Chadwick Steve: Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill — Referral to Health Committee Procedure In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Chadwick Steve: Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill — Referral to Health Committee Procedure In Committee 
[Sitting date: 15 October 2003. Volume:612;Page:9217. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) 
: 
 I would like to take a call in response to some rather serious allegations laid by the leader of ACT about the lobbying of MPs and particularly the lobbying of myself as the sponsor of this bill. I want to read out for the record a letter from the chairperson of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) to the  
New Zealand Herald 
 which clarifies the position that “ASH is not an agent of the Ministry of Health nor its employee”—that statement is in clause 27 of ASH’s contract—“nor an uncritical paid agent of the Ministry. The Government has never gagged ASH but supports it to help reduce tobacco consumption which is a 60 percent reduction since ASH was founded 21 years ago”. That is a wonderful record. “ASH does not always agree with Government. For example we want cigarettes to be put under the counter but Government is not ready yet for this. We opposed fines on smokers in bars in the current bill and Government now agrees. Most of our Government contract funds this year were paid for media advertising to inform the public about the risks of cigarette smoke just as the Government has paid for anti-smoking campaigns since 1948. ASH was created to work with the media and encourage strong publicity and policy on smoking. When this bill is passed we will focus on the high level of toxins in New Zealand cigarette smoke. We will need continued funding Government or otherwise to further reduce the tobacco road toll.” 
I have not been personally lobbied by ASH but as the sponsor of this bill I have certainly valued its support just as I valued its support when I was in charge of a children and women’s health service in a hospital. I knew about ASH and Apaarangi Tautoko Auahi Kore long before many members in the House. I value their contribution to the reduction in smoking in this country—as I value the contributions from many other lobbyists who give me as the sponsor of this bill very valuable information. These include Professor Alistair Woodward the professor of public health at the Wellington school of medicine; the College of General Practitioners; Dr Diana North medical director of the National Heart Foundation; and Hugh McAlister a very respected cardiologist. 
I have in my hand one of ASH’s very good political updates that gives information to all members of Parliament so I hope we can continue with better-informed debate. As the member sponsoring the bill I can assure the Committee that I welcome and value continued information from these lobby groups and I hope they do not give up supporting all politicians so that we can have informed debate in the House. I quite accept the fact that the Minister responsible will look at the contracts to make sure we are not lobbied as members. I was very careful not to go out with tobacco industry representatives and have a paid lunch and I was also very careful to tell the tobacco industry which mercilessly lobbied me that it would not be right or proper—as representatives of the Hospitality Association of New Zealand present in the gallery know—to have lobbying on the bill accepted once the Health Committee had written its report for the House. It would have been quite improper. I knew my boundaries as the member sponsoring the bill but I hope that the Government continues its robust funding of those lobbyists who have had a profound impact on the reduction of smoking in this country. 
R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) 
: 
 I for one do not care who has been lobbying the member. I can certainly say that Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) has been lobbying me. I like lobbying and I think that lobbyists add to the House. They bring their biased point of view to any argument and it is helpful to talk to lobbyists from both sides. But I hope that in listening to lobbyists I am not like the member who just sat down and who believes just one side of the lobbying. I think it is healthy to have cynicism on both sides and therein get closer to the truth. 
When I am contemplating this bill I think back to my father. I think of my grandfather. I think of grandparents male and female and of people in the district I grew up with and I wonder what they would have thought of this legislation. I wonder what they would have thought of liberalising prostitution and of the talk of liberalising marijuana or as it is euphemistically phrased legalising marijuana for medicinal use. I think to myself that they would really wonder what sort of arena this Doug Woolerton had got himself involved in. They would wonder whether the lunatics had indeed taken over the asylum. 
We have two—only two—legal drugs in this country. It has been that way in Western civilisation for hundreds and hundreds of years. One is tobacco and the other is alcohol. We have never promoted the health benefits of either although the wine industry is wont to promote a glass of wine each day as beneficial for one’s health. I have no problem with ASH or anybody else promoting the message or saying that smoking is not good for one’s health. But I object most strenuously to the barring of cigarette smoking in all public places. The legislation bars smoking in all public places except of course—and this is where my mother father grandfather and grandmother would really come apart—in prison. If people go to jail they can have a fag. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: Or hospital. 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: In hospital also as the member said people can have a fag but they cannot have a fag in a pub. In any other Parliament in any other time they would say that this ban was quite quite mad and that is what I think it is. I think it is a contradiction. I think it is intolerance to the highest degree and I think it is quite quite mad. In fact the only way that it would be acceptable in any way to the public of New Zealand would be the way it has been promoted in this House—and I believe it has been promoted dishonestly. 
The promotion says that smoking affects the smoker—and that it also affects everybody else. It is said that thousands of people are dying in this country through second-hand smoke. That is bunkum—absolute bunkum. Any person who has ever had a fag is in the statistics as having died because of smoking. If people had been smokers when they were 18 but had given up smoking years ago their lungs would now be as healthy as anybody else’s. However if anything happens to them it is said that they have died because of smoking. Whatever happens to a person’s heart foot left leg right leg head or whatever is said to happen because that person was a smoker so he or she goes onto the smoking statistics. That person apparently becomes a victim of second-hand smoke and that is the only way that this Government can find to make this legislation even part-way logical and get it through this House. 
The Government certainly would not get this legislation through if it banned smoking completely. That would be outrageous as far as the public is concerned. The Government could try to reduce the incidence of smoking voluntarily which is what ASH has tried to do over the years and yes there has been a reduction. But that is not enough for this Government. It wants to force its will on every man woman and teenager in this country—at the same time I might say that it is talking about legalising other drugs.