King AnnetteParts 1 and 2 schedule and clauses 1 and 2Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): Good morning Mr Chairman. I can see that there is a lot of interest in the passage of this bill. Can I say that this is a red-letter day and that we are now at the Committee stage of this very important bill a bill that will bring in plain packaging on tobacco products. It is something that Labour called for in 2011. The Government in 2013 decided that there would be a new regulatory scheme to standardise tobacco products and packaging and here we are in 2016 about to go through the Committee stage of this bill. The reason why we are keen to see it passed is that tobacco is a unique product. It is unique in that it kills a large percentage of those who consume it. About 5000 people die each year from smoking and second-hand smoke exposure. That is 13 people a day dying from a product that has as I said unique qualities to it which is why we wanted to see yet another tool to tighten the screws on tobacco consumption and tobacco prevalence in New Zealand. There has been a lot of work done over many years to tighten those screws and to reduce the percentage of New Zealanders smoking and I can recall the very first piece of legislation which was legislation of the Rt Hon Helen Clark when she was Minister of Health. It was controversial at the time because she brought in legislation to ban smoking in the workplace and many workers who had gone to work and puffed up large were very angry at the thought that they could no longer do that. When we think back to the late 1980s when that bill came in and our attitudes today you can see how much has changed. Over the years there have been other measures that have been put in place such as getting smoking out of bars and restaurants and increasing excise tax. I would like to commend the work that was done by the Hon Tariana Turia who did a lot of work when she was with Labour and then when she was part of this Government around tobacco consumption and she was very keen on the annual increase on the excise duty which we support. So we have seen a reduction but as one of the signatories to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and one of the first to ratify that UN convention we were very pleased to put in place the measures that it recommends in that framework and one of them is plain packaging. So now we are putting in place yet one more measure. The plain packaging legislation—and this part of the bill is the main part of the bill. It is also important around the name of this bill and at the Health Committee we decided that the name was not appropriate. I recall Sir Geoffrey Palmer saying that when you name a bill—and I think this was when he was chair of the Law Commission—it ought to reflect what the bill is about so having names that confuse the public is not appropriate. Well in the original name of this bill as people will know it was plain packaging. Of course there is nothing plain about the packaging that is going to be put on the standard cigarette packets in New Zealand. They are far from plain—they are graphic. In fact they show some horrific examples of what can happen if you smoke. We have seen some of the examples of what these would be and the Minister Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga when he replies may like to share with us some of what the New Zealand examples would be. I know that there has been a call for us to have some unique graphic pictures on our packaging that are of a New Zealand flavour. We know what the Australians did and other countries but there has been a call for us to have some unique graphics of our own that relate to New Zealand. So the Minister may like to address that because we have not seen what those—Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: They haven't been finalised yet.Hon ANNETTE KING: Oh well the Minister said they have not been finalised. I am sure as a responsible Minister he would like to share them with the House when they are finalised and maybe he would even like an input from the very good Health Committee which would be very happy Minister to look at them when you have finalised them to see whether we think that they do have a particular New Zealand flavour. In fact we have recommended a change to the bill—and I know that the Minister is going to accept it—which is that we should change it from the Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill" to the "Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Standardised Packaging) Amendment Bill". That is what we have had suggested from the select committee. It is standardised packaging. It is not plain packaging for the very reason that I have set out. I just wanted to say that in the select committee when we were putting up some amendments—we put up three main amendments to the bill Minister and I think you have probably accepted them all. They are the "(Tobacco Standardised Packaging)" the offence for the sale of certain tobacco products in small quantities and the offence for the sale of certain herbal smoking products in small quantities—so restrictions and offences. Those were amendments that we put up and I am pretty sure that they are going to be supported. But I wanted to say that at the select committee we worked in a very collegial way over those amendments and we were also not moved Minister by the tobacco industry's protests about plain packaging. I do know that there are a couple of members opposite who are former tobacco lobbyists who were very keen on tobacco. I do not know whether they have changed their minds but of course Chris Bishop a former Philip Morris spokesperson said there are not any studies to suggest—Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: Get out of the gutter.Hon ANNETTE KING: No no this is important Sam. He said this—and it is on the record so we should share it—"There aren't any studies to suggest that plain packaging will work at stopping people from taking up smoking or helping them to quit". There is not one study to suggest that he said. The Minister does not agree with it otherwise he would not be backing this bill and I believe that the National Government does not believe it. I certainly know that a doctor like Dr Shane Reti would not agree with that. So I think that maybe young Chris Bishop learnt a thing or two when he has got in here because we do have research cited in the New Zealand Medical Journal that states that New Zealand studies show that "Plain packs that feature large graphic health warnings are significantly more likely to promote cessation among young adult smokers than fully or partially branded packs." So I think that there is evidence that it will work.It is not the panacea—let us get that straight. It is just one more measure. So it is not going to suddenly stop everybody smoking but Minister you know and this Committee knows that it is yet another tool to use to help discourage people from smoking. We do support this bill and we do support its speedy passage. So getting this Committee stage finished and having the third reading and Royal assent for this bill is very important to those of us who care about the health of New Zealanders. Minister I am pleased that you are actually here with this bill. I do have questions that I asked you over many months about what was happening and you were particularly cagey for a long time but suddenly the bill is here and we are passing it. I cannot say whether it was you who was holding it up but I do believe that we did lack the courage in New Zealand to follow the Australians who put this in place several years ago. They said to the tobacco companies: "Go to hell. We are sovereign. We make our own public health policy. We are not going to be told by any tobacco company what we ought to do." They put the legislation in place they took the hit of being taken to court and we sat back and said: "Oh we better wait and see what Australia does. It might be a problem." I wish that we as a country that has been a leader in tobacco control had been the country that had had the courage to do it—that we had stood up and said that we firmly believed in reducing the consumption of tobacco in New Zealand for the health of New Zealanders and to prevent some of those 5000 deaths a year—but we did not. We were very slow followers. Minister I am not saying that is your fault. You are a person who I am sure believes that we need to take this measure or otherwise you would not be taking this bill through the House. But perhaps you might like to reflect on why it took us so long and why we did not have the courage to take this bill—well certainly I had the courage and others had courage. But we did not have the courage of the Government to do this."