Faafoi Kris: Crown Entities Reform Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Faafoi Kris: Crown Entities Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 23 May 2012. Volume:680;Page:2337. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana) 
: 
 Thank you for recognising me Mr Chair. It is an honour to speak on Part 1 of the Crown Entities Reform Bill. As my colleague whom I recognise as Iain Lees-Galloway mentioned earlier in this debate we will be supporting Part 1 with some reservations.  
Part 1 of this bill establishes the Health Promotion Agency by essentially disestablishing and merging the functions of the Alcohol Advisory Council (ALAC) and the Health Sponsorship Council. As I think Kevin Hague—I recognise Kevin Hague over there—mentioned earlier in this discussion Part 1 takes two agencies that have been working in similar areas and working in a fragmented way and brings them together. I do agree with him that this is an opportunity for the new Health Promotion Agency to have some focus to have some clarity as to what its new function is going to be and to work in a much more focused manner on addressing some of the issues and responsibilities that it will now have under this bill.  
I would also at this stage note that we are going to be disestablishing ALAC so I think we should pay tribute to the work that ALAC has done—and to the chair Rea Wikaira and the chief executive Gerard Vaughan—for many many years now in terms of pushing that responsible drinking message. It has already been noted in this debate that we are going to have ALAC disappearing at a time when this Parliament our communities and this nation look thoroughly at alcohol law reform. Iain Lees-Galloway in his contribution to this debate noted that there were a number of submitters who were concerned about the fact that ALAC was being disestablished at this time and also that there were some concerns that the Alcohol Reform Bill does not go far enough but that is a debate for another time.  
The functions of the Health Promotion Agency are legislated in section 58 in clause 6 which states that it “must lead and support activities for the following purposes: (a) promoting health and wellbeing …” of our communities. As Grant Robertson mentioned earlier that change—to insert “wellbeing”—was made by the Government Administration Committee and I think that is a positive move. It is going to ensure that some of the proactive things that are happening with the Health Sponsorship Council and other agencies at the moment continue and that the health and well-being of our communities is pushed in a proactive way.  
Other functions of the new agency are: “(b) preventing disease illness and injury:” and “(c) enabling environments that support health and wellbeing …”—again “wellbeing” has been added by the select committee. A good thing which I think is going to stay within the functions of this new agency is that it will still have the ability to give grants and give sponsorship to any individuals or agencies that are going be pushing the healthy living and healthy well-being issues out in our communities.  
I can think of one instance that I think should be supported at the moment as it is very timely and that is the Smokefree Rockquest. It is an opportunity to engage with our younger New Zealanders in an environment that they may think is cool or is much more acceptable to them and to push that message that it is not OK to start smoking at that young age and that we do not want them to start smoking. I think that is one example of sponsorship that has worked very very well and I am glad to see that within the confines of this bill the Health Promotion Agency will still be able to carry out that function of sponsoring and allowing grants to go to agencies or individuals who are going to be able to push those messages of healthy living especially to our younger ones. As I mentioned the Smokefree Rockquest is a good example of that.  
The Government should not take for granted that just because we are supporting Part 1 we are supportive of mergers per se across the board. 
Jami-Lee Ross 
: Oh! 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: That is not necessarily the case but in the case of Part 1—we can hear the moans and groans already—we do think the new agency has the ability to work and as a number of members have mentioned before it will have the ability to work if the Government backs it.  
So we on this side of the House want to ensure that the commitment that the Government is making through the Crown Entities Reform Bill to establish the Health Promotion Agency is not just weasel words and that it is backed up with resources and commitment to ensure that the community is at the centre of this legislation in terms of trying to push those healthy living promotion issues right around New Zealand. As we have mentioned before—I will not take up too much more time—we do support Part 1 with reservations. Parts 2 and 3 may be a different story but we certainly support Part 1.