Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I want to start by joining in with my colleagues in acknowledging the Minister the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall who has been really engaged in answering a number of my questions about this legislation the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill.Nicotine is a drug like alcohol and like cannabis and the Greens are really proud of our very long track record in this House of being the only party in Parliament that has had a consistent approach to substances and being about harm reduction in the way that we go about approaching them—that is recognition of the reality that criminal prohibition does not get rid of a substance but that it only typically serves to push that substance underground where it gets more harmful and is controlled by those who have not necessarily the best interests of our communities at heart. While the Greens have a number of reservations and concerns about some of the elements of this legislation we will be supporting the critical debate about drug-harm reduction and how best to achieve the Government's stated aims at select committee where we will chew over these issues which I've heard also from the Opposition. I do invite the Opposition to continue saying that they support evidence-based drug-harm reduction because it's a very useful thing to have on the record.Some of those outstanding concerns specifically include firstly the untested proposal which a number of others have put on the table in the debate this evening of substantially restricting the amount of nicotine in cigarettes. It's untested. It's untested from my understanding anywhere and therefore it is going to need some serious robust kicking around. Secondly we do have some concerns around the imposition of this so-called smoke-free generation" ban which whilst absolutely innovative and therefore important does effectively make tobacco criminally prohibited for a portion of our population and eventually were this to come into effect for the entire population moving forward. Of course one of the important components of drug-harm reduction as an approach is to note that there are alternatives. So here we are also looking at other methods of administering nicotine—that being particularly through vaping and of course there is a really important discussion to be had there too.It's also worth noting—and this is a conversation that I had with the Minister—that tobacco can be grown naturally in the same way that the likes of cannabis can be. So there are some important considerations also to be made about what occurs in those kinds of instances were it the case that this hypothetical future smoke-free generation were to stumble upon some tobacco growing out there in the wild. Thirdly the Greens continue to have concerns—as interestingly I've heard from some members of the Opposition as well—about some of the quantification that has or hasn't been done around the black-market implications. Interestingly enough these are debates that we also had on Budget night when I was asking the Minister then of Customs about the implications of increasing tobacco excise tax on particularly the need to then put all the more money into enforcement and where that balance should best be struck and what those implications are for again that evidence-based policy that we all seem so attuned to wanting in this debate.I do really want to emphasise that point on evidence-based policy because when we're talking about our approach to substances whether they be cannabis or they be alcohol or they be tobacco it is very much the case that the question has to be: if we acknowledge that a substance can cause harm how do we best go about reducing that harm? And most researchers in the space of drug-harm reduction will say that there's a kind of spectrum of approaches that you can take. At one end one extreme you have criminal prohibition. At the other end of the extreme you have effectively an unfettered legal free market. At both ends of that spectrum you have on the one side criminal organisations and on the other side commercial entities who are attempting to exploit vulnerable communities in order to make a quick buck. In both of those instances and at both of those extremes you have the maximisation of harm in order to drive a profit motive.So how do we pull back from those extremes? We pull back from those extremes in the space of sensible regulation which brings us back to the point of how we go about having the same kind of discussion—what seems like a very rational discussion that we're having today—about all of the substances in this country which then has flow-on effects with regard to our criminal justice system and our prison population but also importantly reducing things like methamphetamine harm and the potential harm that is caused by people having to go underground in order to get access to cannabis something that notably more than half a million New Zealanders do on a regular basis. It is really interesting and fascinating and amazing to hear the National Party talking about how they're evidence based in this approach because they are of course also the same party that stood against all of the same things that they spoke about so positively in this legislation—they were opposed when it came to the cannabis legalisation and control bill.If we're to talk about the kinds of approaches that we've taken over the past decade in particular but the past few decades and the trajectory of travel around reducing harm for tobacco and getting us to this point of reduced consumption particularly for younger people we do need to talk about interventions like plain packaging we do need to talk about interventions like ending advertising and we do need to talk about interventions like ending consumption in shared and public spaces. These of course again I might add are the same evidence-based harm-reduction approaches that we had in the cannabis legalisation and control bill which I hope the National Party is now reflecting on their stance upon given how they have championed an evidence-based approach to substances and to drugs this afternoon.Just finally we all know that we're all talking tonight about a substance that is incredibly harmful and damaging to people's lives particularly in the instance that it is one that can go about causing cancer—and a number of preventable cancers. To that effect I would implore all of those who have spoken in support of evidence-based harm reduction for this substance or this drug—that being tobacco—this afternoon to apply precisely that same logic to another substance that we will soon get to debate those harm reduction interventions on: that being my alcohol-harm minimisation bill alcohol being the most harmful substance that we have in this country whether it be legal or illegal. It is of course also a level one carcinogen. That is why we've seen the likes of the Cancer Society come out in favour of that legislation too.So in summation there are of course some noble aims from the Government in this bill. However there are a number of untested tactics and mechanisms to go about achieving precisely that. The Greens have some serious concerns about the potential for a new kind of criminal prohibition but we think that this debate deserves far greater scrutiny and we think that the public should be able to engage in that debate. We're inviting all public health experts but also all of those with front-line experience of harm at the coalface to come forward and to speak to the Health Committee which I'm looking forward to subbing in on throughout the progress of this legislation. If I can close my contribution tonight by just imploring the what seems like it will now be 110 members of this House who will be voting on the potential for evidence-based harm-reduction interventions for the substance of tobacco to do precisely the same thing when confronted with the opportunity to do so with other substances. The Greens are supporting this to select committee and from there on we will see."