van Velden BrookeBROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party tonight to oppose the first reading of the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill. It's hard to know where to start with this bill because it's so terrible from all angles. So I'll try and touch on a few main points because we could be here all day talking about how many times this Government has entered this Chamber and started passing laws that are not based on evidence not based on any good regulatory impact analysis and in fact don't solve any clear problem. In many cases they actually create more problems than they solve. And this is a very clear point to be made for this bill: there is another problem that comes out of this bill by restricting people being able to smoke.This bill is short-sighted and it's short-sighted because of its prohibition. That's very plain and simple. You know this Government constantly comes in here and says We're going to tax people because we don't like them." It's quite that simple. Or "We're just going to ban and regulate something that we don't like. We don't like that product. So the best way to solve that problem is to ban or regulate it." I can think of a few recent examples and the first that springs to mind is ute owners. Not everybody here will own a ute. And I don't really care if anybody does or doesn't own a ute but the Government doesn't like ute owners. And so what did they do? They've imposed a "ute tax". And so they've said "You know what? We don't really like that. Let's add another cost to some people and we're going to say 'You're bad you're a bad person because we don't like utes.'" And you just think of farmers; the Government also doesn't like farmers. They're clearly bad people according to this Government. They come in here and say "Well maybe we should reduce the number of cows people have because we don't like cows and we don't like farmers."David Seymour: What about landlords?BROOKE VAN VELDEN: It doesn't actually improve any situation in New Zealand. It's just harmful bad policy.David's just mentioned landlords. What about all of the attacks that this Government makes on landlords? They constantly stand up here and say that landlords have caused the housing crisis when it is in fact bad Government policy that has caused this—DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'm going to ask the member to come to the bill. This is not a general debate and you've mentioned three different topics which are not in the bill. So please come to the bill.BROOKE VAN VELDEN: Mr Speaker these all are very very closely related to the prohibition that this Government wants to make on people who smoke in New Zealand—DEPUTY SPEAKER: That might be so but you have not linked the two yet.BROOKE VAN VELDEN: Very good. Well the point that I'm clearly trying to make with these examples is that this is a Government that decides it doesn't like something so the best way it can solve its problem that it doesn't like something is to ban it or to regulate it or to impose another tax upon it. And so this is clearly a bill that is just control for control's sake rather than actually trying to get to the root of any problem. It's nanny Statism and it's controlling people's lives.If I look at the bill and the three things that it's trying to set out to achieve: it wants to set limits on the quantity of nicotine levels within cigarettes; it wants to amend the age limit to say an entire group of people will never have the legal ability to smoke; and it wants to reduce the number of retailers available in New Zealand that can sell cigarettes. You just have to look at the regulatory impact statement to see why this bill is so harmful and why it should never have been brought to the House.I want to touch on a few quotes and so I'll do a bit of reading here Mr Speaker if you'll allow me. I think that these are very important points that need to be made public. The first quote here from the regulatory impact statement says "Most of the measures being considered within this bill have yet to be widely implemented internationally and in some cases New Zealand would be the first country in the world to implement them.". It goes on to say "There is. Therefore there's significant uncertainty in the outcomes. … there is a lack of evaluation from comparable markets. Even when there's been comparable implementation and evaluation the evaluation is limited. There is no empirical evidence to tell us how the measures will impact equity among the New Zealand population." This Government constantly goes on about equity and yet there is no empirical evidence on this. So I want to touch on point one which was about setting a limit on the quantity of nicotine levels within cigarettes. The regulatory impact statement says that this is technically challenging as a policy measure. It says that this option is likely to incentivise imports of illicit tobacco and that while the current illicit market provides the same product that can otherwise be bought legally but at a lower price a future illicit market is likely to offer tobacco with high nicotine content that cannot be purchased legally. This may result in a higher price being charged for illicit tobacco than currently making illegal sales more appealing for organised crime.So what is the effect of the Government wanting to reduce people smoking legally? It's going to increase organised crime. And I want to point to this particular statement within the regulatory impact statement—you see right there? It's been redacted. The Government even in its own regulatory impact statement doesn't want to point to the fact that there will be an increasing illicit organised crime market. And I really want to know what information the Government is hiding from us here because I don't think that's acceptable.There will be people in New Zealand who do smoke and when the nicotine levels are reduced will still be wanting to smoke. They will be addicted to the substance. And so instead of completely reducing the number of cigarettes they will actually smoke more because you'll end up with people wanting that same hit from more cigarettes. But the real point here is that nicotine is the least harmful aspect of a cigarette. It's the tar that causes harm. So by reducing the amount of nicotine in a cigarette you could end up with some people actually increasing their harm by using more cigarettes and increasing the amount of tar that's going into their bodies. So that's harmful for people who don't have another substance to go towards. And we know that this Government is also wanting to ban and regulate vaping products. So there is an alternative that should be there for people as well.But do we really want to live in a society where the Government will ban a product and simply try and prohibit it and push it towards the gangs? We know that we have a gang problem in New Zealand. We need healthy thriving communities and all that this Government will do is put more power in the hands of gangs. I don't think that's acceptable. I think the second point about amending the age limit is just simply nanny Statism. You know they're telling an entire group of people "Even once you're an adult even once you're 30 40 50 you can't make decisions about your own life. You need the Government to come in and stop you from making decisions that we don't like." I mean this is just the first instance but where does it stop? "Sorry you have too much sugar so we're going to reduce how much sugar you can have." "Sorry we don't think you should be allowed to eat meat so we're going to ban sausages." I mean it's just ridiculous nanny Statism and it's control for the sake of it.When it comes to reducing retail availability I think this one is particularly bad for small businesses in New Zealand. You know this law is asking for a reduction in competition in the market. That's essentially what it's doing. It's the Director-General of Health now being able to pick and choose winners pick and choose which dairy owners people can go to.You know if you had multiple competitors multiple dairies colluding in a market to say that they were going to stop a competitor being able to sell or buy products those people would be up before the Commerce Commission. And in this instance you're ending up with the Director-General of Health being able to stop competition in a market. We also know that when people are buying cigarettes that's not the only thing that they go to buy. When people go to buy cigarettes they go to buy bread milk and other things that you can buy from a convenience store. And what's happening here is that the Director-General of Health by being able to restrict the number of outlets that can sell cigarettes is picking and choosing winners and different retailers who will be able to have a good sale versus others who may go out of business and I don't think that's fair. Thank you Mr Speaker.DEPUTY SPEAKER: I called Dr Anae Neru Leavasa joining us remotely."