Warren-Clark AngieANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker. It is a real pleasure to rise and speak to—and I'm going to read it out also because it's so very long—the Smoke-free Environments (Prohibiting Smoking in Motor Vehicles Carrying Children) Amendment Bill. It is a real pleasure to rise as a member of the Health Committee and to recognise the Hon Jenny Salesa for putting in place some changes—changes that the Opposition failed to do when they looked at this issue. Nevertheless I take and accept that the members across the House are happy to support it at this stage.Now this bill is what I would consider a small but significant change. As we say ahakoa he iti he pounamu—it is small but precious—just like our little people.Kieran McAnulty: Like me!ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: Ha ha! And like Kieran McAnulty. So this bill seeks very simply to remove smoking from cars when children are present and children are defined as 18 and under". I am like everyone here and I have my own story as well. I grew up in a smoke-free car but the smoke-free car that I grew up in had no seatbelts. We had a Triumph Mk II with overdrive and it was a pretty racy car. It would zoom around. We'd go up and—Jonathan Young: Racy?ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: Well it was racy. It was fire-engine red too. And one of the things was that we kids would be in the backseat completely—there were no seatbelts at all. And of course that has changed now and I think the member Jenny Marcroft said this as well: it was perfectly normal back when I was a young nipper not to have a seatbelt on—absolutely normal. And that is what I particularly like about this bill. This bill seeks to change the norm—the norm that it's OK to smoke in a car when you have children—and it is not seeking to instantly change that norm. There will be an 18-month period of media campaigning etc. which will support this change. So it's about letting people know the harm that is done and it is important to do that because as the members across the House have said a $50 fine may not be significant enough to change but it is part of the picture of that change.Now why is this important? Why is it important to ban smoking in cars? I did write this down. So these are some of the health effects and the member Shane Reti has mentioned them. It increases serious infections affecting breathing to our children. It increases croup bronchitis pneumonia and it increases the likelihood of catching colds coughs and wheezes. It dramatically increases the risk of cot death for infants—dramatically increases the risk of cot death for infants. It increases glue ear and middle ear infections and one that was very surprising to me: the instances of meningococcal disease. And I think that that is something that the Opposition would be very interested to know. And there are about 15000 asthma attacks in children under the age of 16 years per year that are attributed to smoking in cars. So these are some of the things that people may not realise or understand.The other thing that I particularly like about this bill is that with this transition period those officers will also have the option to give people smoking cessation as opposed to an infringement. This will not be a criminal conviction and the person who is smoking will get the infringement not the person who is driving. I think that that it is really important and quite sensible because sometimes we do not have the option or we are unable to ask people to not smoke in our cars and those people will be the ones that will be fined for that. So with that I commend this bill to the House."