McLellan TraceyDr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker—thank you. It's not a pleasure but it is something that I have to do in so far as talking in this third reading of this bill. It's not a pleasure because it's a really sad day. I think that Cameron Brewer's contribution that he just made possibly sounded a little bit different in his head because I'm not entirely sure that anybody he referenced in that contribution would be thinking the same things as he just regaled us with.The Minister has repeatedly said that this isn't the end position. She wants to see a stop to smoking—sounds good. And further she is continuing the continuation of her work on strategies that will reach a smoke-free target. Yet throughout this process she hasn't been able to give anyone any confidence whatsoever that she has a single idea let alone a good idea that will actually work. She had the audacity earlier to say it's an emotional issue. It's not an emotional issue; it's a deadly issue.Frankly with the poor judgment that's been shown to date throughout this debate which has only taken one day when it should have gone through a proper process rather than urgency there has been a complete lack of understanding of the fundamentals. A complete lack of understanding of what evidence is of what empirical evidence is of what the modelling shows and all of the work that numerous experts have done in this domain over many years. Does the Minister really think that anyone now trusts her to come up with some magic solutions that no one's thought of before? Because she's just hiffed out the universally acknowledged gold standard and it's been chucked in the bin in this unceremonious unruly ridiculous way in urgency tonight. When I think about the harm that this causes it really does make me feel a little bit livid. This change can't be justified from any health perspective at all. There is no health perspective in this debate. There is no logic or health logic in anything that's going on in this House tonight. We will see more people suffer we will see more people be sick and therefore more people clogging up our hospitals with the healthcare costs that are associated with that down the line with the people that then miss out on the treatments that they need because of that not to mention the associated costs of just people not being at work—the productivity costs.The harms that tobacco does in our communities are clear. And the evidence—actual evidence—shows us that the smoke-free legislation that we introduced in 2022 that's been hiffed out tonight would have saved about 8000 and that is nothing to sniff at is it? That's 8000 human beings who would be alive if this Government had the fortitude to carry on with a piece of legislation that was delivered to them on a plate apart from the fact that they have to pander to the tobacco lobby to repeal it. It would have extended Māori life expectancy and it would have saved about $5 billion in healthcare costs and that's a real shame.It's a particular shame because when we consider the impetus for this the reality is that the Government's simply turning a blind eye to that damage. They're turning a blind eye and they're resolutely ignoring everything that's gone on tonight because they need to fund tax cuts. It's an indictment on this Government's priorities that we're literally here repealing smoke-free laws to fund tax cuts that are disproportionately favourable to our most wealthy.Now many people have said and let me reiterate the National Party did not campaign on this repeal at the election. New Zealanders I think have been quite shocked. I know I've certainly run into people who have had some buyers' remorse. They've been shocked by the plans to scrap this legislation and it's been described as a dirty deal done behind closed doors. Other people on the other side have interjected to say it's a coalition arrangement—it's a coalition agreement. The Minister herself even expanded that to say it wasn't just the New Zealand First - National coalition agreement; it was the National-ACT coalition agreement as well as if that somehow made it better. As I said: dirty deal done behind closed doors.National has cherry-picked details to misrepresent and deliberately mislead the public and you could see this happening as they tippytoed up to this issue before they dropped the bomb. They said things like there would be only one store in Northland retailing tobacco when there would actually be 35. They were sowing the seeds of all that misinformation just to prepare the public for this. Two more points. The other main impetus cited for the scrapping is the black market. We've talked about it earlier on tonight. Historically we know—we know—there is little evidence that these measures significantly increase illicit tobacco trade in New Zealand or anywhere else in the world. I think it's a real shame when things like that are brought into the debate and used to scare people. It's the bogeyman isn't it? The black market! It doesn't exist. Past tobacco control measures despite claims from the tobacco industry—Tim Costley: What?Dr TRACEY McLELLAN: It does exist on the websites of the tobacco industries. It does exist in the minds of some economists who are very motivated to do that. But it hasn't been shown to empirically exist in any meaningful way to warrant this scrapping.The other thing that is the impetus behind this which does not balance out 8000 lives lost and does not balance out $5 billion wasted is that the data used to justify this wasn't accurate because it was as current as 2019. Again that's another example of a Minister who doesn't understand statistics completely misunderstanding the use of whole numbers versus trends modelling and all the other expertise that go into making those accounts.The public response is something that I want to finish my contribution on. Health professionals and groups all across the country I think have been quite loud and quite clear when they have said that they don't want to see this repeal. We absolutely on this side of the House are completely united when we share those concerns and we worry about those vocalisations about these health groups because we know that they're the experts. We know that they know what they're talking about. Polling commissioned by Health Coalition Aotearoa showed that 67 percent of New Zealanders supported our smoke-free legislation. Hundreds of health groups have signed open letters opposing this repeal. We saw rallies and demonstrations organised throughout the country in Auckland Wellington and Christchurch organised by the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists and organised by the New Zealand Nurses Organisation where we literally saw health professionals—mainly health professionals—carrying posters of Dr Shane Cigareti". They had health posters showing Hamish Campbell sitting over there and Dr Vanessa Weenink. They were holding posters because they were so shocked that people from the medical professions would be part of this. I want to reiterate my colleague Ingrid Leary's plea prior: it is not too late. You can cross the House and you can do the right thing. I know that you've been under pressure. I know that the people who work in health in particular have been under a huge amount of pressure. But it's not too late.Actually speaking of the Hon Dr Reti he can't escape and he can't run from his responsibilities for this decision. Just because the first thing he did was to callously delegate this to a brand new Minister who is clearly out of her depth who clearly does not understand the legislation does not take away from the part that he's played in turning this legislation backwards. He campaigned on a health system being in crisis and the first thing he does is actually repeal a piece of legislation that would properly do something to address that. This repeal helps nobody but the tobacco industry and that has been said on numerous occasions even with some warning about not going too far. I don't know if we can go too far with this. This repeal helps nobody but the tobacco industry. In fact the Government's talking points have literally been cribbed from their websites. You could make a table. We have made a table: what the Government's saying; what they're saying on their website—it's deplorable. Yet we also have the mystery of that document—that mysterious document proposing tax cuts written by goodness knows who—magically appearing in the Minister's office which she passed on to officials. All of that adds up to the fact that this stinks. It's a sad day. I feel embarrassed for all of the people on that side of the House."