Dunne Peter: Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill — Referral to Health Committee Procedure In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dunne Peter: Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill — Referral to Health Committee Procedure In Committee 
[Sitting date: 15 October 2003. Volume:612;Page:9211. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 Part 2 which is rather confusing in its drafting goes to the heart of many of the issues that the bill seeks to address. It deals with the insertion of a new Part 1 “Smoke-free workplaces and public areas”. That is the set of sections in what would theoretically be clause 3 but it actually inserts new sections 4 5 5A 6 6A 7A and so on into the principal Act; sections that will be at the core of this legislation. 
One of the issues that drives this—and I want to relate to this right now because I will come back later if I may in the debate on this matter—is the issue of air quality. As members will be aware I have put Supplementary Order Paper 117 before the Committee which has a number of proposed amendments to the bill to provide for an air quality standard to be applied rather than the arbitrary ban that is currently proposed in this measure. One of the pieces of evidence that I cite in respect of the validity of air quality measures is the report by Gavin Fisher and Lou Reddish of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research regarding air quality inside the Bream Bay Club at Ruakaka. This report has been dismissed as irrelevant technically deficient and various other phrases by both the Health Committee and I think it is called the National Health Advisory Committee or some other equally grandiloquent title. 
I note the comments by Mr Fisher in this morning’s  
Dominion Post 
 that the dismissal of his evidence was grossly ill-informed that he had never been invited to present any opinion in support of his view to either the select committee or the officials who had made the recommendations and that he stood by the evidence he gave. In fact he made the very telling point I thought that if one wants to have some view as to the level of acceptability of air one has to have an air quality standard to start with. One cannot in isolation determine what is acceptable and what is not acceptable if there is no standard by which to measure it. If we read what the bill will achieve in having a total ban we will see that it says there will be no smoking in bars restaurants clubs etc. but it does not say ipso facto that the quality of air will be any better. It does not even draw that distinction because it simply takes one end of the stick without looking at the other. 
The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research report demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt that acceptable air quality can be achieved through a proper ventilation system. The amendments that I have proposed go to the heart of this by saying very clearly that the onus would be on bar owners and premise owners to determine whether they want to install the ventilation systems that would enable an air quality standard to be achieved and maintained. But the bill does not even give them that choice. It decides arbitrarily for them that nothing—forever—will be put in place that will give them the opportunity to test for themselves whether they can establish a decent air quality standard. 
I received some material this morning from the United States that shows there was a significant loss of jobs in New York immediately after the introduction of the ban there because premises simply closed down. The same happened in Manitoba and in other parts of the United States and North America where such measures have been applied. I find it ironic that on the one hand this bill is being touted as a measure that will improve workers’ safety and that on the other hand one of the immediate consequences of the implementation of measures of this type in other places has been worker unemployment. I would have thought that members of the Government in particular who have a professed and longstanding commitment to employment opportunities would find it somewhat concerning that people will lose their jobs as a result of this legislation.