Horomia Parekura: Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Horomia Parekura: Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 26 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5724. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Labour—Ikaroa-Rawhiti) 
: 
 I just want to follow on as I said in Part 1 from that great speech from Maryan Street by saying that this measure is more than cynical it is one of the most outrageous alignments of officials under Ministers’ directions in not recognising that. I want to go with what I read out in debate on Part 1 in relation to this: “The analysis has not included a range of other issues due to time and resource constraints. Key gaps in the information include—overall economic and fiscal impacts on smoking (eg: health …” and it goes down to “the fiscal costs of publicly funded health and disability services linked to smoking; or fiscal offsets such as reduced superannuation and aged-care expenditures due to the lower life expectancy of smokers)—impact on the economic welfare of smokers and their families;”. 
As Maryan Street says and suggested this is an incredible situation where beneficiaries are being more than bullied they are being separated out. Why do we not do the same thing to the lawyers and accountants in this country? They all have lips and lungs that suck in the smoke. Why is it so different that it should be left to beneficiaries? In the sense of the redistribution if you are going to hold $528 million and the $170 million that the Minister in the chair Anne Tolley said in a speech today that she saved from building the big prison where the hang are we going? That is nearly $700 million. Where is that going to? Is it going to fill up the potholes on the way to the golden mile above Auckland? Is it going to do other things? I join with Maryan Street and say that this is callous— 
Todd McClay 
: That’s not a picture I would like to see Pare. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: No no there are people in Rotorua who smoke and people down in Clendon who smoke. There are a lot of people there who are beneficiaries and you have not done too well as— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: Those people there have not done very well. When you are running at an unemployment rate of 15 percent for Maori and Pasifika people and 74 percent of them are smokers where do you get the relief or the recognition in relation to ensuring that the tax grab is at least redistributed amongst some of those people? 
Hon Judith Collins 
: Are you for it or against it? Which one? I’m just checking. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: That member over there can chortle and laugh and chatter and clatter but at the end of the day this is outrageous. This is terrible. 
I want just one of them including the Minister to take a call and tell me why—as Dr Hutchison will always suggest—beneficiaries and superannuitants are sorted out in isolation. Why not the other people? Why not the lawyers and accountants in Parnell? Why not the ones who live around Massey University all those academics? Why not them? Why just the beneficiaries? Their life is so tortured anyway that they jump on the plane and they go to Australia. You just slip this through. 
 I want to mihi to the officials. They are hard-working people but they are clearly under the Minister’s directions because that is the same Minister who said that he did not support this—“Wiremu Pakeha”. That is what he said. He did not support the smoking issue when we were trying to put it through. I want to thank the past Labour Government for ensuring that all those people who puffed smoke around you in restaurants and bars had to comply and we were bold and game enough to do it to everybody not just the beneficiaries. We made sure that everybody who went in there had to comply and it was recognised that this was everybody—as the great preacher says all the sinners. So let us not deny it and say that some are and some are not. That is what is happening in this Part 2. 
It is outrageous. Poor old beneficiaries poor old solo mums and poor old superannuitants. And then there is this callous statement that there could be some fiscal adjustments because of lower life expectancy. What the hang do you think if you let people carry on smoking? You cannot have Quitline when you run around the country saying: “Yeah we’ve got broadband in.” but it cannot even pay for its phone bill. That is the free 0800 number that these people have. So I think Part 2 of this bill is one of the most— 
Todd McClay 
: Dastardly. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: —interesting parts—advance your vocabulary “Mr Dastardly”—in relation to setting to on those who have—