Wall LouisaLOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare tēnā koutou katoa. I want to just take us through a bit of history because we have been talking a lot about the origins of this piece of legislation. In 1989 the New Zealand Department of Health's Toxic Substances Board recommended that cigarettes be sold only in white packs with black text—so no colours and logos. So in fact we have been crediting Australia this whole time for leading the way but we actually had the idea. I want to acknowledge that Canada in the 1990s had a parliamentary committee that also looked at the issue of plain packaging or standardised packaging. For them it was part of a reasonable step in the overall strategy to reduce tobacco consumption. We are here today because as a country we have committed to Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 and so I want to commend the Minister for the bill. It is a bill that we have been waiting a long time to debate but this year we have debated two bills that I think have substantially impacted on not only smoking rates but ongoing smoking among young people. In fact from the research it is young people who will benefit the most from this plain packaging legislation. Clause 5 of the bill amends section 3A(1)(b) of the principal Act to read: to regulate and control the marketing advertising and promotion of tobacco products …". There is an explicit understanding that tobacco consumption is incredibly harmful and so this bill is intended to improve public health. Those of us who have spoken today are on the whole I believe advocates for public health because we know that there are some products that are killing us and this is one of those products. On average 5000 people who smoke die every year. We have got over 550000 smokers in this country. Five thousand people is a heck of a lot of people dying every year from a preventable practice I will call it. We also have 350 people die from second-hand smoking—so those who do not smoke who think this bill is irrelevant to them well actually it is—and we have 70 babies die every year from sudden unexpected death in infancy and that is associated with the environments that our children are growing up in. For Māori and Pacific the rates are a lot higher. Our prevalence rate in New Zealand is 20 percent; for Māori it is 34 percent and for Pacific it is 26 percent. The interesting thing to note is that currently the Australian prevalence rate is just over 16 percent but 3 years ago when it brought plain packaging in it was like ours—20 percent. So there is evidence that this piece of legislation will reduce smoking by 3 percent. I find the whole debate about the time frames for plain packaging really interesting and it is just because I have looked at other pieces of legislation. To New Zealand First I want to acknowledge your Supplementary Order Papers because in France and the UK from May this year they brought in standardised or plain packaging. But in terms of non-plain packages in France they have allowed until 1 January 2017 for the sale of non-plain packages.Barbara Stewart: That's a reasonable lead-in.LOUISA WALL: Yes—so that is a 9-month lead-in and in the UK they actually legislated for a year so they can still sell the non - plain packaged cigarettes up until May 2017. That is how other jurisdictions have dealt with this particular issue and I just thought it was my responsibility to also highlight that.Barbara Stewart: Thank you.LOUISA WALL: No problem. In terms of the evidence about the effectiveness—and there is a lot of evidence about the effectiveness. Cancer Australia particularly focuses on the decrease of youth uptake and I have just found another survey that reinforces that the decrease in uptake from young people was also relevant to Torres Strait and Aboriginal youth. There is generic application of this particular tool to decrease the uptake of smoking and the consumption of smoking by young people right across the board so we would anticipate that Māori Pacific Asian and other groups in society will benefit from this particular initiative. What the evidence basically said was that the plain packaging or standardised packaging actually makes the whole product less attractive and that is what we want. I think the whole point for the marketers and advertisers of tobacco is to make these amazing packs that people want to put on the table because they are proud to be associated with them. That is why this piece of legislation is so important. There were also negative perceptions and feeling about the pack and smoking it in a public place and so young people actually hid the pack. They did not want people to know that this was the pack that they were smoking and that decreased their consumption of tobacco around others. They actually chose to go without and so it decreased their consumption and it also increased the thoughts to give up. I think that is the part of the equation now that I want to highlight—and I will take the opportunity with the Minister—because all these initiatives are fantastic but what we have to make sure is that people who want to quit have the resources to do so. So I am hoping that there will be a corresponding increase in the availability of smoke-free or auahi kore resources so that those who want to give up are helped to give up. I know from my father's experience that those tools included going to a hypnotist. It also includes patches. Some people need counselling. Some people actually need to be giving up smoking in team events and there is a little initiative called Wero which has been incredibly successful. Rugby league actually piloted this challenge and actually it enabled families and communities to give up collectively because that is the other part of the deal. We want families to be smoke-free because we know that young people who grow up in families where two parents smoke are 40 percent more likely to smoke. So all of this package Minister will translate into us becoming smoke-free by 2025.I think what you have heard today from my colleague Kevin Hague actually is an opportunity for us to work collaboratively across the House. You know you have got a lot of supporters of this particular kaupapa and so we would welcome an opportunity to meet with you formally so that we are part of the solution—so that it does not matter who is in Government actually and that this kaupapa is taken into the future. I know that there are opportunities coming in terms of the e-cigarettes and you and your ministry have responded to some evidence about these different tools that help people to give up smoking. So I am very excited about this piece of legislation going through the House.I cannot not think and comment about the passion of the Hon Tariana Turia. This really was her legacy not only for the Parliament but for the people of Aotearoa and I know she did it because she realised that as a tool of colonisation smoking has actually been incredibly pervasive in the lives of Māori. So I want to acknowledge her. I want to acknowledge Hone Harawira when he was a member of the Māori Affairs Committee and Tau Henare who chaired that Māori Affairs Committee because they too were incredibly passionate and committed to addressing the negative consequences that tobacco continues to have on the lives of Māori. I am particularly pleased because this initiative as I have said before really is targeted at young people. But in addition to young people I do want to say that smokers generally have been turned off and one of the most important things is the graphic health warnings on these packs. People need to see the reality of what smoking can do because then they can take some responsibility and make an informed decision about whether they continue to smoke or not. But we also know that cigarettes are a drug and people need help. It is not just about the mind but when the body craves smoking then that is a different story. Some people are strong enough to go cold turkey but actually what we know is that people often have to try more than 10 times before they actually give up. So it is having the resilience again and again and again to give up which is why we need to provide them with as many tools as possible so that they actually can be auahi kore—smoke-free. If we do this for this generation actually we are doing it for future generations and so that is what I am most passionate about. I am passionate about this issue because in Manurewa I think we have got one of the highest rates of smoking—over 50 percent. But I am visiting one of my schools next week James Cook High School—"