Robertson Grant: Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Robertson Grant: Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 14 July 2011. Volume:674;Page:20126. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 I am pleased to follow on from the chair of the Health Committee Dr Paul Hutchison. I went on to the Health Committee part-way through its inquiry and I could feel that the committee was determined to make progress on the Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill. There were a lot of submissions to hear and it was important that all those voices were heard. Associate Minister of Health Tariana Turia in her speech today read out the names of a large number of the organisations that have advocated for this legislation over a long period with good evidence and research to back up their arguments. We heard from a large number of those people and the submissions were eloquent and often quite emotional. 
We also heard from the other side of the debate. As the speaker who has just resumed his seat said inventive things were put in front of us. There were claims that all manner of economic espionage was being undertaken. There were some outrageous statements as well about the lack of social concern perhaps of some retailers. 
I am very pleased to be able to speak in the third reading debate in support of this bill. This is one of those times in the House when every New Zealander who is watching or listening to this debate will understand exactly what we are trying to stop today. When we enter a corner dairy we see the wall the wall that sits behind the person who is operating that dairy the colourful wall the wall designed after years and years of work by the tobacco industry. It is designed for the sole purpose of making cigarettes attractive. It is designed in part to make cigarettes attractive to younger people who are more likely to respond. There are people sitting in offices in the United States of America and in other parts of the world working out how to make sure that those walls of colour behind the counters of local dairies all over New Zealand and all over the world are attractive to young people. But we in this House today are saying that we are not buying into that. As a country New Zealand is standing up and saying that we are not going to let our children and future generations be manipulated by those tobacco companies. We in this House today should all be proud that we are prepared to take that stand. Sometimes in this House we debate the arcane or things that people in the public arena may not fully understand. Today they will understand and they will see the difference within 2 years in New Zealand retail outlets. That is a very very good thing. 
I too join in congratulating all those who have worked on this issue. It is truly a cross-party approach. Minister Turia most definitely deserves the credit for the work she has done in bringing the current Government along to this position. I also acknowledge the role of the officials because I think they had a difficult task at times to interpret different aspects of the legislation. At the risk of naming names—which is always trouble because there are many—I mention Matthew Everett who provided some excellent advice. I think the role of the Parliamentary Counsel Office needs to be acknowledged too. Ross Carter provided the words and the tweaks to the words that managed to keep the meaning we wanted whilst still allowing it to remain within the rules of this House. 
At the risk of widening the breadth of the debate I note two or three things that were raised in submissions to this bill but that are perhaps not within its direct scope. They have been mentioned before. One of those is plain packaging. Again we can have no doubt that the reason the tobacco industry is so energised to take on the Australian Government is that the industry knows the impact of plain packaging on its sales. It knows the impact on its sales of getting rid of the wall of colour behind the counter at the dairy. That is why the industry is fighting so hard and that is why it is so important that we go down that path as well and that we continue to stand up for change. I know that Minister Turia and indeed Minister Ryall have made comments that plain packaging is inevitable. I think we need to start making moves towards that as soon as possible and many of the people who submitted to our committee also thought so. 
The same goes for vending machines. My colleague Iain Lees-Galloway is a modest chap and he did not mention in his own speech that he had a member’s bill to address that very thing. I think it is worth acknowledging that Iain showed leadership in bringing that before the House. We are delighted that the legislation is coming into law as a Government bill but I think the fact that Iain Lees-Galloway did that is worth noting. 
I also think that in this legislation there is the beginning of an issue that we will have to look at further. It is the question of sales over the internet. Nowadays most New Zealanders are buying products of all types over the internet. That is the way things are going and it will occur only more often. The internet as we know and as we have debated at some length in this House in recent times is an arena that is difficult to regulate. That is obviously true so further attention will need to be given in the future to the role of the internet and the supply of tobacco into New Zealand. For instance should we reach the laudable goal in 2025 of a smoke-free New Zealand sadly the rest of the world will not be smoke-free by that time I predict. So we will need to think about our relationship with other countries and indeed about the way in which the internet being a global phenomenon will facilitate tobacco being used in New Zealand. But these are challenges for another day. 
I will highlight two or three other matters from the bill that I think are important for those who are realising today that we are making this small but very significant step. One is the issue of covert sponsorship with its notion of exclusive supply rights. That was something the committee grappled with and we decided that it was important to have it addressed. Tobacco companies cannot now sponsor major events because of earlier legislation but they create deals about exclusive supply for events which can have the effect of sponsorship and the effect of the promotion of tobacco. It was good to be able to have clauses within this bill which we are passing today that will address the issue of covert sponsorship. 
The same applies to trade rebates and discounts. Again tobacco companies build relationships with retailers that are designed to facilitate the sale of their products. Those things can amount to a promotional activity and they need to be addressed. This bill has done that. 
Without wanting to break into the spirit of consensus around the House I say that the question of signage was one we debated. The committee discussed at some length the possibility that health warning signs can be somehow manipulated into being promotional signs. The fact that on a sign announcing restrictions on tobacco it can be possible for the picture of a packet of cigarettes to appear with perhaps the number 18 on it or a cross over it was something that concerned us. Iain Lees-Galloway put up an amendment in that regard in the Committee stage of this bill but it was not accepted on the grounds that it was unnecessary. I hope that is true. I hope it is true that we will not see the signs designed to alert people to the restrictions on the sale of tobacco being used in effect as signs to promote tobacco. There are examples internationally of where this has happened and it is something we would not want to see in New Zealand. I hope that we are not back here in a year or so having to correct that and that there is sufficient coverage in the bill in front of us. 
I believe that this legislation is very good. It is a small but significant step forward in the journey to ensure that we get rid of the scourge of smoking from New Zealand and that we take on a tobacco industry determined to knock out the small country or countries trying to address the issues the industry is promoting. This bill is very important. It will be good for the health and well-being of future generations of New Zealanders. I am proud to support it.