Peters Winston: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumePeters Winston: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 01 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11553. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]6.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to the Prime Minister: Does he have confidence in the Associate Minister of Health the Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga; if so why?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): It is “Iiga” not “Liga” but anyway yes because he has worked hard to improve health outcomes for New Zealanders.Rt Hon Winston Peters: How can he have confidence in the Associate Minister of Health who in this House claimed yesterday that the intangible cost of smoking is some $11 billion or 61 percent of the health budget?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The point the Minister was making yesterday is that the cost of smoking on society is enormous. But all of that is outweighed by the cost on the individual and by the end of this question time one further New Zealander will have died of a smoking-related illness. Personally I think the Government should stand up and try to protect those New Zealanders.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Supplementary question. Well if—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have not called you. I am just waiting for a bit of silence. Supplementary question the Rt Hon Winston Peters.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Well if that is true Prime Minister and smoking is as bad as he and the Associate Minister of Health said yesterday then why does he not get some guts and ban it?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I think history has shown that for very addictive substances banning is an extremely difficult thing to do. In fact most of the addiction services will tell you that ultimately for someone to stop doing something they themselves have to want to do it. So yes of course the Government is doing the right thing I think in terms of for instance raising prices and we know that that has the biggest single effect. There is about a 4 percent to 5 percent reduction per year for every 10 percent increase in price. In the end 5000 New Zealanders die every year from smoking-related illnesses and maybe that member should get some guts and try to help those people.Rt Hon Winston Peters: How can he have confidence in the Minister if that Minister’s intention is on the one hand to reduce the harm from cigarettes targeting $1.8 billion in taxes on smokers; and if on the other hand he is guesstimating total Crown revenue in 2020 as being $2 billion from these taxes but he cannot guesstimate the number of people who are going to give up smoking?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The evidence we have over the last 5 years of price increases in smoking is that it has reduced by about 4 percent to 5 percent a year so it is about a 25 percent reduction. We know that the biggest impact that it has is on young people. We know from our data that disproportionately larger groups of Māori and Pacific people smoke particularly Māori people and in our view by taking all of the steps that we are we are trying desperately hard to encourage people to stop so that they can live a longer life. I saw my mother-in-law die at a very very young age from smoking. She was 53. She did not get to see our kids growing up. Personally I know that when she was 53 and on her deathbed she would have given everything to have made an earlier decision not to smoke. I think there are a lot of New Zealanders in that category.Rt Hon Winston Peters: If that is the case why will the Government not forgo billions in taxes into its coffers—the smoking taxes—and get some guts and ban it?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: As I said earlier bans are a nice idea but history has shown that bans do not work terribly well. The Government is taking steps where it can but in the end ultimately for people to give up smoking—like any addiction—people have to want to do that.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I seek leave to table a library analysis of the massive billions in smoking taxes—an analysis of page 104 of this Budget document.Mr SPEAKER: Order! No. The Budget document has been tabled. Are you saying—Rt Hon Winston Peters: No no it is a library document I am tabling.Mr SPEAKER: Explain the library document. If it is just—Rt Hon Winston Peters: It is a library document an analysis into Crown revenues and the 80 percent tax on a packet of cigarettes—its analysis of that Budget document. It is a library document that I want to table.Mr SPEAKER: I will put the leave. Members can decipher whether they want the information or not. Leave is sought to table a library document. I presume it is the Parliamentary Library. Is there any objection to it being tabled? There is objection.