Robertson Grant: Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Robertson Grant: Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:674;Page:20078] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 As a member of the Health Committee that heard the Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill I think this is a great opportunity for me to take a call—my first call—on the bill. First I will do as other members have done and recognise the Minister in the chair the Associate Minister of Health Tariana Turia. There is no doubt as to Minister Turia’s commitment to this issue and to dealing with the scourge that is cigarette smoking and tobacco products in New Zealand. She has had that commitment and has steadfastly put through various pieces of legislation including this one and I congratulate her on that. 
The select committee was fairly unified in its consideration of the bill. It was not an easy consideration. There were a lot of technicalities and in that regard I certainly thank the officials for their assistance in helping us to understand all of those technicalities. It is good to see the National Government is on side on this bill. It has not always been so with National when it comes to measures to curb tobacco smoking. 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: Always was with me. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Dr Paul Hutchison certainly always was; that is a very good point. He stood up against the rest of his party including the now Minister of Health Tony Ryall when they opposed the banning of smoking in bars and restaurants. I am sure that Dr Hutchison’s colleagues now look to him as a man of wisdom when it comes to these matters. 
The select committee certainly had an interesting array of submissions and submitters appear before it and there were strong views on all sides. There were especially strong views from public health physicians and academics from those involved in the anti-smoking groups and from the friends and families of those who have died from smoking-related illnesses. It was difficult to listen to those submissions and know that we had the responsibility to take this small but significant step in reducing the harm caused by cigarettes in New Zealand. 
Equally on the other side of the argument we had submissions from retailers who were very concerned about the impact on their business. We also had some slightly odd submissions in that regard. I do not think I will ever forget hearing the evidence from the specialist tobacco retailer who spoke to us by phone. Extraordinarily we asked him questions about what he knew about some of the people who came in and bought products from him to the point that he told us that he was well aware how sick some of them were that they were in the advanced stage of illnesses that had been caused directly by smoking yet he seemed to think that was OK. It was quite extraordinary to listen to those submissions. I feel good that today we are back before Parliament with a bill that is rigorous and puts in place the regime that it does. 
Hon Dr Wayne Mapp 
: We’ll have to have the Royal Society in the next couple of weeks. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: We will have more thorough examination of the activities of the Royal Society in the coming weeks and months. I am pleased that that will occur but I will not be diverted on to that. 
I want to speak briefly about Supplementary Order Paper 256 in the name of my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway because I think it does two important things that we seek the support of National members on. It adds to what has already been done and I do not think in any way that National should see this as a hostile Supplementary Order Paper. In fact it very much supports the direction of the bill. 
The first of those amendments was just mentioned by Rahui Katene in her intervention. It is about extending the prohibitions that have been put in place concerning free distribution. People might think that the tobacco companies are not up to this nefarious kind of activity where behind the scenes they are trying to develop a relationship with a retailer who will put their products forward. They are. This is what the tobacco industry does and it is doing this. Iain Lees-Galloway’s Supplementary Order Paper has a clause that makes not only retailers but also wholesalers deal with this. I think it is very important that the way in which tobacco products are distributed is taken into account in this bill and in this particular clause. I urge members on the other side of the Chamber to realise that all Iain Lees-Galloway’s Supplementary Order Paper is doing is extending the ambit of this clause to take into account the way in which tobacco products find themselves into people’s pockets and that is through a retail setting but also through wholesalers. I think it is very important that we support that amendment. 
The other new clause that Iain Lees-Galloway suggests in his Supplementary Order Paper is around the kind of signage that is available at point of sale. The committee talked at some length about this because it is possible for a tobacco company with its back against the wall having lost the ability to have colourful displays that promote—