Reti ShaneDr SHANE RETI (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. National supports smoking reduction and the smoke-free target of less than 5 percent smoking by 2025. The evidence in the Government documents is that by 2025 on current measures 20 percent of Māori will still be smokers and 8 percent of non-Māori will still be smokers so a failed target. National will be supporting this bill through to select committee but there are a lot of answers and analysis that will be required at select committee to persuade us that all of this will work and it's not just a vanity project that if it fails could irreparably damage dairy and small-business owners particularly. We need to be very careful that we don't treat a target and destroy communities on the way.There are three operating arms which I will address in order of effectiveness. The first is decreasing the number of retail premises by effectively an approvals process. Still to be determined in that approvals process is whether it is the number of retailers per area or the number of retailers per capita. I'd be interested to see the analysis of that in select committee. Dairy owners I'm sure will present to the select committee. Certainly meetings with local people that I've had said: Shane we understand the need for smoking reduction and we're supportive of that. All we need is the time to transition the business model. Just give us enough time to transition." I'd be very interested to hear their submissions which I'm sure they'll make. When we look at the modelled impact in the regulatory impact statement of retail outlet restrictions amongst the three options it is very modest to say the least. The second operating arm is the smoke-free generation; that is no sales of cigarettes if you're born after 1 January 2009. This received much media when announced in December last year but there is nothing new on this menu that hasn't been considered for decades. The fact that only a few have deployed this internationally should give us some caution. A great media sound bite but does it work? One jurisdiction that has deployed this is the town of Brookline in the state of Massachusetts Coolidge Corner on the green line. I was privileged to live there for about seven years. They've deployed recently July 2021 a similar policy set. The data on that is still to be forthcoming. The third operating arm is a lowering in the concentration of nicotine. And if we look at the modelling this does all of the heavy lifting and by itself almost gets us to the smoke-free target that we're looking for. Again this is no epiphany and has been contemplated by many jurisdictions over many years. There are however many issues that arise from this policy such as whether people simply smoke more of a lower dose nicotine to meet their current dose. This is important because it is the products of combustion that are harmful rather than the addictive nicotine component. A chief economist has recently quoted the American Economic Review 2006 showing that when tobacco excise increases smokers smoke more of the cheaper cigarettes. He also comments that some existing low nicotine cigarettes have not been at all popular with the general public and offers further caution to the proposal around the generally poor effects of what effectively he calls prohibition. Those are the three operating arms and as we go into select committee I want to just identify some of the pros and cons as I see them here now. First of all: reducing the retail outlets currently between 5000 and 8000. On the positive side it has a moderate impact looking at the modelling. It reduces initiation and maintenance and may have a significant impact in low socio-economic areas. On the con side or the downside if you like certainly that black market risk has to be considered. I didn't see too much modelling or commentary in the Government's documents. How do you monitor low nicotine levels? That's an issue and this will clearly affect dairy owners as well. If we look at the smoke-free generation the advantages are that there are moderate benefits for Māori particularly younger Māori—around 20- to 30-year-olds—and significant benefits for youth. On the disadvantages—again the black market and monitoring compliance.The heavy lifter the low nicotine: the advantage is it achieves most of the smoke-free goal. Certainly there's some work around the Auckland researchers that low nicotine with substantial social support may actually have some impact on reducing smoking. I'd just note that significant social support that needs to be wrapped around it to get that effectiveness. Disadvantages? Again the black market and this question around whether you just get increasing volume to compensate. Emeritus Professor Robert Beaglehole chair of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) has commented on this bill and says the following: "These proposals seem exciting and ground-breaking. On closer examination however there are problems ahead." One on the smoke-free generation "The good news is that creating a smoke-free generation is now obsolete. Recent data from ASH and the New Zealand Health Survey shows that youth are already almost smoke-free; the most at-risk group is now their (smoking) parents." Two retail reductions: "Reducing the sales outlets for cigarettes and making cigarettes less available than vaping could be helpful. However this will only work if the demand for cigarettes responds to the reduced supply. Given the high dependence of smokers on nicotine we can't count on a rational response". On nicotine reduction: "Reducing the nicotine content of cigarettes to levels where they are no longer addictive or satisfy cravings is in effect prohibition and could negatively impact the mental well-being of dependent smokers. There are no real-world experiences with this policy and its community-wide impact on quitting is unknown."He summarises: "As ground-breaking as these policies may be they will not dramatically reduce smoking rates by 2025." So it doesn't sit there empty; he comes up with four alternatives. One "more sustained and targeted mass and social media campaigns"; two "ongoing campaigns to support people who want to switch"; three "more community-led initiatives for Māori Pasifika and low-income smokers to encourage vaping"; and four "track smoking trends to … [reverse] the unfairness of … [previous] tobacco control measures."There are a number of questions that we're going to be asking in select committee that do require some contemplation. Firstly how robust is the modelling for each policy initiative and what are the underlying assumptions? The regulatory impact statement says this when it looks at the limitations of the analysis: "Most of the measures being considered have yet to be widely implemented internationally and in some cases New Zealand will be the first in the world to implement them. There is therefore significant uncertainty in the outcomes." A second question for the select committee to address is: what is the strength of existing evidence for tangible outcomes for each of the policy initiatives? And three given the likely huge impact on dairy and small-business owners and the overall contribution they make to communities do all three of the initiatives need to be implemented given nicotine reduction is modelled to almost meet the smoke-free New Zealand goal by itself? That is can we be as Government-lite as possible the least heavy-handed and at the same time achieve or near achieve the objective? These are questions that we'll be raising in select committee. We look forward to a range of submissions and really getting down to the tin tacks of this so that we can bring back to the House something that is implementable something that really does help us achieve the goal that we all want to achieve. I commend this bill to select committee. Thank you Mr Speaker."