Dyson Ruth: Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Dyson Ruth: Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 It is a great delight for me to join in what I assume will be unanimous support for the referral of the Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill to the Health Committee. One can often learn a lot about a person’s view of the world and the way they see their role in it by the contribution they make in the House and I want to refer to the member who has just resumed his seat. I have enjoyed working with Dr Paul Hutchison on the Health Committee. He and I have very little in common in terms of policy but mostly we have an interesting time on the select committee. I have certainly enjoyed the last couple of years and will enjoy the next 12 months in that position.  
But what I found really interesting about the speech that Dr Paul Hutchison just made was that he said this legislation was a cause for celebration because it had been introduced by the National Government in coalition with the Maori Party. Frankly I do not think it matters a toss actually who introduces legislation. The point in relation to this Parliament should be what legislation is introduced to it what the policy behind it is and what its aim is. In the end who supports it is a strictly political issue. I am gobsmacked that a person with a medical background should think so little of the health consequences of the legislation that we are discussing that instead he says “Look at me. It’s all about me and my party.” I say to Dr Hutchison that it is not all about him and the National Party or about the Maori Party. We should be celebrating this bill because finally the Government has come to its senses on the issue of improving people’s health and the contribution that this Parliament can make to that.  
I commend the Hon Tariana Turia. She has a lot of steel in her and a lot of passion. I have seen it demonstrated on a number of occasions sometimes on issues on which I was on the same side as her and sometimes on issues on which we disagree. But on this issue Tariana Turia and Hone Harawira have been incredibly staunch and passionate. They have driven a change in thinking particularly amongst people who needed to see that sort of role model and leadership being demonstrated so that they would change their views on using tobacco. I say to the Hon Tariana Turia that the introduction of this legislation is a huge credit to her and her persistence. Frankly I do not know how she managed to persuade the members of the Government who have consistently voted against similar moves despite tonight crowing— 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: Oh no they haven’t. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: Not every single member. Two members of the National Party—only two out of the whole lot in 9 long years of a Labour-led Government—supported the moves towards creating more smoke-free environments. But Tariana Turia seems to have achieved that and I commend her work in doing so.  
I also commend the work of the Maori Affairs Committee. It has had a fair bit on over the last little while and it has done amazing work on the tobacco industry. I recently met one of the submitters on a visit to Timaru where I have been working with some of the alcohol watch groups who also work alongside the tobacco restriction groups and the health promotion teams in Timaru. One of the submitters from there was the woman who came along to the committee with her children and with a coffin which represented what had happened to a member of their family. She told us that they had watched him die early and in pain as a result of smoking. That was not a stunt from that family. It was a heartfelt and heart-wrenching submission which I think drew the eyes of the country towards an issue that we should be taking a much firmer stand on.  
I also commend my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway. Iain is the member of Parliament for Palmerston North and that is probably enough said about that. He has made a fine contribution not only on the Health Committee but also as he briefly acknowledged in his own contribution on this bill in terms of the preparation and successful lodging of a member’s bill that does much of what is in this bill. For a first-term Opposition member of Parliament to have a member’s bill adopted by the Government then celebrated by the chair of the Health Committee is certainly an achievement and I commend Iain Lees-Galloway on that success. I think it is a very good initiative.  
I joined with other members of the House in our expression of surprise at the Minister who introduced the bill. I have nothing against the Hon Nathan Guy at all so this comment is not meant to be an insult to him in any way but he is not a health Minister. He was sitting just two seats away from the Minister of Health who did not make a contribution at all let alone introduce the bill. I was puzzled by that. I should have thought that when an Associate Minister of Health is unable to take a call to introduce her own bill either another Associate Minister of Health or the Minister of Health himself would take the call and introduce the bill. I imagined that the Minister of Health might have been proud of the bill but he did not say a word. Nathan Guy introduced the bill and I had to ask my colleagues what Nathan Guy was the Minister of because I could not understand his relationship to the health portfolio. It has been explained to me that he is a Minister outside Cabinet. He is the Minister of Internal Affairs and as such he is responsible for the Fire Service Commission and there the relationship between that Minister and smoke ends. There is no other relationship at all between that Minister and this legislation.  
Frankly I think it is offensive to Parliament and particularly offensive to the Hon Tariana Turia to have this bill treated in that way. It is bad enough that it is being put through at 10 o’clock on a Friday night— 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: It’s 10.30. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: It is 10.30 p.m.; time flies when we are having such a good time—when most of us may well have preferred to be at home with our families rather than doing non-urgent legislation under urgency so that we can knock off early in time for the press gallery party on an ordinary sitting day next week. That does not make much sense to me.  
Over the last few years we have seen a large number of steps to progress what is outlined as being the vision for New Zealand by the Maori Affairs Committee report which is a smoke-free New Zealand. We have seen our workplaces become smoke-free. We have seen our bars and restaurants become smoke-free. We have seen successive increases in the excise tax. We know that an increase in the price of cigarettes lowers the number of people who buy packets of cigarettes. We have seen more investment being made in support for people to quit smoking. The most recent initiative other than the most recent tax increase was the particularly gory photos that can be seen on cigarette packets. All of those moves have been evidence-based initiatives supported by the majority of members but tragically by very few National members. Those are all good progressive steps towards improving the health outcomes of New Zealanders. We know that every year between 4500 and 5000 New Zealanders die not just prematurely years before they would have died had they not been smokers but also in pain in the case of a large number of them. That is not something we would wish on anyone.  
In the earlier debate on the excise duty I recall saying that if tobacco was introduced now as a product for sale in our shops given what we have learnt about it over the last few decades we would not allow it to be introduced. We would not allow it to be introduced as a product for sale. But trying to unscramble that egg is quite a difficult task. If somebody came to this Parliament and said that they had a breakfast cereal and if a little bowlful of it was eaten in moderation every day half of the people who ate it would die early and in pain as a direct result of using it as intended—just by eating it—we would not allow that cereal to be sold. That is what cigarettes do. That is what tobacco does. This move to reduce the display of tobacco advertising—