Wall Louisa: Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Wall Louisa: Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
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LOUISA WALL (Labour) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Chair. Thank you very much for the opportunity to contribute to the korero tonight. I will follow on from Dr Hutchison by remembering the champions who have created the bill the Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Bill that we have before us today. I thank the Hon Tau Henare for his history lesson because I think it is important at this point in time that we acknowledge the people who have brought to fruition what we see today. I particularly want to honour the work that Hone Harawira has done in bringing this kaupapa to the Maori Affairs Committee and I particularly acknowledge the work that the Hon Tariana Turia has done to ensure that this kaupapa was brought before the House in this parliamentary term. I think it is important to make a comment about leadership. 
This bill is a very big bill. It will save many lives and the lives I want to focus on are the lives of our babies. I was particularly taken with the submission made by the group at the University of Auckland dealing with sudden unexpected death in infancy. It was astounding for me to read the statistic that between 2003 and 2007 328 of our babies under 1 year of age died. Of those 328 babies 202 were Maori babies and of the mothers of the 328 babies 75 percent smoked. So the correlation between smoking and infant mortality in our country is so explicit that to not do what we are doing today would have been completely unethical. 
I want to talk particularly about the prohibition of displays. I think that this bill has de-normalised smoking for our children and it will continue to do so in the future. When we look at the statistics we can see that having an environment where smoking is not normal is incredibly important. When we look at the fact that we have 5000 premature deaths per year because of smoking—whether it be people who smoke or people who live in environments within whanau where people smoke—we can see that it is relevant to all of us. 
I think all of us would have a family member who has died as a consequence of smoking. I will talk about someone close to me my father who at 63 died of coronary heart disease. He had a massive heart attack. He was a chain-smoker; he smoked two packs of cigarettes a day. I grew up in an environment where I could not breathe actually. As a young child I remember not being able to breathe. For me that meant that I was never going to smoke. I listened to my body. My body rejected smoke so I did not smoke. 
I have been fortunate. I smoked once in my life because of peer pressure because I grew up in a community where smoking was normal but I decided I would not smoke. The first cigarette I had was at the lake in Taupo. I threw the cigarette in the lake and my family chased after me to give me a hiding because I had thrown the smoke away. 
I inherently knew that smoking was bad but a lot of children grow up in environments where smoking is normal. They do not know that smoking is bad. They may have had the first response that I had which was to choke and not to breathe but they persist because their peers smoke and because society says to them that smoking is normal. 
The potential I see with this bill is amazing. It is amazing because we will create an environment where smoking is not normal and smoking is not cool. That translates to our children growing up and having the opportunity to not be influenced by the fact that when they go the dairy for example cigarettes are there on display and are encouraging them whether or not they know it to take up smoking. 
I am very pleased to belong to a Parliament that sees a bill like this before the House and I am pleased that we have cross-party support for such an initiative. I wanted to comment on something that Dr Hutchison said which was that because we will be prohibiting the display of tobacco it is out of sight and out of mind.