. There are currently more smoked tobacco retailers clustered in low-income communities so this change will end the deadly toll that tobacco takes on poor communities.Secondly we want to make sure young people never start smoking so we are legislating for a smoke-free generation. This bill will make it an offence to sell or supply smoked tobacco products to anyone born on or after January 2009. This means that 14-year-olds now and generations to follow will never in their lives be able to be sold tobacco because our law should reflect that truth—there is no safe age to start smoking.Some might say that social supply will undermine the intent of this law but studies from the US confirm that regulating the age of purchase does reduce youth smoking. But I am also realistic. There will be a few young people who continue to access tobacco so let's be clear about what this bill means for them. Those selling tobacco can be fined but purchase is not criminalised. Young people who do become addicted will not face barriers to accessing support and this change occurs in the context of regulated availability of vapes and strengthened community health promotion. So it is not the case that people addicted to nicotine will be forced to purchase from criminal networks. This bill has received a favourable New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet from the Ministry of Justice.Thirdly the bill introduces measures to reduce the appeal and addictiveness of smoked tobacco products. Specifically it requires that regulations are made to set limits on nicotine levels. For decades we have permitted tobacco companies to maintain their market share by making their deadly product more and more addictive. It is disgusting and it is bizarre. We have more regulations in this country on the safety of the sale of a sandwich than on a cigarette. Low-nicotine products will help people either to quit or swap to a less harmful alternative. Low-nicotine products will also protect anyone who experiments with smoking preventing them from being addicted and taking up regular smoking. There have been several clinical trials on low-nicotine cigarettes so we can set nicotine levels that won't cause a compensatory increase in smoking but will instead support quitting. Our priority in bringing this bill is protecting what is precious: our people our whānau our communities. This bill will mean kaumātua will get more years with their whānau and see their mokopuna grow. Newborns will spend their first precious moments in their parents' arms and not in neonatal intensive care. Our people will benefit greatly from these changes. There will be an estimated $5 billion in savings from future health expenditure. These changes will save lives and could increase Māori life expectancy and we cannot put a price on that. I look forward to the Health Committee's consideration of the bill and I commend this bill to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): The question is that the motion be agreed to.