Clark David: Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is subject to correctionClark David: Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 26 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11453. Text is subject to correction.]Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): I rise to support this bill. Labour has been clear from the beginning that we will be supporting this measure because it is an effective measure to help curb smoking. It helps I think to remind all of us that smoking is still a net drain on the health system in New Zealand. Smoking is still a cost that we all bear both socially and economically and the excise that is collected by the Government does not yet offset the harm caused to our communities. It does not add up that it is something that is just taking money and not giving back but our concern remains that the money must get back to those people who are paying the excise. Those people who are struggling with an addiction to smoking must be supported in their efforts to give up. Public health generally must be supported. This is $425 million across 4 years and the Government in this debate has not committed to putting that back into public health to supporting those who would wish to give up and to supporting people with public health issues like obesity like diabetes like smoking like drug and alcohol issues and so on. It will not commit to that.The Associate Minister of Health Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga seems to think—and he said this pretty much—that money taken from smokers and put back into hip replacements will somehow help people stop smoking. When asked what the public health benefit was from this money being taken he said it will go into hip replacements. That does not stop smoking and we need to stress that lest people cotton on to that and somehow try to understand that contorted logic. It is not worth going there. It just does not work that way. We do not think the money should go into the consolidated account to fund the Government’s pet projects be it charter schools which are funded at five times the rate of public schools or whatever its other corporate welfare priorities are at the moment: Saudi sheep or Skycity deals—whatever it is it is trying to dish money out to people for. We do not think this money should go back into that pot; we think it should be there to help smoking cessation and other public health programmes that are for the well-being of all New Zealanders.In the debate the Minister has failed to address my question about giving tobacco companies time to adjust to this. What behaviour in the past tells us is that tobacco companies put the additional costs on to their high-value products—their high-margin products like luxury cigars—and they try to keep their gateway products the cheap products as cheap as possible. The Minister has given no assurance that there will be any looking at the range of products available and making sure that this excise tax is applied in a way that actually reduces smoking in the most effective way possible. The Minister has simply not addressed that question in the Committee stage of this debate. He also talked about the progress of plain packaging legislation through Parliament and as my colleague the Hon Annette King said it has been sitting on the Order Paper since 2014 in the middle of the year. It is unbelievable that the Minister thinks that is progressing because it is written on a piece of paper that we pick up every day. It is not racing through this Parliament. So we look forward to the progress of that bill because we want to take seriously your sentiment that you believe this is a measure that is going to help New Zealanders and that it is not just a tax grab.We need to do more and we need to do more soon because people are dying while this Government fails to put money into public health. People are dying from the consequences of smoking. We will support this bill. It is one of the most effective means of stopping smoking through increasing the price of cigarettes but we need also a comprehensive plan to get us smoke-free by 2025. That is the Government’s stated goal but health experts say that we are not on track as 15 percent of adults in New Zealand smoke daily. The Government does not have us in a position with a convincing plan to make sure that we are smoke-free by 2025. It can do better it must do better and it needs to stop treating this $425 million as a revenue grab. It needs to put the money into programmes that are for the public health of New Zealanders for anti-smoking programmes obesity programmes and other programmes that will improve the health of New Zealanders overall. It continues a pattern in the health sector of underfunding generally. We are supporting this measure because it is a good step in the right direction but there is so much more to be done. We wish this Government was ambitious for New Zealand. We wish it cared for middle New Zealand and not just for the few at the top.