Woodhouse MichaelClauses 1 to 3Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): This committee needs to consider how seriously we are taking this because now having committed to the fact that we agree that the State should be required to prevent smoking in cars where children are present then the question is: why are being asked to wait 18 months for this to become effective? The select committee debated this at length and we got advice from officials—it was the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Justice—basically saying We consider this will undermine the efficacy of an enforcement agency as there will be no imperative to comply with the direction of an individual if an individual were not liable to penalty." This was in response to my suggestion that the bill actually come into force on the day after it receives Royal assent except for the infringement regime because New Zealand Police told us that it would take 18 months for them to be able to implement the systems required to actually write infringements.So again it reinforces that inconsistency about whether this is a bill an Act effective in prevention or prosecution. If it's an Act effective in the prosecution then our public health officials should have the force of law behind them when they go out in their health promotion campaigns which can start straight away to say that smoking in cars is bad. We've already got those TV ads you know with the woman sitting in the car by the side of the rugby field and the smoke drifting out the car as the kids are coming towards it. It's a form of subtle stigmatisation of the smoking habit. Why not beef that up and say that not only is it wrong it's unlawful? The fact that they might not be punished for it—and indeed that's not the Government's stated intention—should not prevent this House from requiring the Act to become effective as soon as the Governor-General gives it the Royal assent. So I am tabling a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) with apologies to the Minister because it did come quite late. This one I do have to take up. I had believed actually that National in the select committee report had indicated that we would do this. We certainly were unhappy with the timing of the implementation of the Act but I didn't actually do that and as a consequence the SOP has come late. The tabled SOP in my name however amends clause 2 so that the commencement for new sections 20D(3) and (4) and 20F come into force 18 months after the date on which this Act receives the Royal assent but the rest of the Act comes into effect on the day after it gets Royal assent. Now those sections are the infringement regime. So the support for this and the appetite for this I think says two things. It's a question and the answer the Government gives to it will speak to what they really want to be doing here. Is this about prevention or prosecution and how energetically they want to pursue the goal of Smokefree 2025? Because if the answers to those questions are that it is a preventive strategy not a prosecutorial one and if the answer is "We are really serious about making sure we get to Smokefree 2025." then the committee must support my tabled amendment. It sends a very clear signal that we are serious about this that we can take action on this. I simply do not agree that there will be no imperative to comply with a direction if an individual were not liable to a penalty. And their response to that is there's no imperative to even make the Act effective for 18 months. It was a very inconsistent piece of advice from the officials who otherwise did a fantastic job. I must say it's not my place to criticise the role of officials overall. They do a remarkable job for our select committees but on this piece of advice I respectfully and strongly disagree. We should be bringing this bill into force as soon as we can.We should be requiring our health promotion agencies to highlight the reality that smoking in cars is now unlawful albeit that there won't be a punishment—they don't need to say that—and we could spend 18 months on a public education campaign prior to the infringement regime coming in. That to me is common-sense lawmaking."