Carter David: Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill — Procedure Referral to Health Committee In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Speaker Recalled  Speaker Recalled In Committee Procedure 
Carter David: Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill — Procedure Referral to Health Committee In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Speaker Recalled  Speaker Recalled In Committee Procedure 
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Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 I start by asking the member in the chair Steve Chadwick to clarify the important point that has just been raised by Peter Brown who said that enforcement officers do not have to identify themselves. I want the member to then read section 41E in clause 12 “Offences in respect of enforcement officers” which states that: “Every person commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding $1000 who—(a) intentionally obstructs hinders or resists an enforcement officer”. If patrons are in a pub having a beer—and I know that a killjoy like the member does not really imagine that sort of circumstance occurring but it does happen in pubs up and down the country as people enjoy a bit of friendship with their mates after a day’s work—and enforcement officers are spying in the bar doing their job by detecting who is lighting up a smoke someone who happens to step in front of that officer is not to know that the person is an enforcement officer. Yet the person who does that is up for a $1000 fine. 
Simon Power 
: They will have a clipboard. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: The enforcement officers will have a clipboard. We know they will have a camera; we know they are allowed to have a camera. 
Enforcement officers are allowed to go in to pubs and spy on who is there and who should not be there because that is the sort of law that the member sponsors— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Fear not the enforcement officer will never be seen again! 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: I guarantee that the enforcement officer who goes into the “Chelty” will not be welcome. We have heard about the “Chelty” that well-known pub in the Manawatu in relation to which we tried to move an exemption today. I understand that while I was away from the Committee this afternoon that exemption was ruled out of order. 
John Carter 
: David Benson-Pope stopped it. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: David Benson-Pope stopped it. I will let everybody know that that member had something to do with the 100 amendments that I tabled being ruled out of order. Those people wanted to have their say. 
David Benson-Pope 
: They were out of order. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: The member says that those amendments were out of order. This Committee could have accepted them by leave but David Benson-Pope did not want people to have that occasion. 
I want the member Steve Chadwick to answer the question we have raised. Do enforcement officers have to reveal that they are enforcement officers—yes or no? It is a simple question for Steve Chadwick to answer. She is meant to be sponsoring this bill on behalf of the Rt Hon Helen Clark so let us find out whether enforcement officers have to identify themselves. Otherwise how can it be fair that somebody who steps in front of those people and hinders them from doing their so-called enforcement work is liable for a $1000 fine? Why will the member not take a call and clarify that? 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: She won’t. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: She may do so. She cannot be so ashamed about doing Helen Clark’s work that she will not take a call. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: She is. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: She probably is. 
When the member takes a call I want her to clarify for the Committee the issue around fines. I understand that amendments are now being accepted whereby a person who lights up a cigarette anyway in a pub is let off completely scot-free and the operator or licensee is liable to a fine of $4000. That cannot be right can it? I think that is probably what is happening here. Is that happening? I say to Steve Chadwick that members on the Opposition side of the Chamber seem to think that that is the state of affairs. So I think she should rise before the closure motion is taken and make sure that she answers those valuable questions. We are to vote on this legislation and we want to know whether we should be voting for it. I doubt whether we will do so. 
I certainly want to know about the issue of enforcement officers because I think it is fundamentally wrong for those sorts of people to go into places armed with a camera so they can—[ 
Interruption 
] I am not sure whether they will carry a clipboard. Those people will not be highly intelligent; they will not be able to handle a camera and a clipboard. But I want to know whether after those people have spied away and taken photographs there will then be any liability at all on the person who lit up a cigarette. I say to Steve Chadwick that I think it is grossly unfair if she is promoting legislation—