Shirley Ken: Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill — Referral to Health Committee Procedure In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Shirley Ken: Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill — Referral to Health Committee Procedure In Committee 
[Sitting date: 15 October 2003. Volume:612;Page:9231. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 This bill is obnoxious. It is all about nanny State going too far. I am a non-smoker and I always have been a non-smoker. In fact everyone in the ACT caucus is a non-smoker. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Fools! 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: However we oppose this legislation. I know that Mr Woolerton is the heaviest smoker in the Parliament. 
Peter Brown 
: He’s given up. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: I thought that he had put on weight recently. Be that as it may this bill goes too far. The point has been made about the tobacco lobby. We know that internationally it has been a very heavy lobby. I put it to members that no one in this House has experienced that more first-hand than myself. I used to represent 100 percent of New Zealand tobacco growers as the MP for Tasman when I first came into this Parliament in 1984. There were several hundred tobacco growers in the Motueka district and it was a very thriving industry with two processing factories. One of the first functions I went to as a newly elected member was the Tobacco Growers Federation annual conference sponsored by Philip Morris and Rothmans and all the big international heavyweights were there. 
I got up as an eager young new member and gave a speech and I made a prediction. I said that their industry was heading for the rocks for two reasons: the tariff protection would come off and the health issue would be significant—though no one believed it in those days. I was literally invited to leave the meeting. I will never forget that experience. 
But those two issues did come to pass and we have come a long way since that time. I do believe that people should be educated against the health risks and problems but that issue aside this bill is no more than the nanny State going too far and seeking absolute control of people’s lives and intruding into their basic freedoms. Although I myself do not smoke I would defend Mr Woolerton’s right to smoke. I would defend his right to smoke even though he says he has given up. Has Mr Peters has given up also? 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: That’s my business. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: Mr Peters has not given up by the sound of it but perhaps one day he will give it up also. But he is quite right: it is his business and I respect it as his business. Down in Courtenay Place there are many places where people can continue to smoke. I am told that people can go down to Courtenay Place in the wee small hours—when I am tucked up in bed—where they can smoke drink their whisky and have a good time. I defend their right to do that. So we have established that; that is very good. 
However what does concern me is the taint and ooze of corruption emanating from this Government. It is nauseating. When I look at what my colleague Rodney Hide revealed in recent weeks it is appalling. 
David Benson-Pope 
: Where is Rodney tonight? Is he back in Fiji? 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: Here is Mr Benson-Pope from Dunedin. 
Peter Brown 
: The fountain of all knowledge. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: The fountain of all knowledge! He is the joke of the Parliament. He cannot help himself; he has to start interjecting. For Mr Benson-Pope’s benefit this is appalling corruption of public officials. And for the Government of the day it is occurring on its watch. It is not as if it is a sole incident. We saw with the Action on Smoking and Health contracts some $2114500 of public moneys being given by the Government through agencies of the Government to lobby groups to lobby for a particular outcome on what is meant to be a member’s bill but is looking more and more like a Government bill with each day. That is appalling. 
I say to the member in the chair Steve Chadwick who is the sponsor of this bill that she should be ashamed of herself. However I would remind the Committee of the shop trading hours legislation. The funniest speech I have ever heard in this Parliament came from Steve Chadwick on that bill. She spent the first half of her speech saying why Easter shopping was appalling and should not be permitted but should be totally banned and then she said that there should be an exemption for Rotorua.