Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai tēnā koe tēnā koutou o te Whare. I'd like to join with other parties so far in their contributions in stating that the Greens of course will be supporting this piece of legislation today.As others have outlined this Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill amends the Customs and Excise Act 2018 and the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table—or for those who are well-initiated the EEDT—to ensure that the correct excise and excise-equivalent duty is applied to certain tobacco goods and reduce duty evasion as was just well-outlined by my colleague Dr Shane Reti. It is very much the case that this is primarily for water-pipe tobacco or for those who may know it as hookah shisha molasses tobacco and also fruit or flavoured tobacco.It obviously makes sense to simplify this system as others have well outlined to ensure that some are not avoiding taxes that are levied on others by exploiting a loophole. Just to really drive this home I want to thank the Minister's officials for getting back to me on some of the concerns and considerations that the Greens had here—always making sure that we are trying to put in place the best form of harm reduction measures that don't err too far towards prohibition and in turn have those perverse consequences of an extreme underground black market.So to that effect I understand that some importers have been basing their import entry on tobacco content of between 2 and 5 percent and one at 0.4 percent. However it is the case that rates that are this low are simply not credible but due to the unavailability of testing facilities and some of the complexity around it—which Dr Shane Reti just outlined—Customs are unable to meet the evidentiary threshold for seizure and for prosecution.I understand that Customs has also been trying to work alongside these importers and has contacted some of the overseas manufacturers to enable the true tobacco content to be identified. However as Customs has found when overseas manufacturers are refusing to cooperate there is in fact little that Customs can do because of course they fall outside of Aotearoa New Zealand's legal jurisdiction.All in all this creates an unfair situation or an uneven playing field which impacts negatively on those who are playing by the rules and those who are not able to exploit this loophole. In turn Customs has decided advised the Minister and we've ended up with this legislation that assessing on around the 15 percent average basis is a fair standardised percentage broadly in line with the actual tobacco content that most of this type of product is likely to contain.I asked the Minister's officials about what this would actually look like in practice we're not often when we're debating in this House talking about what that looks like for the people on the street. So for those who may find themselves for whatever reason tuned in to Parliament TV on this Friday listening to these budgetary debates I can tell you that a typical retail price in New Zealand for a 50 gram pack of flavoured tobacco is currently around $25. With the changes to the way that excise and excise-equivalent duty is charged on these types of tobacco products it's estimated that that price could increase by $3 to around $28 including GST.On the point around flavoured tobacco we understand that it is of course a niche product in Aotearoa. There were only 15 importers of this product operating here in 2021. All importers will need to pay that new rate. It's not a greater rate because of course it assumes a tobacco content of 15 percent which as I just outlined before Customs believes is a fair averaging out based on the limited data that is available internationally.Just in closing in my contributions particularly alluding to the concerns and considerations that the Greens have just a brief comment on the notion of sin taxes for those who are interested in harm reduction and prohibition and what it looks like to regulate substances in such a way that we actually do go about achieving the things that we purport to want to achieve.Sin taxes for those who are uninitiated are the kinds of taxes that we as the State or as a Parliament levy on the kinds of social harms that we want to see less of. This is in practice a kind of nudge economics whereby we are trying to encourage people to do less of harmful things and hopefully to be moved into doing more of better things.However it's really important to note again that when you really look into sin taxes there is a point at which these sin taxes progress beyond the point of efficacy. That is that they err in to being something incredibly regressive but also producing a substantial black market—actually again on the regulatory spectrum kind of potentially more towards the end of prohibition in practice. This of course drives the black market model.I'd note that in the broader Budget the Government has put aside millions of dollars for tackling the underground black market that is currently starting to get a grip in Aotearoa. To that effect I just think it's really important that we as a House when reflecting on the efficacy of the likes of not only the regulatory models for the kinds of social harms that exist out there particularly in substances which we can all approach with evidence if we want to but also when we're talking about the likes of these sin taxes that we try and get it right.As far as I'm concerned as far as the Greens are concerned there is a need to continue to look into the evidence particularly as the Government considers per the Cabinet papers proactively released around getting to Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 that we of course are paying heed to what the most evidentially based harm reduction model would look like.So the Greens support this bill because it closes that tax loophole which creates an unfair market frankly but we also pay heed to the fact that we have to continue to have an evidence-based policy when it comes to drug harm reduction. Kia ora.