Chadwick Steve: Inquiries — Inquiry into the Tobacco Industry in Aotearoa and the Consequences of Tobacco Use for Maori —Report of Maori Affairs Committee 
Chadwick Steve: Inquiries — Inquiry into the Tobacco Industry in Aotearoa and the Consequences of Tobacco Use for Maori —Report of Maori Affairs Committee 
[Volume:669;Page:15960] 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK (Labour) 
: 
 I am really pleased to take a call in this debate. Before I begin I congratulate sincerely Hone Harawira and the Maori Party on getting this inquiry out into the open. 
I was very proud to be the sponsor of the Smoke-free Environments (Enhanced Protection) Amendment Bill which I picked up from Tukoroirangi Morgan who started this journey in 1990. I look around the House tonight. In 1990 the Smoke-free Environments Bill was first put into the House. I picked up responsibility for the Smoke-free Environments (Enhanced Protection) Amendment Bill when I came into Parliament in 1999. So it has been a long journey. It was 13 years after the enactment of the Smoke-free Environments Act when that bill by then renamed the Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill was passed. In the House tonight I can see about four members who were there at that time and who remember that journey and the very very bitter debate on that bill. So this inquiry is the next step on a long journey towards reaching the goal of halving the prevalence of smoking in New Zealand by 2015. 
I thought some members would be really interested to know that in 2003 when we passed the Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill the environment in the House was very bad. I had death threats I had an anthrax-like substance that turned out to be talcum powder delivered to my office I had protection and I was considered to be the loony left. ACT and Rodney Hide came into the House and called us feminazis who were trying to socially engineer the environment about smoking in New Zealand at the time. This newspaper headline indicates the sort of thing that we went through. It was very ugly. Every night I would go home and think I could not carry on with it. The measure was right and it was logical but the level of animosity and hatred in the House was so high that I was not sure I could go through with it. One night after 5 hours in the chair I went home and my son who is of Maori ancestry said I did not look very good. I said to him that the Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill was destroying me personally even though as a nurse and a midwife I knew we were doing the right thing about the prevalence of smoking. He told me to keep going and that it was the best thing I had ever done. He said he was very proud of me and so were all of his colleagues. 
Now let us look at New Zealand today. I want us to move on from 2003 when only two National MPs at the time supported that absolutely hallmark legislation to change the whole environment for New Zealand regarding how we look at the effects of second-hand smoking. Through the work of the Maori Affairs Committee and of Hone Harawira we are now grappling with the next stage of a journey to recognise that we have to deal with smoking in New Zealand. I did believe—and I always said this then—that smoking was a public health issue and that it would require the use of a variety of tools to change societal attitudes. Overnight in 2004 New Zealand society changed. People just went smoke-free in cafes bars and workplaces. We look back now at what happened six years ago and we cannot believe the hatred and animosity towards what was right at the time for legislators to do—that brave thing. 
So my congratulations go to Hone Harawira and also to Tariana Turia on leading the charge to get this inquiry heard. Many requests for inquiries do not see the light of day. Those members won with their coalition partner National. This inquiry has given us a lot of tools and recommendations for the Government to consider. I know that Tariana will now bring a bill to the House. I hope it is a bill with teeth because the next step has to be just as brave as the Smoke Free Environments Amendment Bill was. I see that there are recommendations in this report to establish a tobacco control authority. I think that is good though it is bureaucracy again. The real steps are in the recommendation to look at stopping children from starting to smoke and helping people to quit smoking. That is where we can nip smoking in the bud. There are many schoolchildren—9-year-olds—who are addicted to tobacco. If we do not put one-to-one programmes beside those kids to make them realise that tobacco is an addictive substance their lives will never change. 
Motion agreed to.