Hide Rodney: Customs and Excise Amendment Bill (No 3) — First Reading 
Hide Rodney: Customs and Excise Amendment Bill (No 3) — First Reading 
[Volume:644;Page:13994] 
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 The ACT party rises to support this bill’s referral to the select committee and we will be most interested in it. I will take what the last speaker Dianne Yates said and just focus briefly on one point. It is something for this House to consider.  
We have had an exemption in the past for the growing of tobacco for one’s own use. It is something of an anomaly I guess because we have the view that it is something that is bad and should be subject to a sin tax essentially to drive down the use of tobacco. But we have figured that it is pretty hard to police people who grow a few tobacco plants out the back. 
Dianne Yates 
: It’s not just to do that. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: No but this is the nature of the policy—it is too hard to police people growing a few plants out the back for their own use and rather than making that a criminal offence making it illegal and having the police arrest people who have a few tobacco plants out the back we will give an exemption for personal use. Now there has been the discovery that people have been growing several tonnes of tobacco ostensibly for their personal use. The Government understandably is moving to clamp down and make it clear that the law around tobacco for personal use does not mean one can have tonnes and tonnes because with the best will in the world it is hard to smoke a tonne of tobacco in a year. It is very very hard to do. So that is quite smart. But I want to explore this idea.  
The bill goes on to state that it will not just clamp down on the growing of multiple tonnes—which clearly are for sale or reward or quid pro quo—but will also eliminate the personal use exemption for tobacco. I am not sure that is smart. The bill states that we need to do that because the personal exemption is ultra vires. They are a couple of big words which I understand after I checked with people smarter than me mean that something is outside the law. I have been thinking about this. Is it not this Parliament that makes the law? How can it be that we are passing a law because what Parliament intends is outside it? If it is the will of this Parliament that it is OK for people to grow a bit of tobacco and sit down on their porches and smoke it in their pipes without having to fear the police descending on them and without having to fear customs and excise legislation penalising them criminalising them and taxing them then surely we can do that because there cannot be any law more superior than this Parliament’s.  
This Parliament has to give some thought to whether it is OK to grow tobacco for one’s own personal use. It cannot be the case that the reasoning for doing it is that to allow it is ultra vires. That cannot be right and I look forward to that explanation in the select committee though sadly I will not be there. But in the Committee of the whole House I will make that point.  
Second I am worried about the Government’s comment that the illegal manufacture of tobacco products also reduces the amount of excise duty the Government collects. Now that has to be a worry in the context of this bill because presumably the Government is not taxing tobacco to raise money but because of the health concerns we have. In fact people who smoke complain bitterly that taxing tobacco is just a revenue generating device. In fact my friend from the Maori Party made the point that if the Government was serious about dealing to tobacco then it would prohibit its sale. I ask the member whether it would be manufacture or just sale. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: The whole lot. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: The whole lot in New Zealand. But Hone Harawira tells me the Government will not do it because it loves the revenue. I thought that cannot be true but then I read that we have to clamp down on the private growing of tobacco in someone’s backyard because of the revenue implications. I could understand that if we were talking about tonnes and tonnes but if we think about this we realise there cannot be that much money if grandad living as he does in the Marlborough Sounds grows a bit of tobacco. 
John Hayes 
: Wacky backy. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: No—tobacco. Is the member casting aspersions on my grandfather? It would be tobacco. He sits on the porch in his 89th year puffing on his pipe free of Government interference and happy with the world. I think it is probably a health plus because such people are out there hoeing in the sun. They are enjoying themselves they are getting their benefits and they are puffing on their pipes once in a blue moon. Are we in this Parliament serious when we say: “No no the police will turn up.”? Are we serious when we say that people cannot have as few as 10 tobacco plants which on their birthdays they roll into a bit of tobacco to smoke in their pipe? Are we seriously saying in this Parliament that doing that should be illegal? I do not think it should be.  
In fact I can go further. Hone Harawira told me that he would not make it illegal for people to grow their own tobacco for their own use. So even the man who raised the issue—and I think it is an important issue to raise—of banning tobacco totally would still allow us to grow a bit for our own use. Yet here we are in Parliament saying that people cannot. What will we do? Will we have the police running around checking on tobacco?  
I look across at the Greens. I do not know what their policy is on marijuana but I do remember the discussion that people should be able to grow marijuana for their own use. Well why not tobacco? Why not let people grow tobacco? I am looking forward very much to the discussion in the select committee about what the policy towards the growing and use of tobacco for one’s own use should be because I do like the idea of living in a society where one can do that. I would extend it to other medicinal products as well. People could grow herbs in their backyard. 
Sue Bradford 
: A few poppies. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: A few poppies—whoa! Sue Bradford is putting words in my mouth.  
But why not? This issue about the use of tobacco—growing it in the backyard for one’s own use—is actually a serious issue. I know that Mr Charles Chauvel being a liberal being of a legal mind and being open-minded about these things will want to know a good reason why New Zealanders living in a free society like this cannot have a few tobacco plants in their backyards to puff in their pipes on their 85th birthdays.