Verrall AyeshaSMOKEFREE ENVIRONMENTS AND REGULATED PRODUCTS (SMOKED TOBACCO) AMENDMENT BILLSecond ReadingHon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Associate Minister of Health): I present a legislative statement on the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: I move That the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. I want to address my thanks to the members of the Health Committee chaired by my colleague Tangi Utikere and to all those involved in this process which included almost 2000 written submissions from the public including 84 submitters who made an oral submission to the committee. I want to acknowledge that the committee did not significantly change the bill. In the final report the committee recommended that the bill proceed with a limited number of amendments including setting the number of retail outlets allowed to sell tobacco and including the nicotine concentration in the primary legislation. In addition to those amendments I am also proposing minor amendments based on advice from the Ministry of Health for further clarity transparency and consistency of the bill.It is not every day that members get to vote on legislation that is as lifesaving as life extending and as life changing as this bill. This legislation will help us save thousands of lives a year. There are 4500 people who die of tobacco in New Zealand each year. It is our leading preventable cause of death. That is not even overselling what a difference it will make for people. We have the chance once and for all to take control of a product so deadly that it kills half the people that use it. Even COVID or the 1918 influenza pandemic cannot compete with the death toll that tobacco exacts on our people. There are many families who have lost an aunt an uncle a grandma a grandfather a brother a sister or parents to smoking. Many whānau are missing members who never got to live to old age and who died earlier than they should have. Tobacco has done no good whatsoever and we have the chance to get rid of it.Today all MPs in this House have the chance to stand on the right side of history but time and time again parties in this House have slowed voted against halted and blocked action to tackle tobacco and this has been going on for decades. In this House in 1990 Opposition health spokesperson at the time Don McKinnon claimed that New Zealand's first piece of smoke-free legislation the Smoke-free Environments Act of 1990 was an assault on freedoms it was anti-employer anti-worker and it might destroy jobs. He said that a National Government would ensure that the bill did not survive.The bill did survive and so did many New Zealanders whose lives were prolonged as a result. The National Party have been making the same tired old arguments for decades. They claimed back then that legislation to stop smoking would destroy New Zealand hospitality businesses. Well what's changed in hospitality? It's going from strength to strength—you just come home from a night out without your clothes smelling of smoke. That doesn't stop them from making these repetitive arguments.Now we move to control the number of retail settings in which tobacco can be sold. Independent studies—and I'm not talking about those published by Imperial Tobacco in our media lately—show that only a tiny percentage of sellers' profits less than 5 percent comes from tobacco. That's why around the country many retailers are leading the way by ditching tobacco and going smoke-free like in Northland where 25 retailers have taken the step to stop selling tobacco. Most of them recommend other retailers follow their lead. The vast majority of tobacco-free retailers 88 percent experienced a neutral or positive financial impact from ditching tobacco.I believe that it is our duty as legislators to pass laws and take actions that save the lives of New Zealanders and I know it is my duty as a doctor and a member of this House to bring proposals here that will save lives. Dr Reti now is not the time for arguing about the evidence or delaying these proposals—lives are on the line. Vote for this bill or renounce your oath. This legislation will reduce the burden on our health system. It will reduce numerous types of cancer heart attacks strokes and amputations.Cigarettes are products that the tobacco industry has engineered to be so addictive that it overwhelms the will of people who know they are dying from them and they can't give up the very product that is about to cut their life short. This is what addiction does to people; there is so much human misery caused by it. If I reflect on the people I have met who have been trapped by tobacco: unable to walk to their letterbox because their lungs were so damaged people who have lost their limbs because of tobacco mothers who have been unable to hold their babies in their arms because tobacco smoking meant that their child had to be taken to neonatal intensive care people who have had cancers who have had repeated surgeries. There is absolutely no good that comes from this product.I hope members of this House fulfil their duty to the people of New Zealand to serve in their best interest and vote for the good of our health system and the good health of our people. In 1990 the Smoke-free Environments Act was world leading. Today the smoked tobacco amendment bill is again world leading. Everyone in this House has the opportunity to free the next generation and everyone that comes after from the burden of disease and premature death that comes from smoked tobacco. I am proud to be a part of that and so is this Government. I commend this bill to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that the motion be agreed to.