Costello CaseySMOKEFREE ENVIRONMENTS AND REGULATED PRODUCTS AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingHon CASEY COSTELLO (Associate Minister of Health): I present a legislative statement on the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Bill. I move That the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Bill be now read a first time. This bill is primarily about giving effect to one of the Government's 100-day plan commitments by reversing the changes the previous Government made to the regulation of smoked tobacco products. The bill removes the previous Government's policies in three areas primarily: to cut by 90 percent the number of retailers that could sell smoked tobacco products which was to happen later this year; introduce a low nicotine limit which was to happen next year; and a policy to ban sales to all those born after 1 January 2009 that was planned to take effect in 2027. To be clear none of the measures being repealed are in place. Like so many of the previous Government's initiatives the smoke-free initiatives were to be generous intangible. We are not stopping anything that is currently helping to drive smoking rates down and that is the Government's focus: we want smoking rates to reduce we want the harm from smoking to reduce. This Government is committed to the Smokefree 2025 goal but we are taking a different regulatory approach to reducing smoking rates and the harm from smoking.We know smoking is harmful everyone knows this smokers know it. What they need is help to quit and what we are going to focus on is providing them the programmes tools and support to do this. New Zealand has seen some of the largest drops in smoking rates across the world in recent years and we want to build on the practical tools and approaches that have worked to date. That means reverting back to then building upon the regulatory regime that Labour planned to change. The settings we are focusing upon have been incredibly successful. The New Zealand Health Survey results released in December last year showed that 6.8 percent of New Zealanders are smoking daily down from 8.6 percent the previous year and down from 16.4 percent when the survey began in 2011 and 2012. In the last three years 229000 people have stopped smoking. If those trends continue without any additional measures New Zealand will hit the headline smoke-free goal of less than 5 percent of the population smoking daily by 2025. Importantly 79000 of those who stopped smoking more than a third of those who quit were Māori. As for the smoke-free generation in the last three years the quit rate for young smokers—those aged 15 to 24—has been 31 percent in 2021 37 percent in 2022 and 42 percent last year.When the health survey started in 2011 and 2012 there were 119000 young smokers. Last year there were 19000. Young people—and this is a very good thing—are turning their back on smoking: a generation that are non-smokers. These achievements have all occurred since the modelling behind the last Government's initiatives were done. These achievements were well in advance of the starting position of the modelling which has been referenced as justification for the measures we are repealing.We have seen success worth giving recognition to. This is what is happening in the real world: our smoking rates have fallen drastically in recent times better than in any other developed country. This is one of the few areas where the last Government could have actually claimed success in health. Instead of that they seemed obsessed with trying to prove they loved a good slogan. The last Government was moving towards an untested regime with a focus on prohibition that ignored how well quit-smoking initiatives were working the potential downside of a prohibitionist approach for smokers and also the impact on retailers and crime was being ignored or at the very least trivialised.This Government isn't interested in the virtue signalling in health. We are about measurable outcomes and importantly on getting smokers the right resources to enable them to quit. This is why we are progressing the amendment bill. We want an approach on the regulation of tobacco that allows a practical workable and tested approach to reducing smoking.I spoke in particular of the gains we have made with youth smoking. This means that most of those who currently smoke daily are mostly long-term smokers who are addicted to nicotine and that's who we need to focus on. That's who we need to help. When dealing with an addiction of this nature reduced supply does not remove demand and it presents a real risk of increasing demand and increasing desperation. Tobacco-control initiatives should work for and be targeted to those who need it most including Māori and Pacific peoples who have higher rates of smoking.We cannot ignore that vaping played a key role as a cessation tool. It is a major reason we have made such progress and we need to ensure that vaping is available to adults for that purpose. This Government supports initiatives that will provide people with practical tools and access to alternate products like vaping to help smoking cessation. We also want to ensure continued provision of effective targeted stop-smoking services and marketing campaigns. We will provide smokers a range of tools advice and support that will work for them and that will help them to quit smoking.We have seen that approach is working and I will soon be taking a package of measures to Cabinet to increase the tools available that will actually help quit smoking while at the same time tightening regulations on vaping to prevent young people accessing vapes. Good policy requires balance and it is important we balance the need to continue to allow vaping as a cessation tool while minimising the impact on our young people.This Government wants workable practical policy that improves people's lives and we are committed to our smoke-free future. I commend the bill to the House. Thank you Madam Speaker.