Fox Marama: Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is subject to correctionFox Marama: Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 26 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11424. Text is subject to correction.]MARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. Ā tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I ngā pō rā i te māuiui kaha nei tēnei nā koinei te take kua whango kaha rawa nei (katia ō koutou waha) ā hoi anō rā kai te tū ake au ki te tuku whakaaro e pā ana ki tēnei nā te excise tax.[Acknowledgments to you the House. I have been quite ill these past nights and this is the reason why I am really hoarse (shut your mouths) but despite that I rise to express an opinion on this excise tax.]I am proud to support this bill. We know we need to do things to reduce the number of people in this country who are dying from tobacco-related illnesses. I can point to at least five members of my immediate family who have lost their lives early to smoking-related illnesses. It is not something we ever want to see. We do not want to leave children without parents. We do not want to leave grandchildren without grandparents. Smoking-related illnesses are killing our people in hugely disproportionate numbers compared with non-Māori so of course we are going to support this.It is something that we have championed as the Māori Party—to reach the 2025 goal of a smoke-free Aotearoa. But does it go far enough? Many would say it absolutely does not. In fact I was lambasted last night—is that the word? I am not even sure—on Twitter because this seems like a tax on the poor. Again the people who are smoking come largely from one socio-economic area of our society and they seem to be ingrained in poverty so people are saying that this is a tax again on the poor. Well you know what? If it is going to save lives and keep families together then I do not have an issue with that as long as we put in place a number of other things to ensure that we support them.When I ask the members of my community—and wherever I go on hui Māori and I go outside and ask why are you guys still smoking?—they say one thing: “It is stress.” If I ask “why are you going back to smoking—you gave up years ago?” they say the same thing: “It is stress.” If we are not doing anything to support people while they go through giving up cigarette smoking through the cessation programmes or in a holistic way to address the underlying issues of why they smoke in the first place then we are not going to achieve our goal. We need to put in a suite of supports so that these people can have a better outlook on life—not just because they give up smoking but because they alleviate the underlying causes.What else would we do? This is just one measure. We would like to see plain packaging and we are waiting for the legislation to come. When is that going to happen? We would like to see smoke-free cars for children. Lots of people say: “Oh my goodness now you are going to fine mothers and fathers who already don’t have enough money?”. Well actually if you are locked in a car with no choice and no way to get out from somebody else’s smoking then you are sucking in somebody else’s blinking poisonous air that they are emitting into the car. Actually a child has no choice in that situation so we would like to see that initiative come into place. We would like to see support for voluntary smoke-free communities—that would be a good thing.We had a whole lot of people last night on Twitter saying: “Marama why are you giving in to these statistics rolled out by Pākehā?”. And I was thinking: “Seriously? Does it actually matter who brought the statistics up?”. Well apparently in this country it does.Here is the thing: I have a community group from Wainuiōmata coming to see me called the Hashtags—young Māori at high school—who are saying: “We do not want this in our future. We would like to support our community to become a smoke-free community. We would like to have smoke-free cars. We want every school in our little community to commit and all the parents to commit to being smoke-free. We want to get rid of those shops that are selling single cigarettes illegally. We want to get rid of the sale of tobacco in our entire community.” Those are young Māori rangatahi. How do you turn round to them and say: “No. Please smoke some more.” That is just ridiculous and so we need to support them.Who else comes to us? The Northland community who brought its petition for smoke-free cars for children does. Is that a Pākehā community that dreamt up this “white man’s magic”—these statistics? Of course it is not. That is a ridiculous statement.David Seymour: To be fair they invented Twitter.MARAMA FOX: Well actually to be fair they invented Twitter. But in Northland this Māori community got a petition together that involved just about their entire town—5000 people.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am just going to interrupt the member. She started the debate quite well because she was referring to the bill and what is in it. There is an opportunity for making passing reference to alternatives to the bill and as much as I like her reference to the rangatahi of my community the debate cannot be based around the alternatives.MARAMA FOX: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I will bring it back to the excise tax. If we cannot talk about all the alternatives we would like to see here is a start—here is a start. [Interruption] I am pretty sure that there were a few alternatives being voiced over there on the Labour benches but we will let that go.We come back to the excise tax because the No. 1 incentive for giving up cigarette smoking apparently is the cost at point of sale—and thank you very much to the lovely Mr Seymour for the water. Excise tax is a start. We would have liked to see it higher. In fact we were lobbied to take it to 40 percent because it is like the frog in the pot—when you put it up $1 a year $1 a year $1 a year everyone is going “I can do one more dollar one more dollar.” But if you automatically put up 40 percent and have to jump $10 people start to think. By 2030 the cost will go to approximately $30 for a pack of 20 cigarettes. If that is going to be what it takes to make people think again before they put a stick of poison between their lips and potentially lessen their lifetime with their own children their own family and their own grandchildren then we are happy to do it. So despite all the alternatives we would like I commend this bill to the House.