Wagner NickyHon NICKY WAGNER (National): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. My dad used to smoke. He smoked at work. He smoked at the pub with his mates. He smoked at home and he smoked in the car and I vividly remember three kids in the back of the Zephyr—always sick on long trips and throwing up on windy roads. I still think that my dad never put our sickness and his smoking together. He also smoked a pipe at home and I got to like the smell of smoke. Now I'm absolutely horrified of what our house looked like and smelt like.But I got to like the smell of smoke and I got to even think that smoking was OK because I loved my dad. But things are very very different today. Every New Zealander now knows that smoking is bad for your health and that second-hand smoke is dangerous for babies and children. Of course these days most New Zealanders don't smoke: 87 percent of New Zealanders are non-smokers. Only 13 percent of us smoke daily and that's a far cry from the peak smoking years—the 1950s and 1960s when my dad was around—when most men smoked and the majority of women smoked too.Although only 13 percent of New Zealanders smoke daily—and the majority of them tell us that they want to give up—there is a specific cohort of our population who find it almost impossible to quit. For example 34 percent of Māori smoke and in fact Māori are 2.6 times more likely to smoke than non-Māori. The worst thing is that 37 percent of Māori women smoke and that's particularly risky because they're more likely to be with children and babies and we know that children are more likely themselves to smoke when smoking is common in the family. Similarly Pacific communities have a high percentage of smokers at 23 percent.Now back in 2011 the Māori Affairs Committee had an inquiry into smoking. After that inquiry the National Government supported by the Māori Party and in particular Dame Tariana Turia introduced the smoke-free New Zealand 2025 goal. That was the aim for this country: to become smoke-free—and the definition of smoke-free is less than 5 percent of people smoking—by 2025. Since then an enormous amount of work has been done to try and find ways to support habitual and heavy smokers to quit. We've increased smoke-free areas increased taxation on cigarettes developed advertising campaigns to deter smokers and provided quit-smoking aids—and these include nicotine replacement therapy patches and gum. We've also supported quit-smoking clinics. We even had a district health board health target that focused on quitting smoking but that's gone now of course.We have made significant progress since 2011 but we're not quite on track. We need a game-changer—we need a game-changer to make the difference and fortunately that game-changer is already available in our communities. E-cigarettes and vaping are the tools that could get us to Smokefree Aotearoa 2025. But we need legislation to regulate the quality of the products and their use and to inform the public that these products are successful in helping smokers who find it very difficult to quit. We have strong evidence from the Vape2Save programme run by Rebecca Ruwhiu-Collins and targeted at Māori woman that vaping works for that community.We also have significant international evidence about how vaping can help smokers quit. Research tells us that e-cigarettes are 95 percent less harmful than tobacco—and they've been sold and promoted in the UK for well over a decade. The British National Health Service says that they are a valuable tool for quitting and the UK Parliament—their Science and Technology Committee—recently concluded that e-cigarettes should be strongly promoted as an alternative tobacco. The reason that e-cigarettes are such a game-changer is that they deliver much more than the normal nicotine patches or gum. They provide a way for smokers to cope—[Mr Speaker holds up copy of bill] Yes I will link this to the bill I promise. They provide a way for smokers to cope with the triggers that stimulate smokers particularly people who might be driving in their car—the physical activities of the rituals of handling tobacco but also the lips the mouth and the drawback activities and all that with 95 percent harm.Now we need to make sure that people stop smoking they stop the craving so that they don't have to smoke in their cars—and vaping does stop that craving. It also helps quitters manage those habitual behaviours but also without the long-term satisfaction that keeps them vaping. We know that the majority of people vape temporarily. In fact I've only ever met one person who says they expect to vape for life and he says that's because he was a constant smoker since the age of 12 and smoked up to 100 cigarettes every day for years and years even while he was driving the car.SPEAKER: The member gets to it every now and again.Hon NICKY WAGNER: But what's interesting about vaping here is that the UK has confirmed their research that vaping and I quote this is Almost entirely confined to those who have smoked" and almost one in eight UK ex-smokers vape—SPEAKER: Order! I am going to ask the member to—Hon NICKY WAGNER: —OK—compared to less than 0.5 percent—SPEAKER: The Minister made a passing comment about vaping but not an ad for it.Hon NICKY WAGNER: OK; back to the Smoke-free Environments (Prohibiting Smoking in Motor Vehicles Carrying Children) Amendment Bill. Actually I think we're wasting our time debating this bill. We're wasting our energy and our resource because it just nibbles around the edge of the issues. It's about virtue signalling and it doesn't do any real action. I was particularly interested to see the Minister for housing opening this because of course in the bill it allows people to have an exemption to smoke in their cars if they're living in their cars. I wondered if that's the way he was going to get his KiwiBuild numbers up. There's a direct correlation between the amount of smoking in cars and the number of people who smoke. So I think we should be tackling the issue head-on and actually getting people to quit smoking so that they don't smoke in their cars.We're debating the wrong bill here. We should put our energy into dealing with the real problem helping people quit rather than punishing them for what they do while they're addicted. This bill will actually fine the people who we know are the most vulnerable and who we know have the least ability to pay those fines. There's been considerable debate among social scientists about whether this bill will actually do the job and even in the regulatory impact statement it said "While this evidence for the health impacts of changed behaviour is strong the evidence for the likely impact of legislation is limited". I have met with Minister Salesa who's responsible for the Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 goal. She says all the right things about legislation but it's now been 18 months. She's heard the calls from the health sector to pass legislation for e-cigarettes and vaping and still nothing has come of it.My member's bill the Smoke-free Environments (Regulation of Electronic Cigarettes) Amendment Bill which was developed while I was the Associate Minister of Health and which was ready to be introduced—I had planned to introduce it after the 2017 election—provides the regulatory framework to support vaping and in turn to support—SPEAKER: Order! Order! That is enough. This is now the final warning on vaping.Hon NICKY WAGNER: OK. Unfortunately this bill will not make a difference to people smoking and smoking in their cars. If however we could have legislation that would do vaping and e-cigarettes people would have an alternative so they didn't have to smoke in their cars and the children would not have to put up with second-hand smoke.I think it is time that we dealt with this problem head-on that we dealt with the issue that we stopped people smoking in their cars by giving them an alternative so that they quit smoking. Thank you Mr Speaker.I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek leave to introduce and set down for first reading forthwith the Smoke-free Environments (Regulation of Electronic Cigarettes) Amendment Bill—a member's bill in my name.SPEAKER: Leave has been sought for that. Is there any objection? There is objection."