Lees-Galloway Iain: Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Lees-Galloway Iain: Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 14 July 2011. Volume:674;Page:20124. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) 
: 
 The Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill will today receive near total consensus support in the House. I think that amongst all the things to celebrate about this legislation possibly one of the greatest celebrations we should note today is the way the House has come together on this legislation and how far a number of parties have come over the years from previous positions on tobacco enforcement and control measures. I congratulate the Associate Minister of Health Tariana Turia on introducing this legislation and bringing it to this final reading to the point where we are at the most 2 years away now from the total eradication of those tobacco displays and that is fantastic. Within a year we will see most of them gone and the stragglers will be tidied up over the following year and that is something we can all smile about. It is great news and I congratulate the Minister. I too would like to acknowledge the people who have taken leadership roles over the years. I think of people like Helen Clark Tuku Morgan Stevie Chadwick and of course my colleagues on the Health Committee. Also of course I had the pleasure of being a temporary member of the Maori Affairs Committee for its inquiry which of course was initiated by Hone Harawira and well chaired by Tau Henare. The Health Committee was very well chaired by Paul Hutchison. Everybody is part of this great journey. 
We have spoken so much about the journey which has been going for decades now with various pieces of legislation but there certainly has been a journey over this term of Parliament. I do not want to dwell on it too much but we have come a long way from the position that was held early on in this term of Parliament when it was believed by the Government that there was no evidence in favour of taking this move. The Minister I acknowledge used her position to move the Government away from its position in order to get this bill introduced and that is fantastic. It is an amazing achievement for the Minister and it is an amazing achievement for this Parliament. I hope this sets the precedent for future tobacco control legislation that the days of the bitter arguments are behind us now and that this consensus is what we will see whenever we seek to clamp down further on tobacco. I agree with the Minister that there is more work to be done. We have set a bold ambitious goal of making New Zealand smoke-free by 2025 and although this bill is a component of achieving it it is not the silver bullet by any stretch of the imagination and there is a lot more work to do. But I take a lot of heart from the support that this legislation has received from around the House. 
We all know of course the reasons why reducing smoking rates in New Zealand is so important. Five thousand New Zealanders die every year from smoking-related diseases. That means that just in the term of this Parliament 10000 people have died unnecessarily because of smoking-related diseases. Unfortunately many of our young people are still being tempted. The number is reducing but not fast enough to achieve that goal of being smoke-free by 2025 so more needs to be done. The journey has been fantastic. We have got smoking out of workplaces. We have got smoking out of bars. Governments led by both National and Labour now have been prepared to increase excise tax and that is an important component. We are on the journey but there is a lot more to be done. 
This bill has some very important measures and we should note them. We all know what they are but we should note what this bill actually achieves. First and foremost of course the bill gets rid of tobacco displays. The last bastion of tobacco advertising is gone so now people will be free to walk into the dairy without being confronted with this appalling addictive product. The bill also clamps down on covert sponsorship which is one of the most surreptitious methods by which the tobacco industry tries to reach our young people. It also ensures that internet sales fall into line with what we expect within a dairy or a supermarket and it introduces some penalties associated with breaking the new regulations. It also increases the penalties for supplying tobacco to young people. The bill also tries to tighten up the area of trade rebates and discounts because that is another way in which the tobacco industry incentivises retailers to sell as much as they can and to have tobacco products in their dairies supermarkets and service stations. 
Obviously there are a number of groups organisations and people who have submitted lobbied and worked alongside members of Parliament to get this legislation through. Some people have not been acknowledged yet and I would like to congratulate them. They are the retailers who have already taken this step. Even though this step was not legislated for they have voluntarily taken it. I know of dairies that do not sell cigarettes any more. That might be considered a dangerous step by some retailers but these dairy owners report no loss of sales. In fact they are very popular within their local community. Some people go out of their way to buy their bread milk and newspaper from those dairies because they know the dairies have taken that step and they want to congratulate them on and reward them for doing it. I do not think retailers have anything to fear from this measure. First and foremost it creates a level playing field as everybody is in the same boat so retailers certainly have nothing to fear. I do not think that retailers need to fear that people will not come in to buy their smokes or that they will be put off because tobacco is not visibly available. I think that actually they will be supported and congratulated by their communities around them. 
As I have said a lot has been made of the journey. There are some next steps we have to undertake. The Minister raised the issue of plain packaging and I think that is something we need to move on swiftly. We need to follow the example of our Australian cousins and to be just as brave as they have been. They have been challenged by the tobacco industry with all the force of the powerful legal teams that industry has available to it—all the resources from all the money it has made over the years from the poor people who are addicted to the product it peddles. Although the tobacco industry is going to take on the Australian Government we should not be in any way put off by those moves from the tobacco industry. We should confront it head on we should support the Australians and we should go down the same path and introduce plain packaging. I would have liked to see another thing included in this bill but it was not and when I considered proposing an amendment to include it it was outside the scope of the bill and that is the issue of vending machines. It might seem like a small deal—and I know you want me to stick to this bill Mr Deputy Speaker—but that is the next area we need to consider in the next step of the journey that this bill is a very important aspect of. 
In closing I thank everybody who has supported this legislation and who has supported those MPs who have advocated for this change to occur during this term of Parliament and before. I acknowledge everyone who has got us to this point and I strongly encourage Parliament to take the next steps that are necessary and to stick to the goal of making New Zealand smoke-free by 2025.