Utikere Tangi; Salesa JennyTANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Kia ora Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to rise as the chair of the Parliament's Health Committee to speak in support of the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill. Can I acknowledge the leadership of Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall in this particular space who is prepared to save lives rather than put an additional life at risk. So I want to place on the record the acknowledgment of the Minister's leadership in this space. Can I also thank colleagues on the Health Committee committee staff the officials from the Ministry of Health who provided a huge level of support for us the team at Parliamentary Counsel Office and also the submitters. Nearly 2000 submitters throughout New Zealand took the opportunity to share their views their perspectives with the select committee. We did hear some evidence in oral form from 84 submitters and we also had two subcommittees that were set up to hear those and I want to acknowledge the deputy chair of the committee Dr Tracey McLellan who also assisted in chairing one of those subcommittees.When we started this process we heard from a number of individuals such as Hone Harawira and also Tau Henare who encouraged the select committee to go out into the communities and hear directly from the people for whom this will make a huge difference. So we did. We went to South Auckland and we sat down for the better part of a day and we heard from the community there. Chlöe Swarbrick who's been part of this process gave her apologies for that—couldn't be in two places at once—but when other Labour members of that subcommittee turned up not a single National member of Parliament fronted to that community in South Auckland to hear the submissions that those people wanted to make. Not a single member of the National Party turned up to listen to communities. They did not even bother to turn up. I think that is absolutely appalling—absolutely appalling. So I just think that the suggestion that the National Party will support three of the mechanisms or vehicles is nothing but a low shot and an easy opt-out. When members of this House are not prepared to listen to community members and organisations—people like Catherine Manning who I see is in the gallery who has taken time to submit to this process—it is absolutely an indictment on how the National Party view this particular bill and piece of legislation. I want to just touch on some of the changes that were made as a result of this bill going through the Health Committee. One was a limit to the number of retail premises and that's contained in new section 20M in clause 13. Now initially the advice was a suggestion that the number could actually be set by way of secondary legislation in regulations. We heard overwhelmingly from those oral submissions that they would far prefer to have an element of certainty and that the number or limit should be specified in legislation. That's one change that the select committee is recommending. That responds to the views that were expressed by submitters and also provides that certainty. The committee also made some changes in terms of specifying the level that would assist with denicotisation and that level based on advice is 0.8 micrograms per gram in an individual smoked tobacco product. You'll find that at new section 57H in clause 31.The issue of enforcement and responsibility for non-compliance is something and where we landed in terms of the committee's report was at a place which was consistent with other pieces of legislation including within this space and also the requirement for the burden of proof of reasonable excuse resting with the defendant and no one else. One other addition that the select committee turned its mind to was one of reviewing the provisions within this piece of legislation. And so the select committee has recommended inserting new Subpart 7 in clause 52 which would effectively require the Ministry of Health to undertake a review of aspects of this piece of legislation to ensure that it's working as is intended and there would be a requirement for it to be reported back to the Parliament via the relevant Minister. I'll conclude by saying that this is a piece of legislation that will save lives and I am just dumbfounded that members opposite are not willing to step up and do something in that space. We heard from a submitter from Te Rōpu Tupeka Kore—and I'll conclude with this. The submitter said that pāua shells are a whakapapa species; they're not ashtrays and isn't it sad that we currently have a community for whom the whakapapa species is known as ashtrays? It's time that we did something about this because it is hurting our Māori and our Pasifika communities. This bill will address that. I commend this bill to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Before I call the next speaker can I just reflect to all the members in this House that the reference to members not being in this particular House also refers to when members do not attend select committee. I call on Harete Hipango.