Bond RiaRIA BOND (NZ First): I want to respond to the member Kevin Hague who has just talked about New Zealand First's Supplementary Order Papers 198 and 199. I want to point out to that member that the reason why these Supplementary Order Papers have been produced by my fine colleague Barbara Stewart who has not got the tobacco lobbyists in her pocket as Minister Lotu-Iiga claims but he will not get up and man up and say sorry to her. I want to address the fact that as the bill says—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Order! The member cannot use a phrase such as that in her speech like that. There has been some dialogue between the members. I think the member should just move on.RIA BOND: Thank you Mr Chair. I will do that. I want to point out that the bill reads under clause 2 Commencement": "(1) This Act comes into force on a date appointed by the Governor-General by Order in Council." That gives the manufacturers and the retailers no security whatsoever. It then says: "(2) However if this Act is not in force by the day that is 18 months after the date on which it receives the Royal assent it comes into force on that day." So the issue—which is why Barbara Stewart provided her Supplementary Order Papers—is that there is no security of an actual date given to manufacturers or retailers.Mr Hague also got up and said that as a former small-business owner he believes that business owners can actually get themselves into line with changes when they are aware that bills are going through the House. Well Mr Hague I am sorry to tell you but small-business owners are in this case little dairies on the corners which I grew up going to and buying things from as a kid; the garages that actually used to be owned by Kiwis but now the owners find it hard to speak English; and the supermarkets that have the issue that they actually do buy the cigarettes in quantity—in thousands. So I do not find that comment about the fact that small businesses would be relatively organised and savvy to be quite true.The issue—which again is why Barbara has brought these Supplementary Order Papers to the Committee—is that the needed transition time and production time needs to be fair on the manufacturers and give them time to comply. In terms of the production line and what actually happens in this instance they have to approve of a new plain packaging design. This goes back and forth through the manufacturers to approve the design and then they actually have to go through and change their production line change the actual calibrations to their machinery and change how their establishments inside their manufacturing lines are working. That is no easy process for manufacturers to go through. I think the practical element in terms of bills in this House sometimes gets lost on members.What we are asking for in Supplementary Order Paper 198 is an actual definitive date. I think too that we actually set a precedent when New Zealand changed from text health warnings to graphic health warnings. That gave manufacturers 12 months. A definitive date—that is all we are asking for. Give the manufacturers an actual definitive date—there would not need to be a Supplementary Order Paper put forward if this were the case.I also want to talk further about the fact that the logistical and operational issues for manufacturers surrounding plain packaging—it has been brought to our attention that the time frame again is what actually concerns them the most. I do happen to think the 12 weeks' wash-out as the Minister said earlier is hardly good enough. We have seen from the examples in Australia that this did not actually work for them and caused massive problems. In fact the Australians had to backtrack when they realised what a mess they had actually made of this. They did backtrack and they did provide a better time frame.I want to also talk again about the fact of the impact on small businesses. I think that this bill does demonstrate a distinct lack of awareness of the commercial realities of being a small-business owner. I think that because we do have a lot of dairies on the corner that do sell cigarettes behind the plain doors now—as I said they stockpile. They buy these cigarette packets in quantities in thousands in cartons. These dairy owners petrol stations and supermarkets are going to be left out of pocket and that is a serious concern for New Zealand First. We need to protect our small businesses and this bill does not actually do that. It does not take into account that these small businesses have dumped thousands of dollars into buying cigarettes.I want to refer to a media statement or a media release if you like. It says here that the move to not have any consideration of what the impact of plain packaging would be on small businesses—because they were not given a definitive date they wanted know if anything whether retailers were going to receive compensation. This was from one of the Australian retailers and I too wonder about that myself because the retailers are going to actually lose quite a lot of money in stock sitting there. I wonder too whether this Government is going to compensate the retailers."