Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading Third Reading 
Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading Third Reading 
[Volume:662;Page:10559] 
Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Hon TARIANA TURIA (Associate Minister of Health) 
: 
 I move  
That the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 There are only a few matters before this House on which one could stand with one’s hand on one’s heart and declare that this was a life-and-death debate. The rationale for increasing the tobacco excise is very much in this arena. It is purely and simply about saving lives. 
I come to this bill with many mixed emotions. As an Associate Minister of Health it worries me greatly that about 21 percent of all New Zealanders over the age of 15 years are smokers and that many smokers are younger than that. In basic terms one in five New Zealanders are regular smokers. It is irresponsible to dismiss this as a recreational pastime to minimise the impact of the harm caused by justifying tobacco use as a private pleasure that one should be free to indulge in in the privacy of one’s home and not to acknowledge the addictive nature of this tobacco use. Exposure to smoking in the home and tobacco use itself result in a staggering figure of around 5000 deaths a year. In graphic terms I can put some names to these numbers simply by walking along the gravesides of our family urupa. 
The focus of this legislation tobacco use is the single-largest cause of preventable death and chronic illness in this country. It would be a foolish Government that ignored the economic and social repercussions of this relentless killer yet for too many years it appears that we have been prepared to turn a blind eye to the crisis that afflicts our communities right throughout this land. Actions have been infrequent and erratic. Years have elapsed while we have debated minor changes. In all that time the death toll has kept on rising with New Zealanders dying prematurely from smoking-related illnesses that show no mercy. We cannot stand by and be oblivious to the pain that strikes too many families. These early deaths are completely preventable. The science tells us that on average a smoker loses 15 years of life. 
It is no news to anyone in this House that tobacco is the leading cause of the life-expectancy gap between Maori and non-Maori. It is soul-destroying to know that one in two Maori women smoke. The disproportionate impacts of heavy use of tobacco on Maori are etched into the lives of many w’anau. During the period 2000 to 2004 lung cancer was responsible for over 31 percent of Maori cancer deaths. During that same period cardiovascular disease including heart disease and strokes resulted in Maori death rates that were twice as high as those for non-Maori and deaths due to respiratory disease were three times more frequent in Maori than non-Maori. 
It is impossible in that context to come to this debate with views about the nature of the product per se. Day on day approximately 13 New Zealanders die from smoking. They die from lung cancer. They die from heart disease from strokes from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease from emphysema from chronic bronchitis and from cancer of the mouth pharynx and oesophagus. They are dying from a habit that we can do something about so today we are taking this action in order to save lives. 
I was by my mother’s side when we received the diagnosis that her cancer had progressed to such a stage that she might have 6 months to live. My mother had been a heavy smoker for some 40 years but even though we all understood the risk that comes from smoking-related illness there is nothing quite as traumatic as having to sit and watch the life of a loved one slowly drained. My cousins and I were raised by my grandmother. Every single one of those cousins has died from smoking-related illness. I am the only one still alive of those who were raised by my grandmother. This story—my story—is not an isolated individual case. For the sake of our future we must act. 
This bill is part of a coordinated range of measures that target tobacco use as a leading cause of preventable death in New Zealand. Independent research studies have established the impact of price rises on smoking prevalence and tobacco consumption. Raising the price of tobacco is probably the most powerful tool to reduce smoking. International organisations from the World Health Organization to the World Bank recommend that countries use tobacco taxes to increase the price of cigarettes and counter the global smoking epidemic. It is very simple: all smokers who buy tobacco will face price rises. The more that someone smokes the more that he or she will pay and the bigger will be the incentive for him or her to quit. The Government is concerned that cigarette prices have plateaued in recent years and that the reduction in cigarette consumption has also stalled. That is why we are putting up the tobacco excise in three steps of 10 percent over the next 2 years. 
The Government is also concerned that roll-your-own tobacco is increasingly being seen as a cheap alternative. That is why we are putting up the excise on loose tobacco by an additional 14 percent to equalise the excise weight-for-weight with that payable on manufactured cigarettes. Roll-your-owns are no safer than tailor-made cigarettes and may indeed be more harmful because roll-your-own smokers will often inhale deeper than others in order to make the cigarettes go further—or so I am told. 
This issue is of such severity that we must accord it urgency. I personally regret given the circumstances that I have been unable to give other parties sufficient advance notice prior to the introduction of this bill but I feel assured from previous statements made by the parties around this House throughout the years that all of us understand the perilous situation that we face. The stakes are too high. We must act decisively and this bill is an important step on the pathway forward. I commend this bill to the House. 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 It gives me a great deal of pleasure to speak in the first reading of the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill and to say that Labour will be supporting this legislation throughout its passage just as we support the urgency that has been accorded to it. 
I will begin by congratulating the Associate Minister of Health Tariana Turia who has just resumed her seat. This is a huge step forward in health promotion for all New Zealanders but particularly for Maori and I say to the Minister that I admire her ability to achieve this step. I am not quite sure how that has happened and I am not quite sure that the Minister knows how it has happened but she is certainly worthy of congratulations. It is an issue on which she has spoken passionately before as a former colleague of mine in Labour and also in this House. I genuinely congratulate her and say that Labour will certainly support this bill throughout its passage. 
The aim of this legislation is not to get more revenue although that will be the accusation levelled. One of the issues that my colleagues and I will be following throughout the Budget process is watching where the money goes. When we have an increase in revenue that is primarily focused on health promotion it is important that we can watch that money being directed into health promotion. I certainly wish all power to the Minister’s arm in ensuring that our health promotion activities will be strengthened by the increased revenue that results from this measure. 
But this measure on its own will be a health promotion because we know that when the price of tobacco increases the consumption of tobacco is reduced. Although we strongly support this move and think that the Government has a moral responsibility to pass on the increased revenue to health promotion we know that this measure on its own will decrease tobacco consumption and that is a very good thing. There is very clear evidence that an effective way to discourage the consumption of tobacco is to increase the price. The figures that I have heard quoted and used in the House in an earlier debate is that a 2 percent increase is equivalent to a 1 percent decrease. A 2 percent increase in the price of tobacco is equivalent to a 1 percent decrease in the level of consumption. That figure has been used before and I am sure that it has some validity. 
A combination of the increase in price the increase in excise duty more public spending on anti-smoking education programmes more support for people not to start smoking and become addicted and more support for those who want to quit has been maintained in New Zealand when different parties have been leading our Government. That combination has ensured that New Zealand like many other countries has been successful in substantially reducing the number of people who smoke in our country. But even with that success tobacco smoking is still the single largest cause of early death and more important of avoidable death within our nation. 
I took the opportunity just a few moments ago to look back on an earlier debate in which Sue Bradford spoke. I commend Sue Bradford and I bet that she is listening to this debate and wishing she were here. This will be one of the rare moments when Sue would wish she were back in the House. She gave a very strong contribution to that debate and I know that the Green health spokesperson Kevin Hague will do the same because he always does when he contributes to debates in the House. Sue Bradford in the debate on this very issue in 2000 talked about the link between smoking rates and people on low incomes including people who were beneficiaries people who had poor mental health and increasingly at that time young Maori women and Pacific Islanders. 
I remind the House of Sue Bradford’s contribution in that debate and also of the fact that her contribution remains relevant to this day. We have a higher number of people on low incomes people on benefits people who are in low-income work or in precarious employment situations and people with more mental health issues. They are the people whom this bill is designed to help. They will find it harder on a low income to purchase tobacco and they will have all of the resulting problems when they are withdrawing from addiction. It is in that regard that I urge the Government to ensure that support is given to people who are smokers to move off the consumption of tobacco. It is too hard for many people if that help is not given so I urge the Government to consider that as the next part of the package. 
I also had the opportunity to read a very interesting contribution in the debate in 2000 from the Hon Bill English. I will just take a little bit of the House’s time to share Mr English’s contribution in the debate. He began by saying— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: If the member is quoting from  
Hansard 
 then she must quote the page number and the volume. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: In referring to what Mr English said I am quoting from  
Hansard 
 Volume 583 at page 1987. The volume is dated 4 April to 18 May 2000. Mr English stated: “Mr Speaker if you ask me to give you the reasons this bill was introduced I cannot think of any.” Then he explained that that was not his responsibility. But he went on to state that he wanted the Government “to explain why this is such an urgent vital matter of widespread public interest that this House has to take this legislation through all the legislative stages today. The Budget … will be in 6 weeks’ time.” He stated that maybe the work had not been done and was not ready to go in the Budget. He said that the legislation should not have been put through all stages under urgency but should have been put in Dr Michael Cullen’s Budget which was just a few weeks away. Well I am sure that when National members get to their feet to contribute to this debate they will be apologising for Bill English having such a shallow view on an issue that deserves the support of all parties in this House. Every member of this House should want to do everything he or she can do to promote better health for all our citizens. 
Mr English went on to say “The Government can tell us why this legislation did not wait for the Budget. Why is the Government not using the time of this House to further its programme? All these members could be in their electorates doing more useful work. Why does it not have in front of this House its widely signalled initiatives all the things it was going to do …”. Instead Mr English said that the Government was putting the legislation through all stages of the House. 
I know why the National Government is not using the opportunity of this particular debating time to further its own initiatives. The reason is very straightforward: it does not have any. That is the reason. But because this legislation increases the price of tobacco it is not just important but also a well-established tradition of this House that it goes through all stages under urgency. We know that some members of the House will have heard of the introduction of the bill and will now be up the road at New World stocking up—having had the advantage of advanced warning of the increase—as other people are also entitled to do. But that is the reason why we are putting all parts of the legislation under urgency. The legislation increases the price of a product that is publicly available. 
I will conclude by saying that about 4500 New Zealanders die every year from smoking-related diseases. Thousands more suffer the long-term health consequences of smoking. Thousands have heart attacks and survive but live with a lower level of capacity. They have strokes severe strokes and can be incapacitated for years. Many thousands of New Zealanders have to endure very painful treatment for cancer. We know the impact and the effects that second-hand smoking has particularly on children. When the Minister introduced this legislation she said that it was very rare for this Parliament to be considering an issue that was literally about life-and-death. But this is certainly one of those occasions. It is not about raising more money. It is not a tax grab from the Government. It is not often that I have good things to say about the current Government but I say that this legislation is not a tax grab; it is a genuine move to try to reduce tobacco consumption in New Zealand. It is a genuine move to improve the health of our citizens. I add once again my genuine congratulations to the Minister for pursuing this issue with such determination with such staunchness and for being able to achieve this result in our Parliament. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) 
: 
 Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill. As other speakers have said this bill is an incredibly important part of the jigsaw puzzle of reducing smoking in New Zealand. I pay tribute to the Associate Minister of Health the Hon Tariana Turia for her long-expressed efforts in bringing this legislation to fruition today and to the National Government. Cabinet has agreed to equalise the tobacco excise by weight resulting in a one-off 14 percent rise in excise duties on loose tobacco as used in roll-your-own cigarettes. It has further agreed to increase the tobacco excise across all tobacco products by 10 percent immediately and then by a further 10 percent in January 2011 and January 2012. This amendment bill is sponsored by Tariana Turia. 
It is interesting to note that “Tobacco taxation has been shown to be one of the most effective means of encouraging people to quit smoking or at least to cut down.” Those were the very words of Annette King back in 2000 when a similar bill was passed under urgency. I note and acknowledge that the Maori Affairs Committee is currently carrying out an inquiry into tobacco control and I understand that it has received many submissions that support the tool of an excise tax. Furthermore the World Health Organization recommends that countries tax tobacco to discourage tobacco consumption. There is a lot of evidence to show that this mechanism has worked and in the past if one goes through the various times when this has happened in New Zealand one finds that there has been a decrease in consumption. 
I think it is really important to recognise that the ban on smoking in bars and restaurants has become widely accepted in New Zealand and that patrons largely welcomed those changes. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Opposed by National. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: I must say that I was very much for that move. People up and down New Zealand say that it is extremely welcome. This debate is not about choice; smokers will still have a choice to smoke. 
It is worthwhile bringing in the libertarian argument because there is no doubt that basic libertarian philosophy advocates as much freedom as possible provided it does no harm. There is no question that not only direct smoking does harm but second-hand smoking does considerable harm. Therefore this legislation is one of the great public health tools that we can implement to cut down on a very very concerning spectrum of conditions. 
A combination of efforts has been made over a number of years and in a variety of ways in order to assist people to quit smoking. But the impact of an excise increase on tobacco is quite dramatic: a combination of triggering new quit attempts preventing quit relapses and dissuading new smokers. It is estimated that after 10 years there will be 40000 fewer smokers and 300 fewer premature smoking-related deaths. After 20 years it is estimated there will be 80000 fewer smokers and 600 fewer premature smoking-related deaths a year. It is interesting to note that the prevalence of smoking and tobacco consumption has dropped in New Zealand over the last 50 years. However those declines have slowed significantly since 1990 and in the case of consumption have stalled since 2003. I again acknowledge that the Smoke-free Environments Amendment Act was a challenging piece of legislation at the time but it has been much accepted throughout this country. The present legislation is being welcomed as far as I can tell by all parties. It is very heartening to have heard Ruth Dyson say that she supports the Government in this initiative. 
It is interesting historically that the link between tobacco smoking and disease was not proven until the 1960s when Sir Richard Doll an epidemiologist from Oxford University came through with quite unequivocal evidence-based research to show those links. More recently this link has also been shown with marijuana smoking. Smoking not only affects the respiratory system by causing lung cancer pharynx cancer and lip cancer but also causes an increased number of cases of heart disease an increased number of strokes and it badly affects people who have chronic obstructive respiratory disease. It also affects unborn babies who can be profoundly affected with intrauterine growth retardation and of course young infants can have chronic chest infections made much worse if they are brought up in a smoking environment. 
I saw this firsthand as a pathology resident in the United States. If anyone wants to see an image that will make them quit smoking or wants an abrupt session on the effects of smoking I suggest that that person cuts open the body of a chronic smoker who has died from chronic obstructive airways disease. That person will see a black lung; it is a horrific sight. Later on as a specialist obstetrician time and time again I had the spectre of growth-retarded babies of mothers who had smoked heavily throughout their pregnancy and clearly had given their infants a very poor start in life—they would be unable to achieve their full potential. 
There is no doubt that the bill has a very very solid basis behind its being introduced into the House today. There are concerns about whether it will affect lower socio-economic groups more than others. But the Government has put in place a considerable amount of money towards efforts to help people quit smoking. In fact this year $57 million was provided towards tobacco control and smoking cessation services including nicotine replacement products and prescriptions to help smokers quit. The bulk of this money funds Quitline and other specialist services targeted towards helping people to quit smoking and focuses on Maori Pacific and pregnancy services. There is also funding for training education research monitoring evaluation and media campaigns. 
The financial costs associated with this bill are quite staggering. The health costs are billions of dollars every year and of course the amount raised from the excise tax will go up to over a billion dollars a year. But the sad thing is that smoking continues when quitting smoking would prevent a whole array of crippling conditions such as the ones I mentioned before—lung cancer strokes and many others. Hopefully the provisions in this bill will stop young people from taking up smoking in the first place. It is an extremely positive move to help people stop smoking. Thank you. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 I am very pleased to be able to speak in this debate today in support of the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill. I commend the Associate Minister of Health Tariana Turia for introducing it into Parliament today. I acknowledge that she has been a long-time opponent of tobacco. She has fought for many years for measures to reduce the consumption of tobacco and I congratulate her on bringing this bill to the House. 
I also thank Dr Hutchison for his speech today; as a doctor he would be more aware than many others of the impact of smoking. But I do have one tiny little dig to say to Dr Hutchison—what a difference a day or two makes! He might remember that when I was the Minister of Health in 2000 and I introduced a bill to increase excise duty he said “The real concern is that the bill was brought into the House by the Labour-Alliance minority socialist Government without any warning under extraordinary urgency.” That is just a gentle reminder to say that when a bill like this is brought in it probably is sensible to bring it in under extraordinary urgency and pass it through all its stages. Otherwise what could happen is what happened once when a former National member of Parliament thought the price of petrol was going to go up in a Budget. He rushed out to fill up his car with petrol only to find that the Budget actually reduced the excise on petrol. So I think it probably is a good idea I say to Dr Hutchison to pass this bill under extraordinary urgency which we are doing today and which we are supporting. 
Let me get back to the bill. I have been a long-time advocate for tobacco control even in a time before it was popular. I think probably from a health background I was well aware of the impact of smoking and like Minister Turia I was also aware of the impact of lung cancer in terms of a family death. 
New Zealand has been a long-time leader in tobacco control. In fact we were one of a handful of countries that were leaders in the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control at the World Health Assembly. I was fortunate over a number of years to represent New Zealand as we negotiated and finally passed that framework convention. New Zealand signed up to it as did practically every country in the world and we have put in place measures to reduce not only the prevalence but also the consumption of tobacco. I ask members to think back to the first real piece of legislation that tried to control tobacco. It was in 1989-90 when the Rt Hon Helen Clark as Minister of Health brought in legislation to restrict smoking in the workplace. That was seen to be a dreadful bill; it was campaigned against by many people including members in workplaces themselves. If we move forward 20 years to see what a difference there is today we see that it is widely accepted that smoking cigarettes is bad for you and bad for the population. What a big change in attitude over that time! 
Although as a country and in an international forum we have been strong in terms of our advocacy against the consumption of tobacco unfortunately we still have a very high rate of prevalence and consumption of tobacco in New Zealand ourselves. When we compare ourselves with our neighbours in Australia we see that our smoking rates are still considerably higher than those in Australia. We have seen a slower drop in both consumption and prevalence than we would like particularly amongst Maori and Pacific people and that has to be seen as an area where we need to do a lot more work. I think Minister Turia is correct when she says she hopes this will have an impact particularly on Maori in terms of reducing their smoking. 
When we look at the prevalence of smoking we see that in 1986 about 30 percent of New Zealanders were smokers—prevalence referring to those who were smoking in the population. In 2008 it was 22 percent. That was not a big drop over that period of time from 1986 to 2008 and that is one of the things we are concerned about. Also when we look at tobacco consumption which is the amount that is being smoked we see there has been little drop since 2003—it almost flat-lined in terms of prevalence. Then if we look at when we did have some drops and I suggest that people who have not read the  
Social Report 
 from the Ministry of Social Development should do so—in fact it does look at the matter under cigarette smoking—they will see that in 2000 when we increased the excise on tobacco there was a marked drop in the consumption of tobacco. It then slowly crept up again until there was the second excise increase under the previous Government and once again it dropped and then it just flat-lined. So since about 2003-04 there has been almost no change in the amount of tobacco that New Zealanders are consuming. I think that shows pretty clearly that it is price sensitive. If we increase the price of tobacco people will stop smoking. 
What is good about this bill is that the price is being increased over a period of years. It is not a one-off hit; it will increase over a number of years. It will be on loose tobacco. An issue has been that we have concentrated on tailor-made cigarettes and have not put the same emphasis on loose tobacco. This is an increase on loose tobacco and there will be a series of increases over a number of years. 
The truth is—and I think these are some of the really sobering facts about smoking—that around 5000 people die from smoking-related diseases annually in New Zealand. In fact all cigarettes are deadly for New Zealanders if people take them as prescribed on the packet. If people take them as prescribed on the packet then every single one of them is deadly. It is not quite the same as one alcoholic drink that someone might have. Alcohol is a big problem for New Zealanders but every cigarette a person has as it is prescribed on the packet is bad for him or her. The children of parents who smoke are three times more likely to be smokers. If we can stop people smoking or get them to give up before they influence their children then their children are more likely to not smoke. 
It also robs our loved ones of 15 years of life if they smoke—15 years. As people get a little older if they are lucky enough to have grandchildren they realise how precious 15 years would be in terms of seeing that grandchild or their grandchildren grow up and being lucky enough to be involved in their lives. People are robbed of 15 years if they continue smoking. As I have said roll-your-own cigarettes are just as deadly as tailor-made cigarettes. 
So the price is able to reduce the prevalence and consumption of tobacco. Hopefully this will help do that. But it also means that we will have to keep up the fight against smoking. This is not a panacea. This is just part of the number of tools that we would use against smoking. I was very pleased that when Labour was in coalition with the Green Party we were able to bring in smoking-cessation programmes particularly around nicotine patches and so on that were affordable to New Zealanders to help them. 
If I remember correctly and Minister Turia can correct me if I am wrong about 30 percent of people who smoke are addicted to tobacco; the rest are heavy smokers. For those who are addicted they need help. That is why in our tool box we need to have the excise increase assistance for people who want to give up smoking and ongoing public health education. I think that that three-pronged attack will help bring down our smoking consumption in New Zealand. I do not believe that many members of this House today would not support that. We want to see New Zealanders live longer. We do not want to continue to see the cancers respiratory diseases and cardiovascular diseases that come from smoking along with things like sudden infant death syndrome which is related to smoking and the respiratory problems we see in children. 
I commend Minister Turia for bringing this to the House. I know that it is not the end of her work and that she will be very happy when we also control the display of tobacco in dairies and supermarkets. 
KEVIN HAGUE (Green) 
: 
 I begin by learning from Paul Hutchison’s experience and saying that the Green Party understands the reasons for extraordinary urgency on this occasion and supports it. It will be my great pleasure to support the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Bill. It is an honour to speak in the same debate with the Hon Tariana Turia the Associate Minister of Health—and I congratulate her—and the Hon Annette King who also played a really important role in this country’s progress against smoking. 
Other speakers have commented on the size of this problem. We are talking about the single greatest cause of premature death in this country causing somewhere between 4500 and 5000 unnecessary deaths each year. I take the point that Ruth Dyson made about the increased morbidity associated with smoking. I live on the West Coast and I have had responsibility for the West Coast’s health services. I report that the West Coast has one of the highest rates of cigarette smoking in New Zealand. When I was responsible for the West Coast health services there was constant frustration for me that so many people were dying unnecessary premature deaths. Much of our health service resources needed to be invested in caring for those people and were therefore unable to be used for other purposes. I am sure that the West Coast will welcome this move. 
I also comment on inequalities. The incidence of cigarette smoking is a major reflection of inequalities in New Zealand. According to data from last year our overall smoking rate amongst adults is 21 percent but for Maori it is over 45 percent and for Pacific people it is over 31 percent. That is a major reflection of inequalities in this country. Further in relation to socio-economic status people in the most deprived areas are more than one-and-a-half times more likely to be smokers than those in the least deprived areas. So smoking is a major reflection of socio-economic and ethnic gradients in this country. 
There is some good news: overall smoking rates are declining. Consumption of tobacco products reduced by a third in the period from 1997 to 2008 which the Hon Annette King referred to. That is good news. Also half of 15 to 19-year-olds in 2008 had never tried smoking. That was a very significant increase on the 39 percent in that category just 2 years earlier in 2006. We are making some really good progress so now is the time to ramp up our momentum not to ease off; I commend the Associate Minister of Health for her initiative in this area. 
We are also learning a lot about what makes a difference and about how to do this better. Certainly nicotine replacement therapy as the Hon Annette King just referred to is one of those things that makes a difference. On average a person will make seven attempts to quit before he or she is successful but each of those attempts is twice as likely to succeed if nicotine replacement therapy is used. That is a really important piece of information. In relation to this bill we know that price is an effective mechanism in changing demand. On several occasions now we have referred to the 2000 increase—Paul Hutchison and Annette King referred to it. In 2000 the excise tax was increased by 20 percent and smoking rates dropped by 18 percent. That was a very clear demonstration of that link: increasing the price is effective in reducing demand. 
As Annette King talked about we know that other things would also be successful. I certainly look forward to this House debating a comprehensive range of measures to effect the biggest hit that we can possibly make in tobacco control. The display of tobacco products is an issue that would clearly make a significant difference. The restriction of outlets at which tobacco products are available would also make a difference as would the extension of the Smoke-free Environments Act into other areas. All these areas would make a significant difference and we should be debating and pursuing them. Interestingly the content of cigarettes is also an area that could make a significant difference. 
I particularly pick up on Paul Hutchison’s reference to the Doll and Hill study from I think 1956 which made the conclusive link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. Effectively that was the birth of a health education approach for our modern era to try to deal with some of the health problems we face. It seemed kind of obvious: if a behaviour is the cause of ill health and other behaviours are available to a person then if we provide more information about the positives and negatives and more education people will choose the healthier option. That is the theory and it is completely wrong. It kind of works for those who have a greater sense of control over their own lives; certainly since 1956 we have seen that in the higher socio-economic grades. Amongst Pakeha New Zealanders for example smoking rates have declined extremely substantially but less so amongst Maori less so amongst Pacific people and less so amongst those who are the most socio-economically deprived. Why is that? It is because this behaviour is not really a choice as with so many of our behaviours. 
Health status reflects a couple of things. It reflects the level of empowerment of a particular community and it reflects the kind of environment that surrounds that community. Health promotion says that if we want to make a difference we need to empower communities especially those that are the most deprived and we need to create environments that facilitate better health outcomes. We do that through community development we do it through creating healthy public policy such as this bill and we do it through personal skills and reorienting health services. I look forward to those things being included in our comprehensive approach. 
The other point to make is that although we are adopting this approach to tobacco in the House today—and it seems that we might have a near consensus on that point—tobacco is one of three big issues that have a really huge effect on New Zealanders’ health status. One of the other two that I draw attention to is the kinds of foods that we eat and the exercise that we do which contribute to cardiovascular disease cancer and many other causes of ill health and death. The other is alcohol. It is an extreme irony to me that in the House today we are debating a systematic approach of increasing the excise tax on tobacco which we know will have an effect on tobacco consumption and will improve New Zealanders’ health status on the day that the Minister of Justice has ruled out an increase in excise tax on alcohol. We know those excise tax increases would reduce alcohol consumption and would improve New Zealanders’ health status. There is an irony. I hope that as a Parliament we are able to learn from this case study and to extend that approach of regulation—a regulatory approach to improving health—to those other areas. If we can learn then the gains that we can make will be extremely substantial. 
I again congratulate the Minister and the Government. The Green Party will support the bill. 
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 In the 2008 election campaign one line in the Maori Party policy statement established a precedent for this legislation today. That commitment was to introduce a “Tobacco out of Aotearoa Bill”. Today the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill expresses our heartfelt commitment to saving lives. I congratulate Tariana Turia on having the courage and foresight to do what she knows is right to do what we all know is right. It is not right to lose our loved ones prematurely to chop 15 years off their lifespans—lifespans that in the case of Maori are already less than they should be. It is not right that too many children are growing up vulnerable in their own homes to the impact of smoking-related illness and premature death. It is not right that too many babies are being exposed to tobacco-related harm in utero. The bill is long overdue. 
The Maori Party celebrates the fact that we know of the amazing potential this bill offers for Maori communities to benefit. The rate of smoking amongst Maori is about double the rate for the rest of the population and a disproportionate number of Maori die prematurely. Maori in all age groups have higher smoking rates than non-Maori. In particular Maori women have the highest smoking rate of all groups at 49 percent. 
Another interesting fact that emerged from last year’s study of Maori smoking and tobacco use is that 73 percent of Maori smokers use roll-your-own tobacco. The Associate Minister of Health has spoken of roll-your-own tobacco being seen as a cheap alternative. This bill now puts a stop to that perception. Roll-your-owns will now face the same tax rate as tailor-made cigarettes. 
I have no doubt that given this profile of Maori smokers today’s moves will not be universally popular within our constituency. Indeed no doubt I will have a job to explain this development to my own son and daughter who are smokers. I am not sure that the answer “mother always knows best” will work with them nor might that other well-known slogan “it is for your own good” but we are standing right behind the Minister and the Government on this move because of our great love for our people. This policy places love on the agenda. 
This policy places bread and butter on the agenda. If we assume that the average smoker smokes about 4000 cigarettes a year quitting completely would save that smoker around $2100 a year now and around $2700 in 3 years’ time. That means more money for kai for the whanau. But it is about more than what money can buy. The whole purpose of this legislation is that people will be prompted to stop smoking. Even if an average smoker who cannot quit was to cut down by just one cigarette a day today and eventually up to three fewer cigarettes a day then that would offset the price rises. 
As I said before however we are not just talking about having more cash in the pocket; there is a massive cost to the system as well. An estimate in a 2007 study on tobacco taxation in New Zealand suggested that the cost of smoking to the health system was between $300 million and $350 million per year. However I understand that some more recent estimates have put that figure up as high as $1 billion to $1.6 billion per year. That massive cost to taxpayers could be put to a much better use than seeing good money literally going up in smoke. But it not about just how much this will cost. The Maori Party supports an increase in the price of tobacco first and foremost because of the substantial health gains that can be achieved. We will support any intervention that reduces the number of premature deaths illnesses and hospitalisations related to tobacco use. 
A decade or so ago our co-leader Dr Pita Sharples was the poster boy for a campaign called “It’s about whanau”. The campaign featured 12 ex-smokers describing their motivation for giving up. The campaign focused on the well-being of the whanau by supporting whanau members who smoked to quit and to stay quit. I can remember Pita’s advertisement in particular. It described his reasons for giving up as being all about his mokopuna. It is a powerful message that we must continue to uphold. Our marae are deprived of far too many Maori leaders of kuia and kaumatua. We lose our people too early and with that we lose the transmission of vital knowledge about whakapapa our cultural heritage. We must be smoke-free if we are to fully explore our potential. 
There has never been a better time for this tobacco tax increase to happen. The support and strength that whanau will need to live a healthy smoke-free lifestyle is totally consistent with the need for investment in whanau that we see associated with the flagship policy of this Government: Whanau Ora. 
The Maori Party acknowledges the significance of the whanau and the importance that Maori place on the maintenance of our whakapapa as a very powerful resource in helping whanau to be auahi kore. To my son and my daughter I say that it is all about whanau. Together we can support each other to quit and support our rangatahi to never start. We must ensure that smokers are part of the solution and ensure that we restore to our whanau the respect that we must place on the first breath of life. It will not be easy but who ever said that sitting by a hospital bed and watching a relative suffer from lung disease was easy? Where is the joy in counting off the cousins with cancer of the lung head neck oesophagus pancreas and cervix and with heart disease? The key challenge for us all across this Parliament is to get in behind this new bill and promote the value of staying smoke-free. 
The Maori Party believes that the Government has a vital role in encouraging New Zealanders to quit smoking. I recall that a survey from the Health Sponsorship Council in 2008 found that some 63.9 percent of all people and 29.5 percent of current smokers agree that the tax on cigarettes and tobacco should be increased and that all the extra money should be used to help smokers who want to quit. We want to see funding for smoking cessation services increased to help smokers to quit including specific services designed for Maori and Pasifika peoples. 
This is a very important day for all our whanau. It is a day on which we live up to the promise that is in all of us for a healthy smoke-free future. We are proud to support this bill. 
Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) 
: 
 I am proud and privileged to rise to speak to the first reading of the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Bill. As a former doctor and an ex-smoker I think this is a courageous and bold step by the Government. I congratulate Minister Turia and the National Cabinet on agreeing on this bill passing through the House and I am delighted it has the support of other colleagues in the House. 
Colleagues will be interested to know that I started to smoke when I was 16 and I eventually stopped when I was 30. I smoked through university I smoked through medical school and I smoked through the hospital wards. I stopped by the time I was a general practitioner. I had cancerous and diseased lungs paraded in front of me when I was a medical student and when I was on the hospital wards I saw emphysemic patients and patients dying of lung cancer. That did not stop me from smoking; that is what addiction does to people. I turned a blind eye. Of course this all happened around the 1970s. Some warnings were coming to the surface but addicts ignored them and carried on puffing away. The warnings made me slightly uneasy but I carried on. By the time I got to general practice I decided it was time I should give up smoking and fortunately nicotine gum had come on to the market. Until then there was just cold turkey and that was it. I had already failed on one attempt with cold turkey. To me nicotine gum made perfect sense. We give the active ingredient of the addictive substance which is nicotine to smokers and we wean them off cigarettes just as we do with drug addicts by using methadone. It made perfect sense I took the nicotine gum and it worked with me. Of course it made me more proactive as a general practitioner when I had my patients who were smokers in front of me. I could relate to them. I knew what addiction was like what the substance was like and what it could do to someone’s mind. 
I know that the Hon Annette King made comments that a lot of people are just social smokers and are not addicted. I say that most people who smoke are addicted. There are a few social smokers who can stop at the drop of a hat but they are few and far between. I think that most smokers are addicted. I was very active in talking to my patients who were smokers. I said: “Look smoking will catch up with you some way and some how in the future if you don’t stop.” That is true as smoking harms every single organ in the body. We have heard tonight that it is responsible for up to 5000 deaths per year and that includes those from heart disease cerebrovascular disease lung disease and lung cancer. It damages the blood vessels and in particular the small blood vessels. It affects the blood vessels in the feet it causes peripheral vascular disease eye diseases and so on. It affects every single organ. 
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) made a comment on one of its fact sheets that 50 percent of regular smokers are killed by their addiction and on average they lose 14 years of quality life. That is a staggering statistic—50 percent or half of all regular smokers will die from smoking and will lose quality years. Of course we know that Maori are overrepresented in the statistics. Once again I congratulate Minister Turia on pushing through this legislation and the National Ministers who have supported her. 
Then there is the cost of smoking to society and to New Zealand as a whole. In 2005 it was estimated that smoking cost almost $2 billion in lost production from early death morbidity and illness smoking directly and healthcare costs. Fortunately I had nicotine gum when I decided it was time I had to practise what I preached and gave up. Now there are many nicotine replacement options available for those who want to give up. There is gum there are transdermal patches and there are sublingual tablets inhalators and nasal spray. There are also subsidised pharmaceutical treatments. I am sure there are a lot more out there that need to be funded and this bill may be the catalyst for that to happen. 
In total $57 million has been put into cessation products and organisations that help those who want to stop smoking. The research proves that increasing the price of tobacco is the single most effective way to get people to stop smoking or to not even start in the first place. This bill will increase the excise on tobacco in three steps of 10 percent over the next 2 years. We know that excise on loose tobacco has traditionally been much lower and that will also increase by 14 percent to bring it into line with cigarettes. This is not a revenue-gathering exercise—absolutely not. This is as the Hon Ruth Dyson said about health promotion about changing lives and about saving lives. I acknowledge the very important work of Quitline. I expect it will be very much busier as a result of this bill. People can phone or text the organisation they speak to an adviser and they get a quit pack and a quit card enabling them to get subsidised nicotine replacement from chemists. 
This is a wonderful step. It was the most logical step for this Government to take. We know that the ban on smoking in bars and restaurants has been widely accepted. There has been a change of mood. People accept that. Most smokers now are not in denial as I was for those 15 years when I smoked. Most people accept that cigarettes are harmful to them and cause illness and death. The sincere hope from this Parliament tonight is that increasing the price of cigarettes will stop people smoking and stop young ones from starting to smoke in the first place. I am delighted to speak to this first reading. It is a wonderful step by this Government. I congratulate Minister Turia and I commend this bill to the House. 
Hon JIM ANDERTON (Leader—Progressive) 
: 
 This bill the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill which increases the excise duties on tobacco products is being introduced under extraordinary urgency. I understand that. The House therefore understands that this issue is urgent that no public debate is allowable and that there is to be no select committee consideration. I happen to agree with what the Government is proposing and I will support it. 
This bill highlights the reasons why this step in particular is being taken—that is to increase the price of a legal drug that is dangerous to the health of any New Zealander who partakes of it. The reason this bill is being introduced is that the price effect in terms of tobacco is significant. If we increase the price of tobacco we reduce the volume of tobacco that is smoked. 
There is a linear relationship and many studies all around the world will show exactly the same thing for product after product. Unfortunately if we look at the supermarkets of New Zealand we see that Coca-Cola is cheaper than water or milk. People buy Coca-Cola. Why? Because it is cheaper. It may well be disastrous for the teeth of the children who are drinking it—and it is—but nevertheless because it is cheap people buy it. That is why the price effect will be relevant in this case. 
I have to say however that just 24 hours ago within minutes of the Law Commission’s report on alcohol being tabled in the House the Government immediately through Simon Power the Minister of Justice reacted and said it would not put up the price of alcohol. The Government did that immediately. It did not give any consideration to the report. The ink was not dry on the report when we were told that no the Government would not increase the price. 
Would a price increase for alcohol reduce alcohol consumption? Yes it would. It is a very effective means of doing so. I know that because I introduced a bill that increased the price of so-called light spirits—at 23 percent proof—which target young people. I was lambasted by the industry. Full-page ads were taken out against me personally but sales of light spirits reduced by 85 percent and they went off the market. That does not mean to say that alcopops and stuff like that are not still available but those light spirits were lethal. They were 25 percent proof alcohol drinks with vodka brandy gin whisky and so on. So we know that this 30 percent increase in the price of tobacco will be effective. 
Mr Power said that a change in the price of alcohol would be unfair to all the people who drink alcohol. Well I presume that an increase of more than 30 percent in the price of tobacco will be unfair to some of the people who smoke tobacco. I still agree with the increase but it is amazing that one day an attitude can change from one position on the issue of alcohol to another position on the issue of tobacco where we can really have a crack at them. 
Chris Tremain 
: You might find that a significantly larger proportion of the population enjoy a glass of wine. What a stupid thing to say! 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: Oh I see. We will hear this. Here is the industry line. I can hear it. Mr Dunne is not here so we have plenty of acolytes in his place. They are spouting the industry line. 
It is true that 5000 people die in New Zealand every year from tobacco smoking and that makes this kind of measure significant and important. But what is there about the social economic and health problems associated with alcohol that makes alcohol different from tobacco? Is it a significant social and economic health cost? We just heard Dr Blue say that the cost of tobacco-related harm is $1 billion to $2 billion. The cost of alcohol-related harm to New Zealand is indicated by reputable economists and analysts to be in the order of $2 billion to $3 billion a year. That is at least as much as smoking and could well be more so there is no problem about it being a significant cost. 
Is drinking alcohol a health risk? Yes it is. It is a very serious health risk and the jury is coming in on that all the time. Are between 60 to 80 percent of all police arrests to do with alcohol abuse? Yes they are. Are 60 percent of the people who are in our prisons affected by alcohol? The answer is yes. Yet we are told that we desperately need to pass through the House under extraordinary urgency a tobacco-related bill—which I personally support—a day after we were told that the price effect is not to be contemplated in terms of alcohol when demonstrably all the effects of tobacco use plus some additional effects are there in evidence before us. 
The Government has had a knee-jerk reaction. Why is that? Well the tobacco industry is on the ropes so people are brave now. Dr Blue has said that she did not use to believe the philosophy behind this bill and there are plenty of people like her on the other side of the House. Helen Clark pushed for a change like this when she was the Minister of Health and she was pilloried for doing it. When was that—in 1990? 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Yeah—20 years ago. 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: That was 20 years ago. She did not have too much support then but now it is a brave thing to do. Why? Because practically everything has been done and the tobacco industry has given up. It knows that it is a done deal. 
The liquor industry has not given up. It is really into this issue and it will fight it tooth and claw. The brave Government will take on the on-the-ropes tobacco industry but it will not have a bar of taking on the liquor industry which is now a much more significant and important problem than ever before. Will raising the price of tobacco reduce smoking levels? Yes it will. Will raising the price of alcohol reduce the volume of alcohol consumed? Absolutely it will but we have seen no courage from the Government on that issue. So under extraordinary urgency we are passing this bill. 
As for the Government’s opposition to raising the price of the most dangerous drug in New Zealand I have a word I could use but I am not allowed to use it in this House. So I will say that it is one of the most significant acts of double standards I have ever seen. One day a serious drug is not to be touched in terms of price even though the price effect will be very effective—and I acknowledge that—and the next day an industry that really does not have a feather to fly with will be clobbered into the ground. The brave Government will take it on after all the hard work has been done but it will not take on an industry that is still fighting tooth and claw to hang on. 
I heard a representative of the hospitality industry this morning on  
Morning Report 
. He admitted that every single thing in the alcohol legislation that he agrees with is a vested interest of the industry. He said that. He said: “Yeah it is a vested interest of the industry. I admit that. Yes that is too and that is too.” The interviewer asked him whether there was anything that was not a vested interest among the measures he agreed with. The answer was no. Oh well we understand where the industry is coming from. But Mr Dunne did not. He had to meet the representatives of the industry seven times and he was not sure what they meant. He knew what Doug Sellman meant and he would not meet with him at all. 
I support this legislation but I have contempt for the Government. It is bringing in this legislation one day after it backed off completely from doing the most effective thing on alcohol. I have contempt for it—I am telling members now. To do something yesterday would have been an act of at least some responsibility. This bill about tobacco is an initiative that needed to be taken and it needs to be taken regularly. I support it but I contrast it with the completely mealy-mouthed approach we had yesterday on alcohol and I am ashamed of the Government for that. 
Hon Sir ROGER DOUGLAS (ACT) 
: 
 I start by congratulating the Associate Minister of Health on the reasons she gave for introducing the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill. The reasons she gave to justify the increase were based on health improvements for those who quit smoking as a result of this bill and I believe that in essence that is the only way we can justify this particular legislation. She did not attempt to bring in other claims that the money raised would off-set the costs incurred by smokers or to the public health system etc. and it is good that she was up front and honest in that respect. Having said that there are a number of reasons why some ACT members—not all ACT members—will vote against this bill. 
Essentially the legislation is not really good public policy. It is very much a tax on the poor. Cigarette taxes are highly regressive and they disproportionately hurt poor people—poor smokers that is who continue to smoke. I guess the Minister would say that to the extent poor smokers do not smoke she has made them better off. But that is at the expense I might add of poor smokers who continue to smoke. I think we need to think a little bit about that. The fact is that we cannot justify this measure as some people might want to on the basis that smokers are not paying for the costs of the extra health care that they or others receive; they are already paying more in tax than the costs incurred. A report in 2007 showed tax income was I think $980 million and the expenditure was $350 million. 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: No that is wrong. 
Hon Sir ROGER DOUGLAS 
: Well I will quote—and these are hardly biased people. The report I am holding is from the Smokefree Coalition and Action on Smoking and Health (ASH). I am quoting their document and I do not think they would underestimate these figures. The report states: “Without trying to calculate a precise estimate of ‘external costs’ it does seem reasonably apparent that the tax contribution of approximately $1 billion annually by smokers exceeds substantially the external costs of smoking …” etc. I do not want to place too much weight on that but it seems to me that what it really comes down to is that we have to weigh up the benefits that might flow from this bill against the individual freedom of adults to make decisions for themselves. We also have to weigh up whether the objectives of the bill can be achieved in other ways. 
It seems to me that the “I know what’s best for you” mentality is running out of hand in this legislature. Price increases aim to restrict the freedom of New Zealanders especially the poor to make their own choices on whether they smoke. We run campaigns and we try to influence them. We say that that approach has not worked as well as we had hoped and therefore we will put up the price to a point where people cannot afford it. If we are going to do that why not put it up by 600 percent? Why only 10 percent this year 10 percent next year and 10 percent the year after that? There is no logic. If that is the logic we are going to follow why not put it up 500 or 600 percent? We would fix it at that point in time. 
I guess why I come down against this legislation and it really worries me is that political life in this Chamber seems to be dominated by the view—held by many politicians in the National Party the Labour Party the Green Party and the Maori Party—that the purpose of Government is to solve private problems. That is what we are doing. We say that some New Zealanders smoke too much and therefore we are going to put up the price of tobacco. The problem with that approach is that our flight from individual responsibility never ends; in this country over the last 20 30 and 40 years we have seen a substantial flight from individual responsibility. I have praised the Minister but it seems to me that the Maori Party runs the danger of affluent Maori being seen to be telling poor Maori that they are unable to make their own decisions. I think that a lot of Maori people and a lot of Pakeha people who are poor know what they are doing and they make those choices. They may make them wrongly in our view but in my view they have the right to do so. 
PAUL QUINN (National) 
: 
 The sudden end of the speech of the previous speaker the Hon Sir Roger Douglas took me a little by surprise. None the less this is a serious topic to address and I am pleased to take a call on the first reading of the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill. I start by congratulating the Minister and the leadership of this Government on having the foresight to take this step. In congratulating the leadership I also record my appreciation of the Labour leadership and that of the other parties for joining in supporting this bill almost with unanimity and for expediting its passage through the House. When I congratulate the leadership I include the shadow Leader of the House Mr Darren Hughes. I feel he let himself down in the leadership stakes during question time but he has recovered. 
I make just some quick observations. The first is that there has been some commentary by some of the speakers from the Opposition benches about previous stances of National on this matter. I think it is worth recording that this is a new Government. It is a Government under new leadership with an outstanding Prime Minister in John Key. It is a Government in partnership with the Maori Party with which it is working to achieve excellent social economic and cultural outcomes. Furthermore it is worth remembering that since this matter was last discussed in 2000—and I note that a couple of members from the Opposition have quoted the  
Hansard 
 from that time—two-thirds of the National caucus are new members. So I think it is unfair to go “back to the future” in that respect. It shows as Jackie Blue indicated in her speech that people change their views on matters. In this particular case this is a new Government and it has new members who have brought new thinking. This Government listens to its caucus and its Government partners and that is why we have joined in a new direction. 
I congratulate along with Minister Turia her colleague Hone Harawira. I know that smoking is a matter very dear to his heart. The tobacco inquiry being conducted by the Maori Affairs Committee is in very large part due to his persistence in calling for the committee to show leadership in conducting that inquiry. So I think it is appropriate that we also recognise his contribution. 
I think it is also appropriate to canvass what the bill actually does because from listening to the speeches I do not think it has been canvassed as well as it might have been. I will take just a minute or two to reflect on that. There is a three or four-step process in this bill and the first step in the process is to increase the tax on raw tobacco—roll-your-owns and the like—to align it with the tax on tailor-made cigarettes. Just to bring home the message I have here a small amount of analysis of the submissions that we have received. In terms of aligning the tax on roll-your-own cigarettes 48 percent of submitters to the inquiry being conducted by the Maori Affairs Committee submitted specifically on aligning the tax on raw tobacco with the tax on tailor-made cigarettes. That is not to say that other submitters did not oppose that alignment; it is just that 48 percent actually commented on it. 
Having aligned the tax on tailor-mades with that on raw tobacco there is then a stepped process of increasing by 10 percent from 1 January 2011 “those duties as in force at the close of 31 December 2010 and either with or instead of any CPI indexation … on 1 January 2011:” and then with another step in 2012. In some ways that again is supported very strongly in the submissions to the extent that 68 percent of the submitters supported an increase in tax on tobacco per se and there was a strong suggestion that that increase should implement the World Health Organization’s recommendations which is an ongoing increase of 5 percent each year. So there is no doubt that in the submissions that the Maori Affairs Committee has received there is overwhelming support for this step by the Government. 
I conclude—because I see time is running out—by saying that it has been a pleasure to stand on behalf of the Government to support the Minister and the Government and also to acknowledge the leadership of the other parties including Labour. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) 
: 
 It gives me a tremendous amount of pleasure to rise and speak in support of the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill. Labour supports this bill because we all understand—every member in this Chamber understands—that we need to do something to curb the prevalence of smoking rates in New Zealand. Labour is supporting this bill because it is an evidence-based bill. The evidence tells us that increasing the price of tobacco products through increasing the taxation of them does result in a reduction in the consumption of tobacco products and that a reduction in consumption will result in a reduction of the harm and the appalling diseases that we associate with tobacco smoking. 
I would also like to add my personal support for the bill because like Associate Minister of Health Tariana Turia and I have no doubt like many other members in the Chamber I too have lost close family members and loved ones who have passed away far too early in their lives as a result of an addiction to tobacco. 
It is worth reminding ourselves of just why we need to fight the terrible scourge on our society that is tobacco addiction. It is a proven cause of many cancers not just lung cancer although that is the most common and often the most aggressive and well-known cancer. But other cancers are also caused by tobacco smoking as well as a whole range of other diseases. Cardiovascular disease chronic heart disease strokes respiratory system harm respiratory tract infections asthma and a whole range of diseases are related to cigarette smoking. Those diseases do not occur just amongst people who smoke cigarettes themselves; they also occur amongst those who are exposed to second-hand smoke—most particularly and most sadly the children of those people who are addicted to tobacco products. So it is important that we take this issue seriously and that we do everything that we can to curb the prevalence of tobacco smoking in New Zealand. As I said the evidence tells us that the measure that the House is undertaking this evening is a significant measure to achieve that. 
But there is also a range of other significant measures that we could be considering at the same time as this measure. Indeed a number of people especially those who have recently been making submissions to the Maori Affairs Committee during its inquiry into the effects of tobacco on Maori—and I acknowledge Hone Harawira for his efforts in bringing that inquiry to the fore—have said that now is the time for a package of proposals. They point to things like banning tobacco displays and regulating and indeed licensing tobacco retailers. They look at the need for increased funding for cessation programmes and at a whole range of different measures that we could also be looking at tonight. There is evidence to support our taking those measures as well as this one. Perhaps it is a bit of a pity that we have a single-issue bill before us this evening but as this is the only measure that has been put before the House and as the evidence supports passing this bill Labour will support it going ahead. 
Of course Labour has always supported the use of increased taxes to decrease the prevalence— 
Michael Woodhouse 
: Taxes taxes taxes. 
But I was interested in what some of the other members who are in arrangements with the current Government had to say on it and I found a speech presented by the Hon Peter Dunne who at the time—in 2000—found himself in an unusual position. He was in Opposition but he is a man for all seasons. That time he found himself in Opposition and he said: “One thing that needs to be said at the outset is that this is a most unusual situation. I can never before recall seeing the House take extraordinary urgency to allow the Government to break an election promise”. He went on to say that the then Labour-Alliance Government had only ever spoken about increasing the top income tax rate and that increasing taxes on tobacco was a broken election promise. 
Well what an interesting statement that is when we consider all the possibilities all the options that the Government has in front of it to deal with reducing the prevalence of smoking in New Zealand. They are things like banning tobacco displays the possible licensing of retailers and an increase in funding for cessation programmes. But of all the things that the Government had to choose from it chose an increase in tax. Was National not the party that got into Government that was elected on the basis of its promises to cut taxes? Yet here we are tonight with the new-found National members revelling in the fact that they are increasing taxes. Although Labour members support that we are slightly surprised that this is the first choice that the National Government has made in fighting the prevalence of smoking. 
In supporting this bill we must make the point that although the objective this evening is not to increase revenue it is inevitable that revenue will be increased. So it will be important as the Hon Ruth Dyson has already mentioned that when we get to Budget time we look at exactly what expenditure the Government will announce in relation to matters of smoking cessation and particularly of public health policy. Although it is important to focus on smoking cessation it is also important to focus on ensuring that our young people do not take up smoking in the first place. It is fantastic if we can get people to give up their smokes but it would be very much better if we could actually convince people not to start smoking in the first place. Once people are addicted their ability to exercise personal choice and personal responsibility is absolutely diminished so a far better option is to ensure that people do not take up smoking in the first place. I have no doubt that this bill which is passing through the House under extraordinary urgency this evening will assist in achieving that. But we can do more and the Opposition will be looking to see what the Government does at Budget time to improve not just cessation programmes but also public health initiatives that work with doctors and nurses and with other people in the community in getting them out there to reach our young people and ensure that they get the message not to take up smoking in the first place. 
It would be a real pity if this increase in the taxation of tobacco products simply mirrors the increase that will be experienced on GST: if it were simply used to mitigate the cut to the top rate of personal income tax—the cut to the tax that is paid by people who can most afford to pay tax. It has been mentioned tonight that this tax on tobacco products will affect a lot of people who cannot afford to pay it and we hope that that will convince people to give up smoking altogether. But it would be a shame—it would be an absolute shame—if a measure that is being passed in the name of public health becomes simply an opportunity to increase revenue in order to make up for the revenue that the Government will lose when it cuts taxes for those who are the most capable of paying tax. I hope that that does not occur and I will look very closely at what this Government does at Budget time. 
I will wrap up my speech by saying the Labour members absolutely support this bill. We support the work of Minister Turia. We support the fact that she has been able to convince the National Government to do a U-turn on its previous positions. Even Dr Paul Hutchison has been prepared to make an absolute U-turn from his previous position and he has been able to support the bill this evening. I support Minister Turia and absolutely compliment all members in the House bar four who are prepared to support this bill. It is a good bill and I look forward to its progress through the House. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 I am delighted to rise in support of the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill. At the outset I need to put on record that like my colleague Dr Jackie Blue I am also a former smoker. I gave up pretty much cold-turkey about 12 years ago; I did not use nicotine supplements. The mind-set change and the realisation that I came to was that when someone gives up smoking then he or she is not losing something but is gaining a heck of a lot. It was only when that mind-set change happened that I was able to sustain that very painful 72-hour period that nicotine addicts go through when they are withdrawing from the product but after that it does get easier and easier. I hope that those who are still addicted to nicotine and who are motivated by the changes in this bill will come to that realisation as well. I understand how hard it is to stop smoking and I am mindful of the comedian who once said: “Giving up cigarettes is really easy. I should know; I’ve done it about 25 times.” 
I am sure the House is grateful to my medical colleagues Dr Blue and in particular Dr Paul Hutchison for his graphic depiction of his time as a pathology registrar and the debilitating effects of smoking. But he also made the very good point that the medical fraternity was perhaps slow to pick up and develop an evidence base for the negative effects of smoking. There are even print ads from the early 20th century of doctors endorsing certain brands of cigarettes. I was smoking when I started work at a bank in Dunedin North and I remember now with some horror that as a teller it was the norm that when I was serving customers there would be an ashtray there with a cigarette burning such was the acceptance that we had of smoking as part of what we did. 
Opposition members can and have gently and lightly ribbed National members for opposing certain things when we were in Opposition but I think that as a society we have gone down a path of enlightenment. I suggest that that is what is happening with this bill. I was in the UK at the end of 1988 when workplaces went smoke-free and I well remember a colleague who was heavily addicted to nicotine and who smoked about 40 a day and who was so distraught by the change that she felt she would need to resign because she could not survive the day if it was not for the cigarette on the desk. But she got through that as well and I think we need to support those people who are addicted. 
The suggestion that this is some kind of tax for revenue-raising purposes and even worse to subsidise tax cuts I find very very hard to take. I am sure Iain Lees-Galloway had tongue in cheek when he said that. I also think the Hon Ruth Dyson made relevant comments about being careful about where the money goes in the public health initiatives that might be needed to support this legislation. But we need to remember as other members have said that maybe $1.1 billion of revenue is collected through tobacco excise but the total costs on society of smoking and in particular the costs that fall on our health sector comfortably exceed $1.7 billion and are approaching $2 billion. So it is really not accurate to say that somehow this legislation will be a great windfall to the Government. 
I also expect that the Quitline service which is not subject to fiscal constraints as I understand it will be flooded basically— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: What do you mean “not subject to fiscal constraints”? 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: There is no cap on the number of people who can go to Quitline and get the subsidised support that is available. I have no doubt there will be a huge increase in demand for its services. I certainly hope that is the case. 
But I want to focus on the case for using tobacco excise as an effective means for reducing the prevalence of tobacco smoking in New Zealand. We have talked about the positive effects of that. It is known in economics as “demand elasticity” and the best research suggests that the price elasticity of tobacco is probably about negative 4.8 or 5 which means that on average a 10 percent increase in the price would be followed by a decrease in consumption of about 5 percent. But of course that does not tell the full story and we need to drill more deeply into the research in this area. For adults who are addicted to nicotine the price elasticity is slightly less than that. There is definitely evidence that it will reduce prevalence in that group but I think what is really relevant to this is that if we look at the evidence for young smokers or young people considering smoking the evidence is extremely strong that the price elasticity in that group is much higher. It ranges from about minus 0.9 to 1.5. In plain English that means that young people are three times more likely than older people to stop smoking or to not start with this level of excise being increased. So they are far more price-sensitive and it is for that reason among all of the many good reasons for supporting this bill that I support it. 
It is also important to make sure that when we look back into history these increases in excise tax actually have had a positive impact and it is very important to note that we see a step-change that is positively co-related with the increases. It started with the smoke-free workplaces legislation in 1990; then there was an increase in the excise in the late 1990s and again in the early 2000s. All of those impacts are very very highly co-related and in my view causative of the reduction in smoking. 
Another way to drill into the prevalence data is through ethnicity and this is a really concerning issue that Minister Turia and others have talked about. Maori women in particular are smoking at the rate of nearly 50 percent of the population. Pasifika are also at a high level but not quite as high as that. What is interesting is the Asian statistics. Asian men smoke at about the national average but there is a dramatic reduction for women. Asian women smoke at the rate of about only 5.2 percent of their population. I am not quite sure what the cultural differences are but it could be an excellent body of research to drill into to find out the reasons why they smoke at a much lower rate than others. 
In summary this is an outstanding initiative. I think we will hear the inevitable retorts from the tobacco industry about why this will not be a good idea. I am encouraged that almost entirely this House will support this bill and ignore that rhetoric. This bill will have nothing but good things for our society and for our health system. For that reason I very strongly the bill. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
Ayes 118 
New Zealand National 58; New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 1 (Boscawen); Maori Party 5; Progressive 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 4 
ACT New Zealand 4 (Douglas Garrett Hide Roy H). 
Bill read a first time. 
Second Reading 
Hon TARIANA TURIA (Associate Minister of Health) 
: 
 I move  
That the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill be now read a second time 
. This bill heralds one of the most significant developments to take place in the public health system of this country. This bill is about saving lives and I am humbled and greatly heartened by the support of parties throughout the House on this immensely important day—118 votes out of 122. I greatly appreciate the strength of support that has come through this debate. 
This move will put the price of cigarettes and roll-your-own tobacco up enough to save hundreds of lives. Our most preliminary estimates are that there will be 300 fewer premature deaths a year as a result of the tobacco excise increase rising to 500 fewer deaths a year by the year 2031. This development is well overdue. I am reminded of the results of a survey from the Ministry of Health just 2 years ago. It found that 80 percent of New Zealand smokers said that they regretted starting to smoke and that if they had their time again they would not smoke. This bill is for them. The price increase will give them an added incentive to quit and a huge incentive to all of our young people to never start. This bill is an investment in the future of our country. 
I have read over some of the submissions presented to the Maori Affairs Committee inquiry held over the course of the last few months. The challenges laid out there are inspirational. There has been talk of people wanting to live in a smoke-free nation and to take the opportunity to be world leaders in this land in countering the global smoking epidemic. Some amazing examples have been shared of people trying to make a difference in their own way. There are stories that demonstrate the power of w’anau celebrating the impact of loved ones providing the incentive to quit. 
I have to admit that many years ago when I was courting my husband I had the occasional cigarette. George told me in no uncertain terms that I had to give up and such was the power of love at that time that I did it. It was an extremely effective strategy long before the days of nicotine lozenges and patches. Many such powerful incentives were shared by those who had the courage to give their stories to the select committee. In Hokianga the word is out that if rangatahi want to be part of waka ama they have to be smoke-free. At the Pasifika Festival held every year Pacific Heartbeat promotes the message of being smoke-free ensuring that every person who attends that celebration leaves their cigarettes at home. 
Other stories simply made me want to weep. One of the most traumatic stories was told by Lloyd and Hinga Whiu. They shared the profound sadness within their midst that within their mother’s line 14 of the 16 siblings had died of smoking-related diseases leaving a void that will never be filled. Their submission spelt out in black and white the ghastly reality that cigarettes kill one in every two long-term smokers. 
This afternoon right across the House we have declared our condemnation of smoking as the biggest single cause of avoidable death and disease. The purpose of this legislation is very clear: it is all about the issue of psychological triggers to quit. We know that most people who quit smoking need to make several attempts before they succeed. 
The second distinguishing feature of this legislation is the substantial price increase for roll-your-owns. The Government has decided to equalise the excise duties on a weight-by-weight basis so that all smokers face the same financial incentive to quit. In effect the excise on loose tobacco will rise by 24 percent immediately followed by the same 10 percent increases in 2011 and 2012 as for cigarettes. Loose tobacco accounts for about a third of all the tobacco smoked in New Zealand and we have one of the highest rates of roll-your-own use in the world which is hardly something to be proud of. It should be known that the taxation of loose and manufactured tobacco products was last equalised in 1995. Since that time the proportion of smokers using loose tobacco has increased from 28 percent to 50 percent today. As well as that considerable jump in numbers users of loose tobacco tend to be younger to be of lower socio-economic status and to be Maori or Pasifika people. These groups are the most sensitive to the price of tobacco products and as such are the greatest users of loose tobacco. 
The bill is intended to prompt people to stop smoking and I will talk to two particular aspects of this legislation that warrant further explanation. The first is the rationale for why we are not bringing the price increases in all at once. As a Government we have been concerned about the financial impact of the changes on low-income households where smokers may struggle to immediately cut down or quit. As a consequence of our concerns we decided to phase in the increases to give people more time to adjust. But I have a word for those who might suggest that these increases might hurt low-income families in particular. Of course the well-being of our most vulnerable New Zealanders will always concern us but I ask where the evidence is that their well-being is enhanced by picking up a cigarette. 
A far bigger concern for the family members of low-income smokers is the harm that is done through the premature death of a smoking parent the decline of household income through a smoker’s ill health the health impacts on smokers’ children from their exposure to smoke and the health impacts on the children yet to be born when a mother smokes while pregnant. It is also noted that in phasing in the changes frequent price rises are likely to be more effective than less frequent larger price rises. A particular concern for me is that 61 percent of smokers who are aged from 15 to 19 years report smoking roll-your-owns. The research tells us that young people are less likely to try smoking if the cigarettes are seen to be too expensive. 
Finally I extend my genuine appreciation right across the House for the vision the leadership and the solidarity that has been expressed. It has been an extremely moving debate seeing parties come together on our commitment to a healthier future for all our peoples in this land. Tonight I place on record my gratitude to all of those smoke-free champions the advocates and analysts the Auahi Kore providers and the researchers. This bill has also benefited from the dedication of officials in Treasury and the Customs Service and especially the tobacco team in the Ministry of Health. 
My last word goes to all of those mokopuna out there who today tell their parents not to smoke and who carry that message with such pride and vigour. They remind us that when one woman dies we lose an entire generation. We owe it to our children to pass this bill. 
Na reira ka mate te wahine kotahi he w’akatipuranga ka ngaro i te tirohanga kanohi ki te po uriuri ki te po tangatango. Ma te wahine kotahi ara ano he rau w’akatipuranga koia nei te putake o tenei pire kua eke panuku kua eke Tangaroa haere mai te toki haumi e hui e taiki e. 
[ 
So if one woman dies a generation is lost from sight to the deep and intense night. On the other hand one woman can conceive a generation that will surmount the realm and ocean of Tangaroa. Welcome the adze; we are about to lead a new life together. This after all is the nub of this bill 
.] 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 It gives me great pleasure to stand again in support of not just the progress of the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill but also the progress of this bill under urgency. I will begin as I began my earlier contribution in this debate by congratulating the Associate Minister of Health Tariana Turia. She just concluded her statements in what I know was a genuine contribution. She has had real drive for this issue. Minister Turia said at the outset of this debate that it was not often that the House gets to debate what is literally a life-or-death measure. For us to have the opportunity to improve someone else’s health in part is a huge responsibility and I am so proud to be part of the movement that will progress so many people’s health in our nation. This is a significant health-promotion measure. It is fantastic that the New Zealand Parliament has got to the point where we have almost unanimous agreement on the promotion of this measure. 
I could not understand Roger Douglas’ contribution earlier this evening. That is not unusual. For probably 30 years it is quite consistent that I have been unable to understand his contributions even though I know that he makes his contributions genuinely. I chuckled given how much debate we are having at the moment about the impact of the increase in GST at Roger’s passion—his outrage—that we were introducing a regressive excise tax. He is the man who designed and introduced GST so his contribution was extraordinary. Nevertheless I am sure that his contribution was genuine. 
We know that increasing the cost of tobacco has a more negative impact on low-income people because we have more low-income people who smoke. It is not a good enough reason to say: “Therefore we shouldn’t help reduce the amount of tobacco consumption.” It is disproportionately borne by people who are on low incomes people who are on benefits and as I said earlier in this debate people who have a mental illness. Those people deserve our support as a Parliament to stop smoking or even better as my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway said to not even start. It is a big step. We have had a lot of confessions from members of Parliament about their journeys through tobacco smoking to being smoke-free. A lot of people find it really really difficult. The more support we can give people through a variety of ways the easier it is for them to be smoke-free. We want to make that passage as easy as possible. We need measures like this legislation which will be one of the biggest contributors to a reduction in tobacco consumption. If we put the price of tobacco up by 2 percent it reduces tobacco consumption by 1 percent. The figures are on the public record and are easy to see. As soon as we put the price up we see a dramatic decrease in tobacco consumption but we have to keep putting the pressure on because the reduction flattens out after a while and slowly starts to increase again. 
This measure cannot happen in isolation. We need to make sure that nicotine replacements and advice through Quitline are all accessible and affordable for people. That is part of the package. Of course there is the health-promotion message of making sure that people understand that if used as prescribed and as intended cigarettes kill half the people who use them. I invite members to imagine if a breakfast cereal was developed and the inventors of this fabulous new breakfast cereal said: “Here is the breakfast cereal for you. If you eat it”— 
Simon Bridges 
: “Killer Kelloggs”. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: Very good; give a gold star to that young man. If “Killer Kelloggs” were invented and the person who invented it said: “Eat this in an appropriate amount everyday and it will kill every second person.” how many people would race to the supermarket to buy a pack of “Killer Kelloggs”? Unfortunately there has been the attraction of cigarettes. The portrayal in movies—long before Mr Bridges was born; I say to Mr Bridges that this was in the olden days although he might not believe it—was that smoking was glamorous. 
Simon Bridges 
: You weren’t born then were you Ruth? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: Thank you Mr Bridges. Two gold stars and for that man. Smoking was portrayed as very glamorous. Huge amounts of money went in to advertising tobacco products and there was a huge concentration and focus on making sure that young people were addicted early and stayed addicted until their death which occurred 15 years earlier on average than it would have had they been smoke-free. This issue was not something that evolved; it was a deliberate campaign to ensure that the people who produced and sold tobacco were made wealthy by the illness and premature death of others in our society. 
We have learnt a lot about tobacco over the years since it first came into prominent being in our society but we have had a lot of very contentious debate even in the last few years in this House. When Labour introduced the smoke-free environments legislation there was debate akin to the sky falling in on civilised society as we knew it. Not very long ago when Tukoroirangi Morgan followed up by Steve Chadwick introduced legislation that banned smoking in bars and restaurants apparently it was going to be the downfall of civilised society. I have not noticed much of a change except for the better. I was at Astoria on Lambton Quay for breakfast and as I left people outside were smoking. I walked through a lot of cigarette smoke as I left. I reflected on how recently it was—it was in my lifetime—that that smoking would have been inside where people were eating. Again I say to Mr Bridges that he is very fortunate that he has probably never known that in his lifetime but it truly happened that people would be smoking at the same time as other people were eating. 
Other measures that have been introduced are sometimes very contentious and sometimes receive a broader range of support across the House. They have all contributed to New Zealand having a healthier population and to fewer people having massive heart attacks as a result of smoking and either dying far too early or being severely restricted in their ability to contribute. A lot of people who have strokes die immediately afterwards or are very severely impaired and unable to communicate walk or move their arms. That is a very debilitating condition that can happen after a stroke and it is often caused by a person smoking. We know that between 4500 and 5000 people in New Zealand die prematurely every year because of cigarette smoke. Tonight this Parliament will take another step forward towards addressing that so that more of our family members can live longer and live healthier. I think we can all be extremely proud of that. 
Members will recall that at the beginning of my contribution I mentioned that Labour supports not only the legislation itself but also it going through under urgency. I think that is another example of the maturing of our Parliament. The last time that Parliament was in extraordinary urgency and was increasing the price of tobacco we had a similar debate but our party was on that side. It was a mirror image. Members get the general gist of the situation. Bill English who is now the Minister of Finance was outraged. I recall the debate. He was absolutely outraged that this Parliament was going into extraordinary urgency to increase the price of tobacco. He said it was an outrage because it was only 6 weeks until the Budget. He challenged Labour as to why we had not included that increase in tobacco pricing as part of the Budget. Well let me think. How long is it until Mr English’s next Budget? It is on 20 May and today is 28 April. It is half the time between this day and his Budget than it was between that day and Dr Michael Cullen’s Budget yet it caused him such outrage that we had not included increasing the price of tobacco in our Budget. We have decided that we are not going to play those sorts of tricks. We understand that the reason this legislation is coming in now is that the last thing Bill English wants is his Budget to be described as the Budget that increased tobacco tax. We support not only the urgency but also this legislation. I once again say well done to Tariana Turia. 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 As most probably one of the only real smokers in this House— 
Hon Member 
: Have another Champix. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Yes I am on Champix. I am 98 percent or 97 percent smoke-free and very proud of it. I am on the Champix. [ 
Interruption 
] I tell my colleagues to be quiet. I thank the drug company Pfizer. I think I speak from a position of authority. I am soon to be 50 years old. 
Hon Member 
: You’re what? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: I know hard as it is to believe. For over half of my life I have been a smoker—I have lived over half of my life as a smoker. Our family has a long history of supporting the tobacco industry. Some would have said that I would be put out by the dastardly deeds of a person who was going to increase the taxes on tobacco but I am not. I am not a zealot unlike some people I know—kia ora Hone—but I think it is a good thing that we do this. The issue is about the health of a nation not the health of one individual person but the health of a nation. I think that shows how times have changed. 
The Hon Ruth Dyson mentioned a debate from not so long ago when my brother-in-law Tukoroirangi Morgan stood next to me in this House while I was a full-blown 100 percent smoker and introduced the Smoke-free Environments (Enhanced Protection) Amendment Bill which became the Hon Steve Chadwick’s bill. I railed against my brother-in-law. Fancy doing that to a large portion of people in our community! Fancy picking on the poor! Fancy picking on— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: You were in the same party too weren’t you? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Yes we were in the same party. He had the temerity to put forward a bill that now would probably get 90-odd percent support in the House. 
When I was out of Parliament and the smoke-free workplace legislation came in I too used to run up and down spewing forth utter shock that workers could not have their smoko breaks or have a smoke when they wanted to. But now I would hazard a guess that a very large proportion of this country would not want to go back to those days even though some of us pine for the old days. 
The issue of raising the excise on tobacco has been an interesting one. Small increases over a period of time do not work. It is the large increase that works; the large very strong hit works. My fear is that the lag between the 10 percent rise in tailor-made cigarettes each year over a 3-year period may not work. There has to be some serious thought over the next 12 months or so about the next increase and the next increase after that. Is it to stay at 10 percent or is it to rise even more? By watching the news I heard that by 2013 a packet of 25 cigarettes will cost people around $17 or $18. One has to be mad to think that one would fork out 20 bucks for a packet of smokes but let me tell members that the habit is so strong that people will spend $20 on a packet of smokes. It is an addiction. 
I want the House to consider something especially my colleagues on the front bench and those who sit around the Cabinet table. Although we feel good about doing something as we are doing tonight in trying to help people quit and in trying to make sure that young people do not start smoking there are products on the market today that are not allowed in the country because they are supposedly unsafe. An e-cigarette is one of those products. It is not possible to get an e-cigarette with a cartridge of nicotine in it because it is supposedly— 
Simon Bridges 
: That’s a pen you’re holding. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Yes this is a pen I am holding. I ask members to get this: supposedly it is not safe to use e-cigarettes but we are allowed to buy cigarettes in this country and we know that ain’t safe. So what am I getting at? We do not do enough to break that habit of addiction—we do not do enough. We spend millions of dollars on cessation programmes and I have to say that the evidence is starting to stack up that they actually do not work as well as we may believe. 
Dr Jackie Blue 
: Oh no! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Oh yes. 
Dr Jackie Blue 
: Oh no! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Oh yes. I am one of the privileged ones who have— 
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: That will look good in  
Hansard 
. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Well it may look good in  
Hansard 
; it may not look good in Hansard. But the fact is the figures are starting to show that the millions of dollars we spend on cessation programmes—not all of the cessation programmes but the majority of cessation programmes of the last few years—do not work and they may have been a waste of money. It would have been better to subsidise some of the drugs. It would have better to allow some of the products into this country rather than spend our money on those programmes. 
I am very glad that there will be a bigger increase on roll-your-own cigarettes. It is a well-known fact that people smoke them because they are cheap and they last a bit longer than a packet of 25 cigarettes. 
I want to send a message that is not so much about who does what in this area or who gets the kudos. I congratulate my relation my colleague Hone Harawira for bringing to the Maori Affairs Committee an issue that we may have our differences about in terms of how to get there but we agree on the final objective and that is to be as smoke-free as possible. I also thank my National colleagues. 
I have seen the blogs. I have seen the comments on my very popular Facebook page. One said “Another win for the Maori Party.” I tell members that it would not have been a win for the Maori Party if it had not been for National. Without National this measure would not have gone through. So while we stand and talk about the poor health and the disease out there that is tobacco I thank National for taking on board the submissions and the pleas made by the Hon Tariana Turia. I also remind the Government and the House in general that the Maori Affairs Committee is doing a sterling job in its inquiry into the use of tobacco and its effect on Maoridom. Kia ora. 
JOHN BOSCAWEN (ACT) 
: 
 I was not expecting to take a call at this time but it looked as though the debate on the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill might have been coming to a premature close. I will start by saying that unlike many people who have spoken this evening who have acknowledged that they are smokers who are reformed smokers who have outlined the extent to which they have gone to give up smoking or who have spoken about the loss of family members I have never smoked I hope I never smoke and I have never lost family members to tobacco. However this is a subject on which I have had very strong views for a very long period of time. Roger Douglas said in the first reading debate that there will be some ACT members opposing this bill. I am the ACT member supporting this bill and I say this very proudly. It makes me sad because I wish I could have convinced some more of my colleagues to support this bill but before I explain why I am supporting this bill I will make a few introductory remarks. 
It is an absolute privilege to be a member of Parliament. Every day I come into this Chamber I remind myself of how privileged I am to be here and of the people who have elected me here. The speech I give tonight is a speech that I knew I would be making at one stage during my career in Parliament and I do it with a great deal of pride and a great deal of thought. I would also like to acknowledge two of my colleagues. I consider David Garrett and myself to be very lucky. We have come into Parliament and we represent a very small party but it is a party that does not whip its members. We have a confidence and supply agreement with the National Party and under the terms of that agreement we are committed to supporting the National Party in various matters. Beyond that however we are entitled to have a free vote. We have often had a split vote as we did this evening. I would like to acknowledge the leader of the ACT Party Rodney Hide who has voted against this bill. Rodney Hide is a very astute politician. Rodney Hide opposes tax increases and if there has been any disappointment about this debate so far it has been those seeking to score political points through members such as Bill English changing their position. I am very grateful for Rodney because he has to go to the media and explain why the ACT Party has a vote. He is prepared to do that so that I have the ability and the right to stand up and state the comments I am making this evening. 
The second colleague I would like to acknowledge is Sir Roger Douglas. Many people forget that Sir Roger Douglas was a former Labour MP. His grandfather father and his brother were Labour MPs. He was the MP for Otara for many years. When I joined the ACT Party in 1995 I was attracted to the philosophy of Roger Douglas and his vision for the party which he recently restated in his book  
No Second Class Citizens 
. I can assure members of the public and parliamentarians that even though it may well be the public perception that the ACT Party is not overly concerned with poor people that is what motivates Roger that is what motivates me and that is why I am in this Parliament. Roger has a very sincere conviction that increasing the tobacco tax is a tax on the poor. It is interesting that Tariana acknowledged that and acknowledged some of the alternative arguments we put up. 
Let us go back through some of the issues we have heard tonight. We have heard that approximately 5000 people die each year as a result of tobacco or tobacco-related causes such as lung cancer and many other diseases. That is 14 people per day. We have heard that people who smoke regularly throughout their life have a one in two chance that they will die prematurely—one chance in two. On average smoking cuts the life expectancy of an individual by 15 years; rather than a woman living to the average age of 80 she might die prematurely at 65 and sadly for Maori it is a lot younger. We have also heard that smoking disproportionately affects large numbers of low-income people large numbers of Maori particularly large numbers of Maori women and worse still large numbers of young Maori women. I had a friend for dinner last night and he explained that his stepdaughter goes to a high school in Rotorua where she is one of just three people in her secondary school class who do not smoke. I do not know how many are in her secondary school class; I would imaging there are 15 20 or maybe 25 people. She is just one of three 14-year-olds who do not smoke. 
Why are we discussing this issue? The blunt reality is that tobacco companies kill their customers. It is simple as that. Tobacco companies kill their customers. The only way they can survive is if they get new young fresh customers coming in the front door. I believe that this Parliament this Government needs to take every step it can take to reduce the number of new young people coming in the door. I see Mr Lees-Galloway nodding this evening. He made the point that this is just one of many things that this Government could be doing. For example this Government could have adopted Mr Lees-Galloway’s member’s bill to put restrictions on the retail display of tobacco. Every day that we have a ballot I look with interest to see if Mr Lees-Galloway’s bill has been drawn. Sadly it has not. I hope that Tariana Turia who I understand is also looking at this area will soon have a bill before Parliament that will significantly restrict the retail display of tobacco the packaging or the way the product is put. 
I focus on young people because the reality is that the new customers who come in as the old ones die are not people in their 30s 40s 50s or 60s; they are young people. Yes it is illegal to sell tobacco to children under the age of 18 but does that stop them from smoking? Does that stop that class of 14-year-olds in Rotorua where all but three of them are smoking? No it does not. To my mind smoking is an absolute tragedy. It is a waste. It is an absolute waste of human life. Tariana Turia has put the arguments eloquently this evening and I can not possibly repeat them in the way that she has. Luckily I have not had someone in my immediate family die from tobacco. However I did have to help my mother nurse my late grandmother Mona Wheeler in January and February of 1985. Luckily for my grandmother her bad turn of health was very severe very sudden and it lasted only about 6 weeks. I cannot imagine anything worse than having to look after and nurse a child or parent month after month and see the decline in their health. I acknowledge Tariana Turia talking about how she had to nurse her mother. She had to nurse her mother she saw her decline and she was brought up by her grandmother. Today she is the last alive of all of her cousins; all of the others have been taken by tobacco. 
I would like to devote the last part of my speech to acknowledging the efforts of the Labour Party and Helen Clark. I stood up at an ACT conference in 2001 to challenge ACT members who were opposing at that time the previous Labour Government’s Smoke-free Environments Act and I asked them to justify their decision. One by one those ACT members got up and justified their decision. To be fair to them I thought that Muriel Newman had a very valid point when she talked about RSAs and people who had gone off to war and the ability for them to smoke in their RSA rooms. I thought she had a very valid point and so arguably with cigarette bars. But I will never forget the first time I met the Rt Hon Helen Clark. It was in 1990. She was a young Minister of Health and she was asked to justify her decision to make it illegal for cigarette and tobacco companies to sponsor sport when she was not prepared to do the same for liquor companies. The point she made 20 years ago sticks with me today. I say to Mr Anderton that the reality is that he can have a glass of wine every night for the rest of his life and the odds are that it will not kill him. But if he tried to smoke a packet of cigarettes every day for the rest of his life the odds are that there is a one in two chance of it killing him. 
I vote for this bill with a great deal of pride. I realise that there are many ACT supporters who voted for me and gave me this privilege and I apologise to those who do not understand my actions. But I am doing this because I believe that it is right and the best thing to do. Thank you. 
KEVIN HAGUE (Green) 
: 
 I say to the previous speaker John Boscawen that the membership form is in the mail. I want to start my contribution by thinking about the groups in our society that have higher than average rates of smoking. We have heard a little bit about some of those groups tonight. For example we know that Maori have much higher rates of smoking than the population average. We know that Pasifika people have higher rates of smoking. We know that in general the poor have higher rates of smoking. We know that people with mental illnesses as Ruth Dyson pointed out have higher rates of smoking. In my own community the gay community there is a higher rate of smoking than there is in the population as a whole. What on earth could explain that pattern? What on earth could explain the distribution of smoking behaviour? Could it be that information about what is unhealthy about smoking only reaches other groups? Is it somehow not getting to these groups? That explanation does not hold water. 
Over the last 24 years since 1986 we have increasingly come to understand that a model to explain the patterns that we see of health and illness that is based on information simply fails. It is not an adequate explanation of what we see. Instead we have to look at the marginalisation of communities and adopt a socio-environmental model of health that says there are risk environments that surround particular communities. Those risk environments are things like poverty racism prejudice and violence. Those risk environments themselves create the psychosocial risk factors that predispose people towards particular patterns of illness. 
In the health promotion model which is the model we use to explain how to counter that pattern of ill health we talk about five action guidelines in what is called the Ottawa Charter. Those are: to promote healthy public policy; to create supportive environments and by that we mean not only physical environments but social environments also; to strengthen community action; to develop personal skills; and to re-orient health services towards prevention. That means that when we look at the pattern of health and disease in relation to smoking we see that that is also the pattern for pretty well every other disease we can think of. When we look at those Ottawa Charter guidelines we see that it is not adequate to do just one of those things. We have to do all of those things. That is the kind of holistic thinking that the Green Party typically brings to this kind of debate. 
In relation to tobacco control we are talking tonight about price control because we know that that works. But we also need a comprehensive suite of controls. We need to look at how tobacco is displayed where it can be bought from what is in the product and where tobacco can be smoked but we also need to look to community empowerment. By that I mean providing communities with resources in the form of expertise and also the dollars that they need to develop their own solutions to this problem. It also means tackling racism and tackling prejudice wherever it exists. It means taking measures to address inequalities in our society measures to create a fair society where all New Zealanders have a fair go. Those are the things that will make the big difference in dealing with the pattern of disease that we see in this country. 
One of the measures to tackle inequality is tax. As Iain Lees-Galloway has said already in tonight’s debate tax is one of the areas where we are able to take some initiatives that address the inequalities in society. This Government has a policy in relation to tax that will widen those inequalities. The truth is that that pattern of widened inequalities will drive increased disease and it will drive increased smoking rates. So we need that comprehensive pattern of interventions. Yes we will vote for these price increases tonight because we know that that will be helpful but we also need to address those wider psychosocial risk factors those wider socio-environmental risk factors that create disease in the first place. 
As Ruth Dyson has commented a number of members have spoken about their personal smoking history. I have never been a smoker. I did try it once but I could not get it close enough to my face so that never happened. But I did have a particularly powerful experience in Los Angeles a couple of years ago when I went to the Body Worlds exhibition put on by the German anatomist Gunther von Hagen. Very much as Paul Hutchison has described tonight one of the things von Hagen does in that exhibition is provide actual lungs that have been preserved and plasticised. It was a very creepy experience. The contrast between the lungs of a lifelong non-smoker and the lungs of a person who has smoked is such a stunning example that nobody could go to that exhibition and come away still a committed smoker. Next door to the exhibition of the lungs was a big rubbish bin. The idea was that smokers would put their packets of cigarettes in that rubbish bin. When I went through the exhibition I saw it was pretty well full. 
Although we will vote for this measure tonight the Green Party seeks a comprehensive suite of measures that are focused not only on tobacco control but are ones that address those risk environments: racism poverty and marginalisation of every sort. As Michael Joseph Savage put it: “What is there more important in Christianity than to be our brothers’ keepers in reality?”. What is there more important to us in our society than to take collective responsibility for the welfare of all? I again congratulate the Hon Tariana Turia and the Maori Party. This is a fantastic victory and I wish her well. 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tatou katoa. When Minister Turia began this debate under extraordinary urgency she said there are only a few matters before this House on which one could stand with one’s hand on one’s heart and declare that this was a life and death debate. This bill the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill she added is purely and simply about saving lives. Today we celebrate another step in saving the lives of New Zealanders addicted to tobacco—in reducing the number of our citizens who die in their thousands every year from smoking. For the benefit of those who want to know exactly what we are talking about I say it is about trying to put a dent into wiping out the equivalent of the whole population of Kaitaia every single year. 
For us as the Maori Party the cause is made even more dramatic because every year Maori gather to commemorate the lives of the 600 sons of the Maori Battalion lost in the 5 years of the Second World War and yet we mourn alone the 600 lives of Maori people stolen every year by the decisions of British American Tobacco Imperial Tobacco Group Philip Morris and others to maximise their profits from a product that addicts and kills people. 
Today is a big day and an important day not just for Maori but for the whole country as we take another step on the march to save the lives of 5000 Kiwis lost every year to tobacco. It is a march begun by smoke-free activists like Dr Papaarangi Reid Shane Bradbrook Dr Marewa Glover Ben Youdan Moana Maniapoto Mere Wilson and many many others. It was aided by organisations like the Health Sponsorship Council Te Hotu Manawa Maori the Quit Group Te Reo Marama Aukati Kai Paipa Auahi Kore the Global Smokefree Partnership Smokefree Northland Hapai Te Hauora Tapui Action on Smoking and Health Tala Pasifika and all of the others that have been working for years to bring down our smoking rates. 
Today’s step is one of the hardest that we will ever take because today we take the tough decision to increase taxes: 14 percent goes on to the tax on roll-your-owns followed by another 33.3 percent on all tobacco products in the years ahead. We do that not just because we think that it might help to reduce smoking and improve health outcomes; we do it because the World Health Organization’s  
Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic 2008 
 stated that increasing the price of tobacco through higher taxes is the single most effective way to decrease consumption and encourage tobacco users to quit. 
When people tell us that tax increases will not win us votes we tell them that some things we do not do just for votes; we do them because they are the right thing to do—some things are more important than winning votes. When people say that smokers will not be happy we can tell them that in fact 80 percent of smokers want to stop and that they tell us that anything we can do to help them to stop is a bonus for them. We know that putting up the price will also force people to cut back on their smoking but more important it will also provide a strong incentive for smokers to quit. If it helps to convince young people not to even start then that is great as well. We can tell the other ones that even though smokers might not be happy they can be sure that most of their whanau will be happy if this tax increase helps smokers to stop smoking. Yes it is true that increasing the price of tobacco is a tough measure for those who do not have a lot of money anyway but the truth is that we are dealing with one of the most addictive substances in the world. It is a substance described by medical researchers as being even more addictive than heroin. 
Tobacco is the largest cause of preventable death and disease for Maori. It is a cost that no nation can sustain and it is a cost that no family should have to bear. But we have to and we do and I constantly ask myself why that is the case. If a faulty part in a car was responsible for even two deaths that car’s manufacturer would be sued for millions of dollars. If another country was responsible for the deaths of just a couple of hundred of our citizens we would go to war. But here we are losing 5000 of our country’s family to the tobacco industry every year and we do very little to stop that. The industry is driven by multibillion-dollar tobacco giants that are directly responsible for the huge social and economic cost to our country. There is the insurance cost for fire property health and for life itself. There is the cost to our health sector of chemotherapy radiotherapy and surgery. There is the stench that cannot be washed out of clothes the lingering stink in homes offices cars and workplaces the damage to the unborn child the suffering of children who are trapped in a smoker’s car the loss of earnings of those who are in care the loss of years for those who smoke and the loss of life that every family is forced to bear. 
I take this opportunity to thank all of my colleagues on the Maori Affairs Committee—our chairperson the Hon Tau Henare Simon Bridges Paul Quinn the Hon Parekura Horomia Mita Ririnui and Kelvin Davis—for the work being done by the committee as part of the inquiry into the tobacco industry and the impact of tobacco on Maori. I also extend my thanks to Metiria Turei Carmel Sepuloni and Su’a William Sio for their attendance and their support. I also thank Iain Lees-Galloway for his attendance the other day. I would like to remind all members of this House that although our inquiry is specifically targeted at Maori we knew going into the inquiry that if we were successful in bringing forward legislation to slow and hopefully to stop the tobacco industry in its tracks the benefits that would flow from that decision would enhance the lives of all citizens of Aotearoa—Maori Pasifika Pakeha Asian and all other peoples who have come to call this land home. The fact was that we simply could not see how Parliament would allow us to mount an investigation into the tobacco industry until one night Shane Bradbrook of Te Reo Marama who has been a critical part of our inquiry and a dedicated and committed anti-tobacco activist came up with the bright idea of using the Maori angle in order to get the inquiry going. 
We have been to different parts of the country to hear submissions from victims from families from doctors from nurses from health agencies and even from British American Tobacco itself to build a case for our final report to Parliament which I understand will come before the House in July this year. I have seen my colleagues grow in their commitment to our task and I have heard some excellent speeches from them in tonight’s debate. That encourages me in the last couple of months ahead of us. So on behalf of our committee I wish to thank the Minister for the inspiration that this bill gives us in the work that we have yet to do and in the challenge of preparing and providing a report that truly reflects the feelings that we have been witness to the damage that we have heard evidence of and the recommendations that are needed if this country’s children and grandchildren may one day enjoy a world that is tobacco-free. 
When I knew that I would be speaking in this debate tonight I actually prepared an attack speech because I thought we might be really up against it on this one. But I was wrong—deeply wrong. So I express my sincere thanks to all speakers tonight—speakers from all parties—for their forbearance in this bill being brought to the House under extraordinary urgency for the depth of their contributions and for their support for this initiative. 
Four years ago I attended a hui where I shared the goal of getting tobacco out of Aotearoa by 10 December 2010. My timing might be just a wee bit out but we take another step on the road to a smoke-free Aotearoa with this landmark bill tonight. Speaking of smoke-free initiatives and smoke-free bars and restaurants let me take this opportunity also to add for the second night in a row my special thanks to Mr Tukoroirangi Morgan. I did so last night for his work in bringing the Waikato-Tainui Raupatu Claims (Waikato River) Settlement Bill through to its second reading and tonight I do so for his work in preparing the smoke-free bars and restaurants legislation which he unfortunately was not in the House to see pass but which I know he was happy to see become part of the fabric of this nation. 
The Maori Party is proud to stand tonight to honour our co-leader the Hon Tariana Turia the Minister who is responsible for tobacco control for her persistence with this bill for her courage and for her commitment to help to save lives to reduce— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member but his time has expired. 
JO GOODHEW (National—Rangitata) 
: 
 I rise to speak in the second reading of the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill. I do so knowing that 4 years ago almost to this day our family had a call from Perth to say that my father-in-law was going to die quite quickly of lung cancer. Our reaction was dismay but not disbelief. You see he was a very heavy smoker with that horrible distinctive cough which when we stayed with him woke us up each morning and made me feel quite sick. We always wondered whether it would be just a matter of time. He was 63 years old when he died—far far too young. 
I am a former nurse and yes nurses also fall into a group with high rates of smoking. We heard the member Kevin Hague speak of various groups and nurses are also amongst those. I have nursed many people whose health had been disastrously affected by smoking. Watching that happen does not stop nurses from smoking. But nursing a family member as I had the privilege of doing in his last days of life only 9 months after we heard of his illness left a lasting impression on me. It left me with a resolve to listen carefully and seek ways to change the incidence of smoking and reduce the number of new smokers. 
I pause now to congratulate the Hon Tariana Turia because I feel sure that these measures will save lives. Not every Minister can steward a bill through the House knowing that that is likely to be the case. Smoking is the leading cause of preventable deaths so I am proud to be standing here tonight in the knowledge that some people are less likely to start smoking because of these planned changes in excise. 
I will briefly comment on the regulatory impact statement which makes a couple of pertinent points in relation to the decision to bring this bill to pass. Tax on the two types of tobacco—loose tobacco and cigarettes—was last equalised in 1995 so we are looking at quite a passage of time since then. In addition the decline in tobacco consumption has stalled and smoking prevalence is declining but slowly. The current tobacco control programme of regulation health education cessation and taxation is holding rates steady but is not achieving the rate of decline necessary for sustainable health gains and reductions in tobacco-related costs to society and the economy. This is what we see and this is the reason we must take this action here tonight. 
This morning a newsletter arrived in my inbox. It was the  
Tobacco Control Update 
. I studied the newsletter more closely later in the day knowing what was ahead of us tonight and it pointed out—of course not knowing what was happening tonight—that the Budget would provide an opportunity for the Government to put up tobacco excise tax. There have been many calls for that to happen and I feel sure that those who read and subscribe to that newsletter will be smiling this evening. There were calls from both the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners and the Public Health Association of New Zealand printed in that newsletter. 
Also buried in the newsletter was a link to some research that had been carried out in Thailand by the Department of Health Education and Behavioural Sciences. It looked at 504 regular smokers and looked at what changes in their behaviour would happen if there was a tobacco tax increase. The results were statistically quite significant with 9.7 percent of the smokers quitting and a 48 percent reduction in the numbers of cigarettes smoked per day by other members of that group. The researchers concluded unsurprisingly that a tax increase was beneficial for Government revenue—I will get to that issue a little later—and that it also affected the behaviour of daily smokers. They also said that the tax had to go up continually and that sufficient cessation services had to be provided to respond to people wanting to quit smoking. In other words those who suddenly “got it” needed some help. 
We have heard some debate in this House that if we truly believe in reducing the amount of health-related harm from smoking we should as the Hon Sir Roger Douglas suggested put the price up by 600 percent. He expressed concern that we were seeking to control the personal habits of citizens when their personal responsibility should prevail. I can understand the genesis of that argument but it is not as black and white as that as anyone who has tried to quit smoking understands. When a person decides to make that life-changing move to stop smoking all of the ducks need to be in a row all of the planets need to be in alignment and all of the excuses need to be philosophically exhausted. This not insignificant change in the excise might be the final duck the last planet in the line and it might also exhaust that last excuse. I certainly hope it is that for many smokers. 
For many young people I hope they look at the costs associated with smoking and decide not to start. I hope they plan instead a holiday the purchase of a car putting money away for a house or perhaps paying off their mortgage. I hope they recognise that they should enhance their future rather than seriously shorten it. But when the decision time arrives and when that smoker’s mind is open—the ducks are in a row the planets are in alignment or whatever—the challenge for us is to support that person to quit. 
I am really proud that since the National Government came into power there has been an enormous increase in the subsidisation of nicotine replacement and the use of the same. It is all very well to do that— 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: It’s doubled. 
JO GOODHEW 
: As the Minister of Health said it has gone up from $463000 being spent back in March 2008 to more than $1 million being spent in the month of March 2010. That is pretty stunning; it is quite a huge amount. But it is not just about subsidising; we have to make sure that people use the treatment. Since September 2009 nicotine-replacement therapy which could be lozenges patches or gum has been available on prescription and the cost is now down to $3 for 2 months’ supply. That is an important part of what we want to achieve here. The Government has committed $57 million to tobacco control and smoking cessation. That is not an insignificant amount of money but it is a small amount compared with the cost to New Zealand society and the taxpayer of tobacco-related harm. Estimates are that it costs $1.9 billion. In fact the revenue from tobacco is nowhere near that. The revenue is $1.1 billion. With these changes that will go up to $1.3 billion but it is still short of the cost. 
All of the members who have spoken in this debate—not all of them but a lot of them—have spoken about the loss of a family or whanau member and that is not about money. That is the loss of a family support member a mother or a father and sometimes a child. It is also the loss of potential. It relates to lung disease heart disease strokes chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other cancers. 
This Government has made quit-smoking advice one of its six current health targets for those who are hospitalised and not all district health boards have been doing it well. Even in my own electorate the South Canterbury District Health Board has not been doing well in that area. There has been a marked improvement in the latest figures to come out. It is one of only six targets. In the past we have had a multitude of targets and not enough concentration on a few but this target is particularly important. 
I think these measures will save lives but I repeat other measures must be put in place. I hope the smoke-free ambassadors in my town who regularly come to see me and harangue me about one thing or another are smiling tonight too. I hope they see that this Parliament almost unanimously has a desire and a will on this issue and is taking some action in the House here tonight. We have taken a very important step one I am proud of. Thank you. 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) 
: 
 It is again a pleasure to speak in support of the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill. I again congratulate the Hon Tariana Turia on introducing and progressing this very important legislation. She must be immensely pleased with the vote on the first reading of 118 votes to 4 which as I suppose we have gently canvassed this evening is a slightly different vote result from that when legislation like this last passed through the House. 
My colleague on the Health Committee Michael Woodhouse put his finger on the button when he said that there has been a path of enlightenment since the last time legislation like this passed through the House. I remind Michael Woodhouse that that path for the most part occurred under a Labour Government because it happened during the last 10 years. 
It is pleasing to see that this issue has not been quite as contentious tonight as it has been in the past. The reasons for so much support for this legislation have been thoroughly canvassed this evening. Parliament has a deep understanding of the effect that tobacco is having on our society. No doubt I will cover some of those issues again but first I would like to discuss some of the arguments that have been put up against the legislation. Those arguments came from the Hon Sir Roger Douglas and other members of the ACT Party. 
Essentially they seemed to cover a couple of areas. One argument related to the fact that ACT members are opposed to tax increases. That is their ideological position this is a tax increase and therefore they cannot support it which is understandable. The ACT Party also argued that it is people’s personal responsibility to decide whether they take up smoking and how they try to quit smoking; that decision is over to them as individuals and is not a public issue or even a public health issue. Obviously I disagree with both of those points. Firstly it seems to be a shame to put ideology in front of a measure that clearly works. All the evidence indicates that this measure will have an impact on smoking prevalence. Every time it has occurred in New Zealand in the past it has had an impact and every time it has been done overseas it has had an impact. That impact is measurable and the research tells us that it is the right thing to do. So to put ideology in front of that evidence although understandable I think is unfortunate and a bit of a shame. 
Jo Goodhew touched lightly on another area of personal responsibility. It relates to nicotine which is the addictive substance in cigarettes and tobacco. As soon as people become hooked on an addictive substance of any kind their ability to demonstrate personal responsibility and to make logical rational choices is utterly diminished. I again acknowledge Jo Goodhew for touching on this point. When I sat in on the Maori Affairs Committee I heard representatives of the Nurses Organisation make their representation. They pointed out exactly the point that Jo Goodhew made: that nurses are one of those groups that have a higher prevalence of smoking than the rest of the general population. It was discussed at length. We discussed the fact that people who—I think the phrase was—“should know better” have a higher smoking prevalence for all manner of reasons. Let us not go into why nurses might have a higher smoking rate than the rest of the population but absolutely health professionals should know better. They have all the evidence in front of them they see the effects on a day-to-day basis and they have to nurse people who are in their last days and going through the painful effects of smoking-related disease yet nurses continue to smoke. To me it is an indication of just how strong this addiction is. With all of that evidence in front of them that group of people still find it very difficult to give up this terrible affliction. I think we have to bear that in mind when we are thinking about personal responsibility. 
Where does that personal responsibility lie? Indeed where does our responsibility as a nation lie in trying to assist people who want to make this decision? Hone Harawira said that 80 percent of smokers want to quit so it is important that we in Parliament and we as a nation support those people to make the right choices and to make that decision and that we give them the opportunities to follow through on that decision and quit smoking for ever. 
I have discussed ACT’s position and I acknowledge John Boscawen. I think it is absolutely fantastic that Mr Boscawen has voted in favour of this bill and I thank him for his kind words about my member’s bill. I hope that if my bill is drawn from the ballot—or if indeed the Government proposes a similar bill that would achieve the same ends—more members of ACT might get behind it because it does not lie in the same ideological position as a tax increase. I have a lot of hope from what Mr Boscawen said that the next logical move—the banning of tobacco displays however that comes about—might actually have a little more support. There is so much support from Parliament for this measure which is absolutely being done in the right way: we are seeing increases year on year and we are seeing greater increases to the excise tax on loose tobacco to bring it in line with that on tailor-made cigarettes. I think this is absolutely the correct way to go about it and that is why it has achieved so much support. 
So what do we do next? This bill has something of a whakapapa. There have been a number of incremental steps over a number of years: other increases to excise tax; the amendments to the Smoke-free Environments Act which have seen smoking removed from pubs restaurants and the workplace; and going right back to where it started the ban on smoking on airlines. These days we take it for granted that one would never light up on an aircraft but of course there once was a time when one could. There were smoking sections on aircraft just like there were smoking sections in restaurants. I am sure Mr Bridges and I remember those days; we are not quite so young that we do not. 
We have had an incremental step-by-step path and this legislation is another step along the way. So where do we go from here? Well a number of anti-smoking advocates have made presentations—particularly at the Maori Affairs Committee—and have said that they would like to see the end of tobacco smoking in New Zealand by 2020. That is a bold and audacious goal and it will require something a little bolder than the incremental steps that have occurred over the last few years. There are a lot of different ideas about how we might achieve that goal and the most obvious one when we are thinking about trying to remove something altogether from a culture is prohibition. I do not think there is an awful lot of support out there for prohibition. We have seen prohibition used in respect of other substances in the past particularly alcohol and it did not have very much effect. But we do not have to go as far as prohibition to achieve this goal. 
When the Health Sponsorship Council which was actually set up as part of the Smoke-free Environments Act made its presentation to the select committee it talked about a suite of proposals a package that would achieve a step change. I alluded to that presentation a little in the first reading but I will go over it again. It said that in addition to increasing taxation on tobacco products rather than the incremental changes we need “further restrictions or bans on point-of-sale tobacco displays; introducing requirements for plain packaging on all tobacco products; increasing support for cessation attempts; licensing of retail outlets that sell tobacco products” and “developing end game strategies such as a Tobacco Control Authority.” All of those ideas I think are open for debate. Let us not try to position anybody at the moment but let us start the debate on all of those measures and start really talking about a step change and trying to achieve some of those audacious goals. It is worth it. It is absolutely worth it. 
Tobacco smoking costs this country $1.7 billion a year and it is increasing. It is far more than the taxation that is already taken. It costs immeasurable amounts in terms of lives lost health lost productivity and the social impact on families of nursing ill relatives and having family members die at an early age. This is a great bill. It is a step in the right direction but I hope that in the near future we will see a considerable step-up of action so that we can really tackle this problem. I commend this bill to the House. 
SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga) 
: 
 There are some very simple reasons for the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill. First and foremost is that smoking is the single biggest preventable killer of people in this country. As Hone Harawira vividly put it the population of Kaitaia or thereabouts dies prematurely every year in this country from smoking—around 5000 people. We know and all the experts will tell us—they certainly told the Maori Affairs Committee—that the single most effective way to reduce the death toll and to reduce smoking is to put taxes up to increase the excise tax. So I am strongly and I speak as strongly as I am able to in favour of this bill. 
Before I came to the House this evening I was in a select committee meeting and then at a function so I did not know what the various parties’ positions were. I thought the most likely scenario was a House in unity a unanimous vote in favour of this bill and I think that would have sent a very strong signal and message to the people of New Zealand about smoking and this Parliament’s view on it. I was disappointed indeed to hear that a very small number of members are not supporting this bill but I explicitly commend John Boscawen for going against his party and following his conscience on this topic and giving a very good and thoughtful speech. 
If someone had asked me a year or two ago about my position on something like this excise tax I may well have said that I did not support it. I would have glibly said that people are free to choose and are free to do stupid things if that is what they choose to do. What changed things for me was a select committee inquiry by the Maori Affairs Committee that Hone Harawira pushed for and that as Tau Henare said National agreed to to its credit. We heard from hundreds of people—all sorts of people. There were academics experts and health personnel on the one hand and ordinary men and women young and old on the other. 
I will come to what they said very soon but I think before we do that it is worth talking about the problem we have with smoking in this country. I have already said to members that it is the single biggest preventable cause of death in New Zealand. It is a major contributor—this came through clear as crystal at the Maori Affairs Committee—to health inequalities for Maori. The figures that came from Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) say it all really. According to ASH non-Maori male life expectancy is 79 years and for Maori males it is 70.4 years—a difference of 8.6 years. Non-Maori female life expectancy is 83 years and Maori female life expectancy is 75.1 years—a difference of 7.9 years. ASH’s view and I agree with it is that eliminating smoking is the single most achievable way to go some way to closing the mortality gap between Maori and non-Maori. 
Why is that? I forget the exact figure but about 20 21 or 22 percent of New Zealanders smoke but for Maori the number is disturbingly high—42 percent of Maori men and 49 percent of Maori women. That is also the case for Pasifika people. It is disproportionately high although not as high as for Maori. In those figures we get a sense of the extent of the problem and of the evil of smoking. Yes it is an evil health-wise but we asked the experts who came to the select committee—we heard from dozens of them—what the common factor was and what the psychosocial reason behind smoking was and they said that it was disproportionately the lower socio-economic factor. It is about people coming from a certain background. We are dealing with a real evil. 
I have one other thing to say on the background to the problem. This bill is raising the tax on loose tobacco. That is a first step and then it will incrementally raise taxes across the board. According to ASH Maori smokers are most likely to smoke low-cost cigarette brands or roll-your-owns. Young Maori predominantly use roll-your-owns. Why is that? It is because of price and we are doing something about that as a House this evening. 
We know the problem; it is a serious one for this country. But what was the solution the select committee found? We heard from nearly 2000 submitters—no I tell a lie; some of those were form submissions. But all in all there were nearly 2000 submissions to the select committee. I have told the House often that we heard from academics and the like but we also heard from ordinary men and women. My recollection of the select committee process is that not a single submitter was against the excise tax going up. I tell a lie; probably implicitly British American Tobacco was implicitly. But in essence no one was against it and most were explicitly in favour. I remember a young Maori woman begging us to put taxes up. She had lost her father to smoking and tobacco. 
I came to this issue thinking that it was not the right thing necessarily to put up taxes. I had my own mantra if you like that I tested everything by in the select committee. It was “We have to do what works” and I wrote it down. I had a question for submitters that I put at the top of my paper every morning and my question to submitters was: “Let’s say that you can do only one thing to curb tobacco use. What would be the single most effective measure to undertake?” Nearly all submitters said to raise the tax—raise the tax raise the price. There were those who suggested absolute prohibition but I agree with Iain Lees-Galloway that that is probably not realistic. But nearly all submitters said to raise the tax and the academics were very clear that that works. In fact again when we asked them about the effect on lower socio-economic groups they said that lower socio-economic groups are the most price-sensitive and the most likely to change. They said as I think we have heard from Tariana Turia those are the groups that can potentially benefit the most from this measure. 
I think that the members of this House almost without exception can stand proud tonight. We are doing the right thing. Tobacco is the single biggest killer—preventable killer—of New Zealanders and raising the tax as we are doing will be the single most effective way to reduce smoking in this country. I am proud to be speaking for this bill. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I will make a brief contribution to the debate and I will start off on a line that a number of members have taken—that is to congratulate the Minister in charge of the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill Tariana Turia. It is not a secret that we disagree on a number of things pretty strongly but we are seeing in the House a degree of unanimity about the dangers of tobacco. I think that this Minister has pushed this Government as far as it can go on price. At this time I congratulate her on that. 
I am not someone who believes in a single-faceted approach. I think we have to keep on trying different ways to reduce smoking in New Zealand. Now that we have made some progress with this approach we have to look at other ways as well. I hope that when we get the recommendations back from the Maori Affairs Committee the committee will have some other suggestions that can be picked up in the House and developed. 
I am going to sound a bit like an old fart but I have to say that things have changed around here a bit. When I was first a member of Parliament— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: “When I was a boy.” 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: No no. When I was first a member of Parliament and invited into the Speaker’s Office sitting there were cigarettes. There was a cigarette case which was opened and cigarettes were offered to people. In fact I had quite a shock the first time I went to Government House for a function. I do not know whether functions were more regular then. I think they were and I think—I will be careful how I say this—that the Beatties at the time were rather more social than Governors-General since. But as well as people circulating with drink and food there were people who circulated with trays of cigarettes and lighters. So I think it is fair to say that times have changed and that the acceptability of smoking is nowhere near what it was. Therefore I think that it is easier for groups such as ours to make decisions that are relatively hard. 
Members who have been monitoring their emails looking at their Facebook pages or whatever will know that there is not unanimity on this issue. Certainly some people who are smokers but not drinkers have questioned the decisions of the last couple of days and the quick dismissal of the Law Commission’s recommendation on increasing the excise duty on alcohol. They have compared that situation with the provisions of this bill. I think it is fair to say that those people have a point. I think that giving proper consideration to the other tax would have been good as well. 
But I do not want to take anything away from what the House is doing today. I think that the vast majority of us know that we are doing the right thing. I will conclude in the way that I started by saying congratulations to Tariana Turia. She has led this House down a path that it was very important we travelled. Thank you very much. 
HEKIA PARATA (National) 
:  
Tena koe e te Mana Whakawa huri noa i to tatou Whare tena tatou katoa. I am very proud to be standing if not in unanimity as the previous speaker indicated then in near unity and definite consensus on the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill. We have heard tonight from a wide range of speakers across the House. Many have shared personal and family stories that help affirm that the decision we are making in respect of this bill tonight is correct. Many people have been very honest in sharing their personal experiences in respect of tobacco and smoking and I think that the House is both honoured and humbled by those genuine and personal experiences. 
We have also heard a raft of statistics that tells us what the collective experience has been. We have heard about what the research and evidence supports in respect of the curse and scourge that is tobacco. We know that it is the single biggest cause of preventable deaths amongst New Zealanders. It takes a very high toll in Maori and Pacific communities. One in two Maori smoke and almost one-third of Pacific Islanders smoke. We know that those deaths are preventable and that Maori experience a 10 percent greater mortality rate from smoking-related deaths than non-Maori. We know that Maori are three times more likely than non-Maori to die of lung cancer. In Pacific communities 8 percent of deaths in females and 19 percent of deaths in males could be avoided if smoking was eliminated. 
We have heard tonight about the high economic and fiscal costs that smoking subjects our community to but we have also touched on the high social costs it incurs. We have heard stories of families who have suffered not just in the present but through generations. So the stand we are taking tonight as a Parliament which comes after several years of incremental progress is a very important step towards stopping lives being lost to this curse. 
As has been noted the bill provides for incremental increases in costs. We are very conscious that there is a very high incidence of smoking in low socio-economic communities and families and that the impact will hit them hardest. We need to be as supportive as possible in recognising that smoking is an addiction. Almost all the smokers I know wish they did not smoke and that they could stop. We need to be aware that the decision we make tonight will have a significant impact but that there is a lot of support available for people. This change will help not only personal health but the health of whanau and communities the health of our nation and society and the health of our future. 
I am particularly supportive of this bill because I have spent a good deal of my life trying to persuade friends and whanau to stop smoking. I have spent a good deal of my life telling women whom I consider otherwise intelligent to stop smoking. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Name them. 
HEKIA PARATA 
: Mr Hughes suggests I name them but I have so many friends and such a big whanau and they are all so intelligent that it would take us well into the extraordinary urgency and we might find that unnecessary. 
I am really pleased that this bill is another nail in the coffin of tobacco smoking in our society and I wholeheartedly support it. I have sisters and brothers who still smoke. I hope they are watching this and I hope they are committing to stopping smoking but more important I have nieces and nephews who have started smoking. I want them now to consider how important it is for them to stop smoking and recognise that it is not cool and does not look glamorous. 
The Hon Ruth Dyson recalled an earlier day when smoking was portrayed as being sexy and glamorous and one need only watch the series  
Mad Men 
—the title is particularly apt—to see that that was the case. The series harks back to an earlier time when smoking was seen as something people did if they were really cool—and it was mad and we need to stop it. We need to be able to help young people to stop before they start. We need them to recognise that they cannot afford it because it is beyond their financial means and because in terms of their long-term health it is beyond their means. 
As Minister Turia indicated earlier we have to be concerned about our whare tamariki our ability and capacity to give birth to future healthy generations. Tobacco kills that opportunity and it creates a very poor start for children who are carried in the womb of a mother who continues to smoke. We need to be supportive of every measure that will help people who are addicted to this terrible scourge to give up and we know that Quitline and many other agencies are available to help them do so. 
Tonight we have had many speakers talk about the costs about the opportunities and about what this bill provides in a further step along the path of creating a healthy New Zealand. I would like to end as every other speaker has begun. First of all I pay tribute to Associate Minister of Health Tariana Turia who has fought this fight when it was very unpopular as well as tonight when we are warmed by the popularity of the support. I commend her for recognising that in many ways the least of it is the fiscal cost issue and that mostly it is about the health of our communities about the health of our whanau and about the health of our babies—those who have been born and those who are yet to be born. So Minister nga mihi nui ki a koe e waha nei i tenei kaupapa [ 
huge acknowledgments to you who are responsible for this policy 
]. 
To the Maori Affairs Committee to my tungane—well 
 
 he tungane katoa kei runga i tera komiti [ 
they are all brothers on that committee 
]— but I commend Tau Henare who every day struggles—[ 
Interruption 
] Simon Bridges is asking me to remember that there are others on the select committee. First of all I commend Tau Henare who every day struggles with this particular fight. He is winning the fight because he recognises that it is important to stop smoking and to be the role model he needs to be to his children to his mokopuna and to his community. 
I commend my tungane Hone Harawira who brought the tobacco inquiry to the Maori Affairs Committee who pummelled them into agreeing to have this kaupapa and who has gone around Aotearoa New Zealand carrying the flag on many kaupapa but on this one in particular ki a koe Hone nga mihi nui ki a koe [ 
to you Hone a huge acknowledgment to you 
]. 
To the rest of the boys on the Maori Affairs Committee— 
Hone Harawira 
: Name them. 
HEKIA PARATA 
:—Quinn Davis Bridges—to my tuakana Parekura Horomia and to all of them e waha nei i tenei kaupapa tena koutou tena koutou katoa [ 
who are responsible for this policy greetings to you all 
]. 
I pay tribute to the National-led Government which has had the confidence the strength and the courage to support this issue alongside the Maori Party. I pay tribute to us and to this Parliament. To the members of this House who have shared their views tonight and who will give their vote to this bill I say that I thank them all very much. We can look forward to a stronger and healthier future for all New Zealanders. I proudly commend this bill to the House. Tena tatou katoa. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. 
Ayes 118 
New Zealand National 58; New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 1 (Boscawen); Maori Party 5; Progressive 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 4 
ACT New Zealand 4 (Douglas Garrett Hide Roy H). 
Bill read a second time. 
Third Reading 
Hon TARIANA TURIA (Associate Minister of Health) 
: 
 I move  
That the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the motion be agreed to. 
Ayes 118 
New Zealand National 58; New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 1 (Boscawen); Maori Party 5; Progressive 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 4 
ACT New Zealand 4 (Douglas Garrett Hide Roy H). 
Bill read a third time.