Lees-Galloway Iain: Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Lees-Galloway Iain: Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:674;Page:20086] 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) 
: 
 I have a few things I would like to discuss in this call on Part 1 of the Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill. First though I would like to respond to Dr Paul Hutchison. In fact when he started to address my Supplementary Order Paper 256and the lights went out I thought that maybe he was going to woo me. Unfortunately I was quickly rebuffed. That was sad and I was disappointed. I would argue particularly in relation to the second amendment in my Supplementary Order Paper that there is a need to be quite restrictive as to how the signs can be displayed. Although the intent is clearly there in the bill as it is written at the moment I think there is still the opportunity for a creative person to find a way to manipulate it and to use the signage as a form of covert advertising. 
In a way I am a little bit disappointed that I got the call right now because I was in the middle of a text conversation with Carrick Graham. People will know who Carrick Graham is—he is the public relations man for the tobacco industry—and we have been having a little conversation about what is going on tonight. He has just sent me a text saying that Foodstuffs will be—and pardon my language this is a direct quote—“spewing” about my Supplementary Order Paper. I was just about to write back and say “Really? Why?”. That suggests to me that maybe there is something underlying here about the way in which supermarkets use this signage as a form of covert advertising. If Foodstuffs will be upset about my Supplementary Order Paper then maybe— 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: He hasn’t told you why. 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY 
: No I wanted to get to the bottom of why it was but given that it is Carrick I think I might know why it might be. If there is some discomfit about what my Supplementary Order Paper would achieve then maybe we need to delve a little bit further into why the retailers might be uncomfortable with it. I implore the National members to reconsider their position particularly in relation to the second amendment on the Supplementary Order Paper. 
However what I really want to talk about in this call is the issue of herbal smoking products. It was a decision that took a lot of conversation at the Health Committee. We were all really on the same page. We see getting rid of the point-of-sale advertising of herbal smoking products as something that is a positive move. But I have to admit that when the Ministry of Health brought this issue to the select committee—and it was very much at the last minute—the late arrival of this suggestion did not help in terms of the select committee getting to the decision that the Ministry of Health wanted us to make. My initial response was “Hang on I don’t think this is a matter for the smoke-free environments bill because the bill is about tobacco.” The Minister in the chair the Hon Tariana Turia has wanted to focus on tobacco and I felt that this might be a distraction from the issue. In a way it was a learning experience because I discovered through that process that herbal smoking products are already covered by the Smoke-free Environments Act. We eventually came to the decision that because we had not had public consultation about what to do with herbal smoking products it was better to not include it in this bill but to make a strong recommendation to the Government that it was something we wanted to move on as quickly as possible using the right legislation. 
I note that further restriction on advertising of herbal smoking products is something that Associate Minister of Health Peter Dunne is wanting to achieve through the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill which is also progressing through the House at the moment. I suppose that reflects the crossover whereby tobacco is essentially a drug and in different times we might have thought that maybe we should put tobacco into the Misuse of Drugs Act rather than have separate legislation for it. But it does get confusing and it is a bit messy. Ultimately that led to why the select committee chose to not include herbal smoking products in the display ban. However we did decide to include herbal smoking products in some of the other restrictions that this bill brings in.