Dunne Peter: Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill — Procedure Referral to Health Committee Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Dunne Peter: Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill — Procedure Referral to Health Committee Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:610;Page:7930] 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 I want to take a brief call on the title to make the observation that the reason I have moved the amendments which we will deal with later is that I do not believe this bill is accurately titled. I do not believe that this bill will provide enhanced protection. 
The experience of the Smoke-free Environments Act the principal Act over the last 14 years has been one of abject failure. Figures provided by the Ministry of Health show that it has cost in the order of $50 million to implement yet in that time the rate of smoking amongst young people has increased. The Act has been a complete waste of time and waste of money but here we are proposing measures in this bill under the guise of providing enhanced protection that will prove to be not only similarly unworkable but will prove yet again that in this area the law is an ass. 
The reason I question whether this bill is accurately titled is its central premise which is that smoking will be banned in bars restaurants clubs and a variety of other places to provide greater protection for both the patrons and the workforce. I want to make it clear that I am not one who likes being in a smoky environment but I am equally not one who goes for symbolic feel-good legislation. I want to see legislation that will work—and that is the substance of the amendments I will be proposing later on. 
The bill as drafted will not work because it says that in the first instance this legislation will be enforced by the Ministry of Health. That ministry says that it will probably not have the capacity to do this so the matter eventually will be one for the police to look at. Here is the absurdity: the police are going to go on smoking raids around pubs and clubs in New Zealand? If Ms Kedgley’s crazy Supplementary Order Paper gets effect and if the police do manage to find a smoker in one of those premises then the smoker will not be the one prosecuted; it will be the owner of the premises. That provision is clearly absurd. It provides no enhanced protection for anybody. All it will be is a law that will be ignored. 
I am coming to the title. This bill previously had the words “(Enhanced Protection)” in its title and my argument is that the bill will not provide that protection. It is lunatic and unworkable and it will be ignored as an unenforceable ass. At that point this Parliament will have to ask itself a very serious question: how can it have passed a Smoke-free Environments Amendment Act—as it will be at that point—that does not enhance the protection of anybody that is simply ignored as unenforceable unrealistic and unworkable and that sees life carry on in the way that it did pretty much before its passage? 
In that respect I pick up the comments that Dr Scott made. It was part of the reason that I moved the motion at the commencement of this debate. There is a wider issue here relating to occupational safety and health. It would be entirely appropriate to see this matter dealt with under that broad rubric as various other matters have been and not become the subject of this specialist legislation which is essentially unworkable and not befitting its title. 
No one will receive enhanced protection under this legislation. Workers who are allegedly one of its main beneficiaries will not receive enhanced protection because the law will be ignored. Patrons who want to be in cleaner environments will not receive enhanced protection because the law will be ignored. The law will not be enforced because the police frankly have more pressing responsibilities and quite properly so. So this whole bill becomes a nonsense and coupled with the failure of the principal Act shows that we are not really serious about dealing with the issue. We are much more interested in feel-good solutions that appeal to the World Health Organization and its zealots but that have no positive impact on the life of New Zealanders. 
 So as we begin this debate I agree with the sentiment about enhanced protection. I agree with the right for people to be in clean and non-smoky environments but I simply make the point that this legislation is not the vehicle by which that will be achieved. This is therefore falsely named legislation. It ought to be called something along the lines of“Smoke-free Environments (More Feel-Good Politics) Amendment Bill” because that is what it is. If we were serious in our allegedly professed concern for the well-being of our citizens we would be implementing measures that worked not measures that are simply bumper sticker slogans that will be unenforceable make us a laughing stock and prove yet again that when this Parliament is let loose it makes the law an unenforceable ass. I thought that in the light of recent events we would have learnt better.