Reti ShaneDr SHANE RETI (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. I certainly enjoyed the virtue signalling from that member the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall—Now let's get pragmatic. Now let's talk about what can be deployed." How interesting it is that what she'll actually find out is that of the three operative actions in the bill we're actually supporting them all—just changing the timing. So it's kind of ironic to say that we're not in favour of what's being put on the table here. It's just the timing and what's actually going to work—amongst other things. Let's remember National supports nicotine reduction. We support these smoke-free goals—we created them for goodness' sake!Before we get to the crux of this bill here's some context because this is a second reading and we should reflect back on what happened in select committee. The Health Committee received 1965 written submissions—1194 of them the majority were from small business and community retailers. There were 84 oral submissions. The select committee went to Wellington and to Auckland to hear them. I want to thank everyone who submitted. But here for the first time in the Health Committee's hands we see the heavy hand of the health reforms centralising everything to Wellington. Because I ask you where are the local public health unit submissions? Go back and look over previous vaping and smoking legislation and look at the submissions f rom the public health units those local units that represent the view and the experience of the small communities. In fact it's kind of ironic to hear the member before me talk about the Northland example considering they weren't allowed to submit. Why weren't they allowed to submit? Because now under these health reforms all advocacy for legislation of this type has to go through Health New Zealand. Oh and while we're talking about it look back at the second-hand smoking in cars. Where did that come from? Well that actually came from Northland school children through the Northland Cancer Society and through the Northland public health unit. There's no voice for them here in this bill because under these health reforms advocacy on bills like this now all has to go through Health New Zealand. So what did they end up doing? What did the public health unit advocate and—at what was previously the Northland District Health Board—end up doing? Putting the bill in her personal name—how disgraceful is that? Representing the community and to avoid the sanitisation if you like from Health New Zealand to this bill she had to put it forward in her personal name. Here is the heavy hand of the health reforms and centralisation showing itself to the Health Committee. Those voices are now lost. National will not be supporting this bill as we have concerns that of the three initiatives many are untried and some of them are indeed in our view just virtue signalling. We are also very concerned that small community retailers are the sacrifice for this virtue signalling. Let's break it down then and look at the three smoke-free initiatives. The smoke-free generation: effectively untried and not widely deployed. Denicotinisation: now this we do support; it is modelled and it is modelled on implementing the greatest impact. Studies have shown up to 70 percent product acceptance and at 20 weeks 50 percent reduction in cigarettes per day. I think this is something—certainly as the modelling shows—that could do the heavy lifting towards the objectives that we're talking about. I'll come back to this and I am aware that there have been differences in opinion around the effects or the benefits particularly of denicotinisation and I have weighed them up in this submission and in the proposals that we will make. Retail reduction: this is where the rubber really hits the tarmac because this is who pays the price for this virtue signalling. Retailers small businesses and community dairies pay the price for Labour's virtue signalling. The price they pay is a reduction from 6000 to 600 retailers. Where did that number come from this magic 600? Well it's clearly 10 percent. What is the science behind the 10 percent if anyone can tell me? No one could bring it to select committee. How was that 10 percent selected? They just put a finger in the air and took a guess. And who pays for that guess? It's the small community retailers. There was no science—there is no science—around that reduction number. And at a time when small retailers are hurting—desperately hurting—and marching in the streets because they're being ram-raided and because they have burglaries this Government puts the knife in this Government says "We will now reduce your ability to earn a livelihood; we will cut your ability to retail cigarettes and smoking products from 6000 retailers down to 600." They're already on their knees and now this Government pushes them down on to their face with very little thought for their own ethereal virtue-signalling that this is a good thing to do. In fact if we want to look at what the Minister actually said about this she said when she spoke to the Health Committee on 28 September that compared to denicotinisation retail reduction "has much uncertainty about it."—much uncertainty. And yet this Government will proceed with retail reduction first off in 2024 on numbers that cannot be scientifically evidenced. In fact in that presentation to the Health Committee the Minister alluded that retail reduction was simply easier to do and that's why it was being implemented first. Well good luck telling retailers who will lose their livelihood that they're kicking off first because it was easier to do. That is not a rational scientific argument at all.During the select committee stage we raised the question of snus and why that wasn't being considered because we needed to explain to New Zealanders that we'd thought of all the tools in the tool box. And if you look at the Scandinavian experience it has been a significant contributor. We were told no it's currently illegal. Well that's an observation not persuasive reasoning. The unanswered question is: why was this apparently effective treatment not considered further? It's been determined it's illegal. We can likewise determine it is not illegal. We think this should have been considered further and is a missed opportunity. The black market received much discussion through the select committee with a range of views. I think everyone would agree that there will be from all of these three initiatives some impact on the black market on the illegal market for cigarettes. And that range varied significantly but I think everyone does agree that there will be an impact on that. It's also been raised with me that we should be paying attention to the recently changing volumes of loose tobacco and what that might say about the impact of this bill and the impact of the illegal market. As we said when the Minister challenged us to be a part of this we're not actually going to oppose at this point the three operative initiatives in this bill—which are retail reduction which are denicotinisation and the smoke-free generation—but we do disagree with the timing of them. We disagree significantly with the timing of them and that's why we're going to vote against this because they're going to sacrifice retailers first of all when there is much uncertainty much unknown. The first out of the breach are the retailers. They're the ones who are going to pay the price for this virtue signalling. So we have an alternative plan one that we actually put to the Minister in a bipartisan approach. We said "Minister would you entertain"—go back and look at the transcript—"that maybe we denicotinise first." And she said "Oh the member wants to go hard and fast." I'm happy to be ambitious for this. I'm happy to go hard and fast. And speaking with manufacturers I do believe that we can denicotinise first and just maybe we reach the goal just with that. The modelling suggests 85 percent of the heavy lifting will be done with denicotinisation. So why are we throwing retailers under the bus first off? Maybe what we should actually be doing is doing that first deploying it and then watching and seeing if it has the effect that we're expecting it would and if it actually meets the modelling. Why don't we do that? And then if you recall to select committee retailers said "If this was going to happen we would need two years to actually do a transition period where we could maybe move to new business models."—some of the things that the member has talked about. Well why don't we give them that opportunity? Why don't we denicotinise and over that two-year period give retailers the chance to change their business model? And at the same time let's see if denicotinisation has done everything that was promised. This is the suggestion and this is why we're opposing this at this reading because we put this to the Minister and she wasn't interested. We were prepared to collaborate with a bipartisan approach. In fact we were prepared to say that if denicotinisation fails after an observation period then maybe we would have to look at retail reduction and then maybe the smoke-free generation even though the modelling shows they do a very small part. Again all the heavy lifting is done with denicotinisation. We proposed this and the Minister wasn't interested so we brought collaboration to the table.The other thing that I want to talk about is vaping. Vaping is tightened up in this bill and this is a good thing recognising that vaping is having the hoped-for impact on adult smokers particularly with recently encouraging figures. I think that's a good thing. We do however recognise the concern that parents schools and communities are expressing around underage vaping and the helplessness that they feel. Vaping in young people has tripled and while some have said "Don't worry; there's minimal harm but look at the benefit it is doing for their parents." I think the National Party shares the concerns of parents and communities and we'll propose Supplementary Order Papers that require the proximity of other specialist vape retailers to be taken into account when new licences are issued and increased monitoring and compliance of underage use and access. National supports nicotine reduction. We have an alternative plan that will not savage cannibalise and run retailers into the ground. We put it to the Minister. We were prepared to collaborate. She wasn't interested. We have a plan."