Hutchison Paul: Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHutchison Paul: Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 11 February 2014. Volume:696;Page:15798. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua): It gives me great pleasure too to speak on the Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill. Although I believe that Mr Lees-Galloway had a somewhat one-eyed view of the genesis of this legislation I do agree with him that its genesis has been long and thelegislation has been contributed to by many tens of thousands of people over many many decades. I must remind you Mr Deputy Speaker that at the end of the Second World War tobacco smoking had been generally normalised in most Western societies. The troops were given tobacco as a daily ration and unfortunately it was not until the 1960s when Sir Richard Doll did his extraordinary epidemiological work that it was shown beyond doubt that carcinoma of the lung was caused by tobacco smoking. It was not until the 1990s however that this country really got into making legislation to—Hon Annette King: 1989-90.Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: That is right. The early 1990s and then later on there was the smoke-free amendment legislation. I absolutely accept that and I would like to acknowledge Professor Robert Beaglehole who is the founder of Action on Smoking and Health in New Zealand and has been very much the intellectual brains behind a lot of the work done which has required a huge amount of effort and energy over a long period of time. There have been people who have doubted such things as bringing smoke-free transport and smoke-free restaurants into New Zealand and now we all celebrate that fact.The purpose of this legislation indeed is to introduce plain packaging for tobacco products but particularly the aim is to reduce the tobacco uptake among young people. As the Hon Tariana Turia mentioned in her speech branding can be very appealing to young people in its many forms and sorts and in fact it can be very appealing to all people. The whole aim of the tobacco companies is to induce that Pavlovian dog reflex whereby the person who sees the brand just cannot help but get stuck into the goodies and the whole idea of this legislation is indeed to help reduce the glamorisation of packaging that the tobacco companies have been just so very happy to use despite the harm tobacco causes.I understand that ACT and Mr Banks will be one of the few parties not supporting this bill but might I say to Mr Banks that as I understand it libertarian philosophy would say: “As much freedom as possible provided it does no harm.” What we do know is that there are probably 400 to 500 New Zealanders per year who die prematurely because of second-hand smoke. So I would invite the member—Hon John Banks: Will this work?Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: Well I did see in theNew Zealand Heraldtoday that you say you are very much a supporter of people stopping smoking and indeed this is yet another piece in the long number of amendments to that initial smoke-free legislation that we believe will contribute to the diminishment of smoking in this country. [Interruption] We have yet to see them and I would say good on the Australians for bringing in the legislation. It is the first country in the world to do so. The jury is out but the evidence we have seen from the early academic papers from Victoria suggests that it is indeed highly effective Mr Banks so keep an open mind and keep your libertarian philosophy high.I would say that the record and the contribution of the National Government in this area is absolutely beyond doubt. We have increased the excise on tobacco products year after year—the area that we know is most effective. We have banned smoking in prisons and the display of tobacco products at the point of sale and we have seen a big increase in the uptake of Government-subsidised nicotine replacement therapy. We have set the health target for hospitalised patients to quit smoking to 95 percent by 2014 and it has already been achieved. We have now got the target out there in the community for general practitioners to give advice to all their patients who smoke and we are now working on a target for pregnant women. So that too has to be extraordinarily good.I must acknowledge the Māori Affairs Committee and its tremendous effort when it suggested Aotearoa should become smoke-free by 2025. This has been taken up by theNational Government and is another example of where we have shown our absolute commitment to reducing the harm from smoking. We are making sure that time-bound targets are flexible realistic and cost-effective.I was interested to see that the tobacco companies are still able to have their individual brands on the packages but with very tight controls. Hence the controversy in Australia. Good on the Aussies. Unfortunately it has bitten them in terms of the way that they are now embroiled in a very difficult court case through those countries that are producing tobacco and of course the tobacco companies which are doing everything they can in the Third World to encourage and promote smoking which is very much against the public health in those countries.There is no doubt in my mind that although we do not know exactly when this legislation will be enacted the majority of the Parliament is very much for it. But the issues around the World Trade Organization (WTO) are that every country has the sovereign right to protect the health of its people. I do not believe the problem is so much about free trade and the WTO; I believe it is much more about scurrilous tobacco companies colluding with tobacco-producing countries to bring in expensive delaying court action.In respect of the issues regarding the Trans-Pacific Partnership we have clearly signalled that that legislation will come through this Parliament. We have clearly signalled that we will not compromise our sovereign right to protect the public health of our people. This legislation is another step in protecting the public’s health from the proven harms of tobacco. I commend it to the House.