Power Simon: Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill — Referral to Health Committee Procedure In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Power Simon: Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill — Referral to Health Committee Procedure In Committee 
[Sitting date: 15 October 2003. Volume:612;Page:9235. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 That was extraordinary. I do not know whether I feel saved or whether I need a shower. The issues in this bill are serious enough for me to have raised them in my electorate of Rangitikei. This is the first time I have taken a call on this bill at all in the entire time it has been before Parliament. I have been away from Parliament but I have tabled an amendment today to exclude the Cheltenham tavern from the provisions of this bill. That is important for two reasons. I address these comments primarily to the member in the chair because they are important points to make. 
The Cheltenham tavern also known locally as the “Chelty” stands on the route between Feilding and Taupo at the bottom of Vinegar Hill. The “Chelty” is a pub where local farmers and workers gather on a Thursday Friday and Saturday night to talk about the events of the district and what is happening in Government and to reflect on the day’s work. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: And three out of four of them smoke. 
SIMON POWER 
: Four out of four of them smoke I say to Mr Williamson. I say to the member in the chair that I called at that tavern—not unlike my colleague Maurice Williamson who does a thorough job of canvassing the taverns in his electorate—not 2 weeks ago to find that on the wall of the tavern was an article about the legislation that is being put forward by that particular member and that the people in the tavern were furious about the legislation. They were absolutely livid. They had a very simple view which was—if I may paraphrase it and speak in the first person—“I work 60 to 70 hours a week on farms as a labourer a shearer a docker a manager etc. When I have finished my work at the day’s end and I want to go and have a beer and a cigarette at the ‘Chelty’ no politically correct member of Parliament from Rotorua is going to tell me whether or not I can stand in my local tavern and have a cigarette after a long week’s work.” 
The members on the Government side of the Chamber—in particular Damien O’Connor as Associate Minister of Agriculture—should listen very carefully to what those members of our community are saying. He knows that people on the West Coast think this legislation is just absolute rubbish. It is not that those people believe that smoking is not bad for them but that they believe they have a fundamental right to make the choice about whether to have a smoke with their beer at the end of the day. They do not need politicians from the Government side of the House to tell them whether they have earned the right to have a cigarette with their beer. 
As the local member of Parliament for those people I propose an amendment—which I urge common-sense members on the Government side of the Chamber to vote for—that will allow the people at the “Chelty” to have a cigarette when they have their jug after they have done the work that provides those members with the surpluses they need for their spending on ridiculous social programmes all around New Zealand that benefit nobody other than the union people who put them here in the first place. Those members should remember the people in communities like that who provide Government members with the surpluses they need to do their jobs. They have a right to have a cigarette with a beer at the end of a hard day’s work if they wish and Government members should think long and hard about imposing on the backbone of this country the goody two-shoes politically correct flim-flam nonsense that we see in legislation like this. 
I say to Steve Chadwick that those people know how to run their lives better than she does and she should let them get on with learning how to run their lives in a way that makes them happy. She should not burden them with ridiculous legislation that is paid for by those people who only want to enjoy themselves at the end of a hard week’s work. I say to Government members that this bill is a disgrace. It is an absolute disgrace and Government members who favour this legislation will for the reasons that I have outlined be facing down communities like Cheltenham at the next election. I will be the first on the platform to remind the hard-working farmers and rural people of New Zealand what those Government members did to their pint of beer at the end of a hard week’s work.