Reti ShaneDr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): It is a pleasure to speak to the Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill. Plain paper packaging—or standardised packaging as we prefer to call it—has been shown to reduce the incidence and uptake of tobacco smoking especially in adolescence.In 2008 the Northland District Health Board made nine recommendations to the Māori Affairs Committee and its recommendation 2 talked to this: Tobacco packaging promotes the attractiveness of cigarettes. The introduction of plain packaging would help reduce that attractiveness and therefore uptake of smoking by teenagers. The tobacco industry knows that plain packaging will be effective in reducing tobacco sales. Introducing plain packs are likely to protect Māori by reducing the attractiveness of smoking." So here we have it—this is fundamentally how this works and I think Dame Tariana really summed it up. It is all about the marketing. In the first reading she actually said this: "In essence the decision to introduce plain packaging for tobacco products in New Zealand is all about the branding."—this is how it works—"It takes away the last means of promoting tobacco as a desirable product. When tobacco manufacturers push tobacco they are not simply selling a stick of nicotine; they are selling status social acceptance and adventure. The design and appearance of tobacco products and in particular the way they are packaged influence people's perceptions about these products and the desirability of smoking. Brand imagery demonstrably increases the appeal of tobacco brands particularly to youth and young adults helping to attract new smokers and also implying wider social approval for tobacco use."So there are three parts to the branding: there is the background there is the image and there is the text. If we look briefly at these separately—let us look at the background first of all. When the Australians deployed plain packaging in 2012 they commissioned a panel of experts who over 3 months tried to determine what would be the most offensive background—the background that was most likely to deter and discourage tobacco purchasers. The colour on this paper is what they came up with as the most effective—or the most offensive if you like—background colour. It is called Pantone 448 C.Grant Robertson: I've got that on my kitchen wall.Dr SHANE RETI: Ha ha! They called this olive green and all was good until the Australian Olive Association said "No no that's not good. We don't like the linkage thank you very much with smoking." and so it was changed to drab dark brown. So this is actually the colour that is now used as a background in Australia. So we have got the background—that is important.We have then got the image that is used. There is clear evidence that the image has an effect on deterring adolescents particularly. If we look at the European Journal of Public Health in 2009 they asked adolescents what sort of packaging they were more likely to take notice of—packaging with a picture or just with text and clearly it was with a picture. So the second part—the image.Third is the text and that is a story about the narrative the font size the type and the colour. Again if we look at the British Journal of Addiction in 2008 before plain paper packaging was deployed into the European Union they looked at before and after—without a warning label and with a warning label—and clearly were able to show some effect. So as Dame Tariana said way back when this is simply all about the branding—that is its effectiveness.As other speakers have noted this is not the silver bullet; this just adds another tool to the armoury combatting tobacco use. And with that I commend this bill to the House."