Woodhouse MichaelSMOKE-FREE ENVIRONMENTS (PROHIBITING SMOKING IN MOTOR VEHICLES CARRYING CHILDREN) AMENDMENT BILLIn CommitteePart 1 Amendments to principal ActHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): I'm pleased to take the first call in the Smoke-free Environments (Prohibiting Smoking in Motor Vehicles Carrying Children) Amendment Bill a bill that I at least have supported with some reservations. We have had quite a bit of a discussion this week around freedom of expression in another bill and I think also from a values base that the question of freedom to choose how one lives one's life has also underpinned the very cautious support for this bill. Because what we have in this bill is the State going in effectively to the private property and the private affairs of families to say how they should live. That is a quite large step to take. There is I believe an important question of family sovereignty when it comes to the choices they make even when those choices are bad ones. But on balance and given the very important goal that we have of setting the country up for smoke-free 2025 and also the fact that this is a piece of legislation designed to prevent harm to children on balance I and the National Party caucus have supported it so far. We had excellent submissions actually including from some fabulous young people into the select committee—that was articulated in the second reading. I want to draw on that as we go into some of the questions and the proposed amendments including the first one in my name which was an amendment to Part 1A because Part 1A does the most extraordinary thing. The bill says that it will be unlawful to smoke in a car with a person under the age of 18 and then inexplicably it says that if the car is stationary and used as a dwelling it's OK. That is the most extraordinary piece of double-think that I have ever seen in a piece of legislation. If having crossed into the realm of the decision that this is a place the State should be then be there properly. If the State wants to genuinely protect children from the harmful effects of tobacco because the enclosed space is so small then do it properly. And yet we have this extraordinary paragraph: paragraph (b) in section 20D(2) in Part 1A where the person may smoke in a motor vehicle if the motor vehicle is stationary on a road and in use as a dwelling. I'm aware the Minister has Supplementary Order Paper 452 to amend that particular part of the legislation but I don't think it's good enough. I don't think that particular paragraph should be there. My tabled amendment simply does away with this ridiculous inconsistency with the stated purpose of this bill.Now the Health Committee also had quite a discussion about the other exception—or at least the National members of the committee did—in paragraph 20D(2)(a) of Part 1A set out in clause 9 which is where if the person themselves under the age of 18 is in the car and they are smoking then that should be OK. I think on balance that this does highlight an inconsistency in the message the State is sending about the responsibility of people under the age of 18 not to smoke and I'm not comfortable with that but nevertheless I don't think it's as large and egregious a breach of the goals of this bill to actually remove it.Now also in Part 1 we have the question of vaping or in fact we don't have the question of vaping because vaping actually isn't mentioned in here. This is an amendment to the Smoke-free Environments Act. Of course as we know vaping is not included in the Smoke-free Environments Act. There was a strong call from the committee to include it.The reason officials said that that wouldn't be the case is because the vaping legislation was coming soon. Well it is coming soon. We will be considering that matter later in the not too distant future but I think the inconsistency—I won't take too long finishing this opening remark. The lack of energy around the smoke-free environments—because we ran the very real possibility that the bill would be passed into law without the vaping legislation actually being in place—was of great concern to submitters. It remains a concern to me. Thankfully I think the time frame that the Government does want to pursue will mean that there won't be this unusual loophole where it's not OK to smoke but it's OK to vape. We will get there in the end but I think there was a significant concern amongst submitters about the absence of that from Part 1. With those opening remarks I look forward to the debate proceeding.