Worth Richard: Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill — Procedure Referral to Health Committee Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Worth Richard: Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill — Procedure Referral to Health Committee Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:610;Page:7935] 
RICHARD WORTH (NZ National—Epsom) 
: 
 It is very good of ACT to yield its place to me. I will take only a small amount of time just the allotted 5 minutes in speaking on the title. I start by saying that two questions legitimately arise in the context of a title debate: the first is the legal accuracy of the title and the second is the factual accuracy. Here we have a bill that was called the Smoke-free Environments (Enhanced Protection) Amendment Bill and the Health Committee has very wisely stripped out the phrase “Enhanced Protection”. I suggest that it has done that for good reason because there are substantial disbenefits associated with this legislation. 
It must always be the case when significant rights are taken away that there needs to be a close and critical study of the consequences of taking those rights away. There needs to be in an atmosphere of measured debate an evaluation both of gains and losses. Whereas there was in the original bill a claimed enhanced protection the reality is simply the opposite. 
In the context of the title debate I would just like to pick up two points. The first point arises from material that was published on the Internet on 16 May 2003. It relates to a study that was published in a prestigious medical magazine the weekly  
British Medical Journal 
 which has found no significant evidence that second-hand smoke causes lung cancer or heart disease. The actual wording used in the early part of the study was: “The association between passive smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed.” It was a really surprising twist I felt that the study was backed by an anti-smoking crusader Dr Elizabeth Whelan. She said: “There is simply no convincing evidence linking second-hand smoke to lung cancer and heart disease.” She is an epidemiologist and president of the American Council on Science and Health. 
I certainly have the clear impression from looking at the submissions to the select committee—of which I was not a member—that an incredibly one-sided view of the world was presented to those committee members. It is critical in the context of submission hearings that the committee be given balanced material on both sides. 
The second observation I make is that this is draconian legislation—and I do not shrink from the use of that phrase. We have seen in other jurisdictions the economic impact of legislation that has been very similarly modelled on this legislation. Business in New York bars and restaurants plummeted by as much as 50 percent in the wake of a smoking ban framed in very similar terms to this legislation and the drop-off has sparked layoffs and left some establishments in New York on the brink of shutting their doors. 
Darren Hughes 
: Name one. 
RICHARD WORTH 
: I am asked to give an example. At Ruddy and Dean a well-known Staten Island hang-out near a courthouse that is popular with district attorneys lawyers and judges bar business has been slashed by half. I can give you a second example. We all know Bill’s Gay Nineties in Midtown where business is off 50 percent overall. As the manager said: “If this keeps up some of us might as well just close up shop.” 
A detailed study has been done by the  
New York Post  
of what has happened to businesses faced with comparable bans to the ban proposed by the Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill and the impact has been truly substantial. It is not only an impact that is to be felt in the tills of those who own these businesses; the reality is that staff are laid off—staff who would wish to continue to work in those establishments are laid off. So let us not kid ourselves as we look at passing this legislation—and I will assuredly not be voting for it as there are big impacts.