Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill

Members, we come now to the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill. We begin now with the debate on Part 1. This is the debate on clauses 4 to 53, and the Schedule, which are the amendments to the principal Act. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

I seek leave for all provisions to be taken as one question.

Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is objection.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in New Zealand. It is responsible for 15 percent of all deaths in New Zealand at the moment. This Government is determined to do something about it.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a pleasure to speak to this bill and to speak to Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) in my name, on behalf of the National Party, that seek to improve the proposal that’s on the table.

I want to speak to the SOP 312 first of all, which seeks to take into account the proximity of specialist vape retailers when new licenses are announced. This Supplementary Order Paper amends the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill. It addresses concerns about large numbers of specialist vaping retailers clustering together in close proximity to each other and their potential impact on under-age vaping especially.

In July 2022, Local Government New Zealand member councils passed a remit proposed by the Kaipara District Council that called for the retail availability of vapes to be limited to specialist stores and for proximity restrictions. At that time, Kaipara Mayor Dr Jason Smith said, “Without these measures in place, we could end up with more situations like the one in Dargaville, whose main street has 13 places where people can buy vapes. This includes 3 specialist vape stores within 150 metres of each other”.

Vaping is an important vehicle for smoking reduction. However, there are widespread community concerns, including from parents and schools, around the significant increase in under-age vaping. The concern is that large numbers of specialist vape stores in close proximity unnecessarily contribute to under-age vaping, and that the same overall smoking reduction benefits could be achieved without proximity clustering. To date, there is little evidence for market-forces correction.

This SOP provides a mechanism for the Director-General of Health to have regard to the proximity of other specialist vape retailers when granting approval to new specialist retailers. It addresses the concerns of local bodies for greater regulatory control, as well as the concerns of parents, schools, and the community to better manage the significant increase in under-age vaping.

Local Government New Zealand, when they passed this, said this: “New Zealand was late to the party passing laws regulating the sale of vape products and that’s left our communities playing catch up … Between 2018 and 2021, daily vaping rose from 2 percent to nearly 10 percent amongst 14- to 15-year-olds. We can’t afford this trend to continue. While we support the supply of vapes to people wanting to stop smoking, we don’t want to see young people who’ve never smoked in their life taking it up. That means we must stop vapes from being [as] readily available in our dairies, supermarkets, and service stations. We need to get the balance right because even though vaping is less harmful than smoking, we don’t know what the long-term effects are. Councils play a major role in promoting the wellbeing of their communities. Concerns around youth vaping is one issue mayors and councillors hear about time and time again from worried parents.” They then go on to talk about the situation in Dargaville.

This SOP makes a sensible addition to what is already on the table. It is a community-led initiative recommended by Local Government New Zealand. So let’s be clear, then: to vote this down is to vote down a community request that will send a signal that confirms this Labour Government’s ideology of “Government knows best; Wellington knows best” and that they don’t listen or care for the local voice of councils and ratepayers. This SOP improves the vaping environment and we ask the Government and other parties to consider supporting this as part of the bill.

I have two other SOPs, the second of which I’ll talk to. It talks to a schedule change, which was raised in the second reading, that achieves, in my view and in our view, the same goals we all want—we don’t disagree in the goals, but we do disagree in the scheduling. We think what we want to do is we want to be able to achieve those goals with the least harm possible. To do that, we’re proposing that denicotinisation be the first action that kicks off in this bill, and that we give it, roughly, over two years so that we can watch and observe if this is effective or not. Certainly, the modelling suggests it will be, but we should put this to the test before we reduce our hard-working small retailers, businesses, and local dairies, before we eviscerate them from 6,000 down to 600 being able to retail smoke products. We should put this to the test.

This SOP suggests exactly that with a proposal that suggests denicotinisation within 18 months of commencement of the bill, a review period 30 months after commencement so that we can see if denicotinisation has worked or not. If it’s already been successful and mostly achieved, like the modelling suggests it would, the targets we’re looking for, then there is nothing more to do, we don’t need to do any further damage. If not, then we would need to entertain the other two options in this bill: retail reduction and the smoke-free generation. We think this heads us in the direction we want to go and does the least harm possible, particularly to those small retailers and dairy owners who are already severely hurting from ram raids and burglaries and other items. So I’ll come to my other—[Time expired]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I just want to acknowledge my learned colleague Dr Shane Reti, the future health Minister of New Zealand, who once again rides to the rescue of this Government. Let’s remember when Dr Shane Reti went off round the world and came back with a medicinal cannabis framework that was better than the Government, with their thousands of bureaucrats, could put together. This is quite rightly, Dr Shane Reti, focusing in on vaping. And I agree with Dr Shane Reti that there is evidence that vaping can help those adults who are addicted smokers to transition to something that is not safe but less harmful, and we welcome that. That gives smokers tools in their tool box to make choices for healthier lifestyles.

Where we are very concerned is the number of young people who are taking up vaping and who have not been smoking traditional cigarettes before. Now, this rings quite closely home to me. I had a constituent appointment recently with two mums who came to talk about their sons, who were being sold vapes at an age they should not have been sold them. At their request, I followed up with the local police, who said this was not on their radar, nor would they follow up on it—the selling of vapes to the under age. So I think this is very timely. It’s come at a time when there does need to be some oversight. I’d ask the Minister whether she will support these two Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) around proximity and ensuring those who should not be accessing vapes don’t get access to them. So I’d like to hear from the Minister whether she and her Government will support these very good SOPs from Dr Shane Reti, and, if not, why not?

E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Thank you, Madam Chair. A very interesting debate that we’re having about the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) in the name of Dr Shane Reti. So I thought it would be worthwhile to add some Green contributions and perspective to this one, and also just to ground what we’re actually talking about.

I think that, actually, in the bill as presented by the Minister, there are new regulations proposed for vaping and for vaping retailers, and there are new considerations for the Director-General of Health—for example, as in the parts that Dr Reti’s SOP 312 proposes.

Currently already in the Minister’s proposal, there is a requirement for the director-general to take into account the geographic location of the retail premises and, secondly, the population in relation to which the retailer carries out their business and, thirdly, any criteria prescribed in regulation. I think it’s important to note that what we’re debating could potentially come out in the regulation process, but also that there already is consideration of the geography and of the population.

I do want to take on board, however, the points that have been made by Dr Reti about the fact that there is the opportunity to consider, particularly proximity of other retail premises already selling these goods. To that effect, I just challenge the logical consistency of the National Party here, because just last night we were talking about local voice—we were talking about that in relation to another drug that causes quite a bit of harm in this country, and we were talking about that in the context of removing special appeals processes for local alcohol policies, which have, of course, allowed massive corporations to stymy local voice in the establishment of local alcohol policies. So I’m just asking for a little bit of logical consistency from the National Party there—hopefully not all too much to ask for.

None the less, I think that this is a question that still goes to the core of the Minister’s contributions, which I hope she’ll soon stand and take a call, which is just to really flesh out the concerns that have been raised by Dr Reti. I’m of two minds—I do feel as though making it explicit could be beneficial, but I also feel as though it could potentially already be encapsulated by virtue of the drafting that’s come to the Chamber today.

I thank members for those contributions. So the Government will not be supporting Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 312. The reason for that is that I don’t believe it achieves what the purpose statement sets out to, and therefore it is ineffective. So the SOP proposes a new section 20P(3), after paragraph (b). So that means that the Director-General of Health would only need to give regard to proximity when the lower total vape sales threshold is. So, I think, due to the technicalities of how it’s been written up, it wouldn’t have the policy intent that the members proposes. There is still the ability for regulations to be passed about the location of vape stores, so the ability to take that into account is a power that the director-general has.

However, I would just note that it is interesting to hear a discussion about the desires of communities to remove vape stores, when we have heard in the debate on this bill previously that the desires of communities to have tobacco—which is far more harmful—removed from their communities through retail reduction is not supported by all members of the House. So I do think, both for the technical way that it is drafted and the lack of consistency and the being tougher on a substance that is less harmful than tobacco, that is why we won’t be supporting SOP 312.

I thank the Minister, the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall, for that offering. Can I comment that the policy intent is correct; it was drawn up not by myself but with expertise from the Table Office. So we have that assurance that it is a correct policy intent. I’d like to put that to rest.

Secondly, if she wants to say that the geography component—the descriptor—in this bill does take into account proximity and put that on the Hansard record, that goes some way to alleviating the concerns that we’re bringing to this Table. I agree with the Green member Chlöe Swarbrick that, for removal of doubt, we believe it is useful to explicitly put it there. But, if the member says it is taken into account, put it on the Table; say the geography descriptor in this bill takes into account proximity, and that does make some progress towards that end.

The other Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) I want to talk to is an SOP that further progresses this discussion around under-age vaping. This is a Supplementary Order Paper in my name, on behalf of the National Party, that, again, amends the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill. It addresses the widespread community concerns from parents and schools particularly, which my colleague Matt Doocey has talked about as well, around the significant increase in under-age vaping. This SOP remedies this by emphasising the importance of monitoring under-age access to, and the use of, vaping products. This includes legislative compliance with activities such as vaping acquisition, as well as support for local policies preventing under-age vape use in controlled environments such as schools and community facilities.

National supports vaping and the desirable impact it has had for adult smokers; however, we share the concerns of parents, communities, and schools about the increase in under-age vaping—a tripling, in fact. We should be cautious about the nicotine in vaping products and young people. If we look at some of the recent headlines, two months ago, “Christchurch vape retailers fined over under age sales. Seven Christchurch vape retailers fined after selling products to minors.” About a week ago, another article—actually, I’ll come to one from a little bit further back: “A vaping problem of almost epidemic proportions has arrived in Christchurch after first hitting Auckland schools two years ago.” This is from a principal. Principals are alarmed at the growing number of students who vape, with one saying children as young as 13 are using the cigarette substitutes—principal after principal expressing what parents have concern with as well. And then, about a month ago, “Students ripping down vaping detectors in schools as New Zealand battles a teen vaping epidemic.”

Time after time, we’re seeing schools particularly, and concerned parents, saying we are concerned about under-age vaping—and I believe we all are as well. So we are of the view that we need to increase that compliance, increase that monitoring in a safe way around the acquisition of under-age vaping products. This bill does do some things around identification, for example, of online acquisition. We think we should be doing more—that is clearly wrong—and also providing visible support to schools and to parents, saying, “Yes, we agree with you. Under-age vaping is not a good thing. How can we help you? What resources can we bring? What other policies can we bring that say especially the Director-General of Health needs to take this into account? We consider it a problem.” Everyone considers it a problem. We are supporting the voice of schools and communities in asking for further compliance monitoring of under-age vaping.

And, again, to turn this down would be to turn down that voice, to say one hasn’t listened, to say that, no, we know best; we think it’s all going to make its way out in the wash. I don’t think that’s correct. I think we all have concerns for under-age vaping. Let’s make it explicit. Let’s put a flag in the sand and say, “Here’s what we will do to support parents, support schools, and support communities.”

Well, it’s good to hear that statement on the concerns we all share about under-age vaping. Indeed, it is under age. Specialist vape stores are R18, and vaping is not permitted in schools. I can reassure the member Dr Shane Reti that section 20P(2) enables the Director-General of Health to make other requirements that are in regulation a criteria for the granting of a specialist vape store. So that power sought through Supplementary Order Paper 312 is available were those regulations to be in place. So that’s already a possibility if regulations are made on that issue.

To pick up the member’s other concerns about monitoring, indeed we’re lucky to have good surveys of youth vaping use in New Zealand. So that has meant we have got a timely alert about the increasing youth vaping rates. We have some survey data on the ways in which young people come to access vapes, which is invariably through friends, more so than through stores. Those types of information that the Ministry of Health collect are very helpful in formulating other control measures that can be taken.

In a previous offering, I put to the Minister, the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall, that if she believed the geographic descriptor in the bill covered the proximity issue that Local Government New Zealand and the National Party have brought to the Table, put it on the Hansard record here now. Say it is—that it takes proximity into account—and that then sort of alleviates some of the concerns we have. We think it should be more explicit. But, if that is your view and the advice you’re getting, put it on the record here today so that legislative avenues and other policy makers can see that, yes, that is correct; it is already covered with that descriptor.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I would like to go back to the Minister in the chair’s comments around drawing a parallel to Dr Shane Reti’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) around proximity and how inconsistent that is with the primary bill before the committee, retrospectively wanting to reduce the number of tobacco retailers from 6,000 to 600. Because what this Government’s got form on is that when the Opposition is right, they start muddying the waters. So, of course, the bill we’re discussing today is retrospective of reducing the amount of tobacco sellers from 6,000 to 600. But, of course, Dr Shane Reti’s SOP is proximity for future growth, so it won’t actually be reducing the number of vapes; all it will be doing is taking into consideration proximity for future growth. So I would ask the Minister how she draws a parallel between the SOP around proximity and a key part of the bill we’re debating today around reducing from 6,000 to 600. And is that a correct comparison?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d also note a little bit further around the removal or reduction of retailers from 6,000 to 600—the industry has come back and said they would like more time on that. What engagement has the Minister had with small businesses in that regard and is she is open to any means to potentially extend that? I think they asked for a two-year runway just to give them a chance to adjust their business model. We know a lot of small retailers in New Zealand have taken a real pounding over the past couple of years, and we certainly don’t want to see another whole lot go down the gurgler. We obviously don’t want their business model supported by tobacco, but we have to be realistic. That’s the situation we’re in. I ask whether the Minister will be open to affording them a bit more time—two years—to adjust that.

Another thing is around the proximity of vape stores, which has come up, and I speak here as someone who has smoked cigarettes and vapes—I think they’re extremely addictive. I’ve personally found vapes to be a lot more addictive than cigarettes. They have disposable ones out now. They’re $10. They’re very cheap and very accessible. I went to a pharmacy the other day because I’m a healthy boy and I wanted to buy some vitamins to boost my immune system. And, blow me down! Behind the counter, there were vapes. They were selling vapes in a pharmacy and I was pretty shocked to see that.

So I wanted to know what the Minister would do to limit the number of vape stores. The impression I got from that was that anyone could just kind of—it didn’t seem to me that a pharmacy should be selling vapes; pharmacies are meant to be about health and there they were selling these products. I found that pretty concerning. So what limits, as far as retailers or different sorts of retailers, would the Minister look at in regards to who can supply vapes?

I’d also echo the comments that my colleagues have made around what is really a vaping epidemic in our youth. For people who are elderly, like myself and want to transition, cool—quite good in that regard. But the uptake from young people, they don’t have to go through the punishment that smokers do with the smell and people looking at you like you’re a bit of a social leper; they can sneak it in there and do it inside. I think there’s a real issue there. And I just want to reiterate that the good points that Dr Reti has raised in his Supplementary Order Paper. Thank you.

Let me, perhaps, just help the committee with clarity on the two different requirements for retailers. This bill introduces new requirements for tobacco retailers that include criteria on where smoke product retailers should be and include a specific requirement for the Director-General of Health in saying where tobacco retailers are to take into account geography. My reference to section 20P(2) is with respect to vaping store location. The director-general has the power to be able to act on other regulation to specify where specialist vape retailers are. So it is different in keeping with the desire to have risk-proportionate regulation, given that tobacco is the product that has the highest risk to health. In fact, it is New Zealand’s leading cause of preventable death. That is why there is greater restriction on the sale of tobacco than on vapes, but the power to do both vaping and tobacco store geographic restrictions, if they’re supported by regulations, are present in the bill for both.

Returning to some of the other comments around the number of retailers and the time to transition, it is perhaps worth just taking the big picture here. The smoke-free goal was set in 2011, following the report of the Māori Affairs Committee into tobacco harm. Parties on all sides of the House have supported that goal since that time, and we have as a country achieved a great deal of progress. The smoking rate—the only data point I have—is from 2016. Our smoking rate was 16 percent 10 years ago, and it has now come down to 8 percent. So the point is that demand for this product has been going down over time, and what we seek to do, in achieving the smoke-free aim, is go that final bit of the distance to get the smoking rate down beneath 5 percent for all population groups. So in the big picture, this has been a long-term trend in this market, the reduction of demand for tobacco.

In addition to the warning that the setting of the goal in 2011 was to the industry, there has been consultation on this bill. In 2021, we had a discussion document out. We received a wide range of feedback, including from communities impacted by tobacco as well as retailers. This has been a measure that has been signalled, really, for more than decade, and that is the reason why the time to introduce these measures and change is now.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m pleased to take a call in this committee of the whole House stage. It was nice to hear from the Minister about the reduced rates of smoking. They have been declining for some time and, as we know, the young people don’t view smoking as cool any more. They see it as something disgusting that older people do that they don’t want to partake in. But what hasn’t been mentioned is the rapid escalation in vaping. We have replaced smoking—which we’ve done such a great job on—with vaping. It is a massively widespread, colourfully packaged, lovely smelling product that—let’s be frank—is aimed at kids, and that is why these two Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) proposed by my good colleague Dr Shane Reti are so important today.

One of the things that’s really important is his Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 315, especially the insertion of new section 99A(1)(b): “support policies preventing the use of vaping products by people under the age of 18 years”. I wanted to give the Minister—and I’m sure she will have heard these stories as well—this story from my local high school, who have vaping levels at epidemic levels and who are unable to combat the problem because they don’t have any supports. They go to Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), who do a wonderful job in their lane, and ASH say to them, “Look, it’s difficult for us.”—and this was about a year ago, so they may have ramped it up a bit since then. But ASH say, “Look, with vaping, we don’t have enough statistics on it. We don’t have enough interventions. We find it really difficult to go into the schools.”

This is what the local principals are telling me, which is that ASH haven’t been able to provide them with the solutions to get kids to kick the nicotine habit. They don’t have any tools. They don’t have any supports. They are, basically, saying to kids who are coming to them saying, “Yes, I was caught at school with my vape, but I am massively addicted because of the high level of nicotine in these products.”—and I can tell this committee that parents have got no idea of the level of nicotine that their children are ingesting when they smoke these vape products.

They have no idea of how much more nicotine is included in these products than there would be in a normal cigarette, and parents are being sold this view that it’s healthy and it’s fine and it’s a healthy alternative to smoking, and this is being relayed to children as well. It’s really important that under SOP 315, the support policies preventing the use of vape products is introduced so that we’re giving schools more tools, more knowledge, and more help to get kids to kick the product but also giving more knowledge to parents and children that these are not safe products—that these do harm your health; they’re not cool—and also giving them more supports around helping them to kick the habit.

Now, the other problem that we’ve got is that if you’re a child walking to school, you’ll pass many vape products on your way—not just specialist vape stores but dairies and now, we’ve heard today, pharmacies as well. Colourful products are right there in front of the store. It’s like we’ve never learnt our lesson from smoking in the first place and here we are again, and that’s why SOP 312 is so very important.

I know that the Minister just talked about new section 20P in clause 13 in the bill, and she mentioned new section 20P(2)(c), so that’s “any requirements in regulations have been met.” So I guess my question to the Minister is: will the Director-General of Health have a direction about the proximity of vape stores to schools? At the moment in my electorate, if you’re a student walking to school, you pass three or four dairies, three or four vape stores, and a pharmacy, who are all selling vape products. It’s in their face when they go in the dairy to buy a drink or some food on the way to school—it’s right there. It’s right in their face, and it’s obviously now in the pharmacies, as well, and it’s also in these special vapes stores.

Look, I support Shane Reti’s SOP around the clustering of these and the amount and the proliferation and the fact that there are so many together, but I specifically want to ask the Minister what regulations will need to be met for the director-general to have a say on where these premises will be, and will that be in locations around schools and the clustering of them on school walking routes, because that is the problem at the moment.

They are being sold to every single day as they walk past all of these schools. They’ve got wrong information that it’s some sort of healthy product that’s a good alternative to smoking. It’s packaged in such a way that it’s attracting them. It smells nice, it looks good, and it’s everywhere in their faces. These are two really good SOPs that, in my mind, will go some way to reducing that risk and provide schools with the tools that they need to reduce the number of students that they’ve got that are vaping, but it will also provide information to parents that this is highly addictive—much more than cigarettes—and that it actually does have a number of health risks. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. With respect to Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 315, the Government will be voting against it. The measures contained in it are not required and reflect business-as-usual compliance activities that the Ministry of Health and others already do. I mentioned in my previous remarks the survey of youth vaping, and then the Director-General of Health also has a duty to enforce the Act and make sure that under-18s are not supplied with—

Dr Shane Reti: How’s that going?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: —vaping products—well, we’re here to discuss the bill—but compliance activities are under way with that.

With respect to the member’s other question, I think the difference between the member’s points and the author of the SOP’s points perhaps just points to areas where further thought and policy work is required, because the member raises a concern I have heard frequently from communities about the proximity of vape stores to schools. The SOP, of course, deals with the proximity of vape stores to each other. These are two different issues, and clarity on what the policy goal we are trying to seek through it is required, particularly when there might be legal risk incurred from taking either move. So the reason for not supporting the vaping proximity SOP is because the powers to set that regulation are already there, and for the director-general to make decisions on it.

E te Māngai, tēnā koe. It’s good to hear from all in the Chamber that there is an ongoing concern about the need for greater vaping regulation. I think it is really important to unpack, as we all have been doing throughout this debate on the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) in the name of, particularly, Dr Shane Reti, but also in the Associate Minister of Health’s responses, whether some of these SOPs do what they say on the tin. Because that is, of course, the core thing that we, as legislators, should really be trying to pull apart, to road test, and to make sure that we’re actually doing our job here.

So, again, I just want to really pull this back to the fact that right now, inside new section 20P, inserted by clause 13, we have a requirement, under subsection (3) for the director-general to take into account the geographic location of retail premises, the population of that geographic area, and any other criteria that ends up being prescribed in regulations.

As I’ve already spoken about with regard to SOP 312, I do think that there is some validity in having some explicit requirement to consider proximity of other retail premises to each other, as the Minister has made really clear, but I am quite challenged by some of the things that are laid out in the explanatory note for SOP 315, but then actually looking through the clauses themselves, as proposed, to see whether they will do what, again, the kind of rhetoric that we’ve been hearing and debating today actually outlines.

First and foremost, there is kind of a bit of a difference between enforcement and monitoring, and, as the Minister has already outlined, business as usual is compliance monitoring. I think what would have beefed this up is actually the requirement for funding, for example, or for resourcing for that compliance monitoring. If we had that budgetary requirement inside of that SOP, then I might be of a different mind and the Greens may be of a different mind, because in lieu of that, we are kind of confronted with just another new clause which continues to outline what should already be being done, and, as the Minister has already said, is currently being done.

I’d also point to the contributions made by other members, particularly around some of the more colourful vapes, some of the disposable vapes, and some of the cheaper vapes. To that effect, I guess I’m wondering if I could test the committee’s interest in, perhaps, supporting an SOP that we could all draft on the fly to get rid of disposable vapes, because they, of course, tend to be precisely those which are cheaper, which are easier to access, which are colourful, and, therefore, more attractive to younger people.

On that point around attractiveness to younger people, in particular, I think it is really important, in reference to some contributions made by my learned colleague Erica Stanford, to state that it is currently illegal to provide or to sell vaping products to under-18s. That is the baseline law. It is illegal to do that and it has been illegal to do that, actually only since we went about introducing new regulation legislation last term. Prior to that, again, as I said on Tuesday night as we were debating the second reading of this bill, it was entirely self-regulated, and that is perhaps why we’ve seen such a problem with the proliferation of these vapes.

All of that said, I think it really boils down to the reality that all of us can accept the health advice that a substance or the way in which we administer a substance can cause harm. The next step from that has to be how do we, as, kind of, responsible regulators, in keeping with the evidence, and talking to the experts that are out there, take a public health approach to think about the entire ramifications of whatever legislative response we may be putting in place. For example, we know that criminal prohibition of substances pushes them underground. We had a very similar experience with knee-jerk responses with the Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill, which pushed substances that were temporarily licensed underground, and, as a result, we saw immense harm in the form of at least 50 New Zealanders consuming, particularly, synthetic cannabinoids, and dying as a result of consuming those substances which did not go away, which did not get rid of the addiction, but only pushed them to get that supply underground, because the demand did not go away.

After we take that kind of public health approach and thinking about the whole sociological environment, it’s then a matter of how we legislate and regulate effectively to get those outcomes that we’ve said that we want to get per the public health, which, obviously, builds on the medical reality. To that effect, again, I think that we are getting the balance largely right in this legislation, but I am hearing that there is a greater need to focus on vaping. I’m hearing from the Minister that there is also a focus to that effect, but, again, I just say, particularly, in response to the ideas that have been put forward by Dr Reti, that we really do, and the Greens appreciate some of the thinking that’s gone into it, but we do hold some concerns that these, as they’ve been drafted, do not do what they say on the tin. I want to kind of say that I’m hearing across the committee that we’re all largely in agreement, and if we want to, we can draft that SOP on banning disposable vapes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to put a couple of questions to the Minister in the chair, Ayesha Verrall. But before I do, I note the Supplementary Order Paper 313 in her name, which seeks to amend clause 15A, which I think ties in quite nicely with one of the issues that the Health Committee grappled with in terms of the internet connectivity to a particular site rather than it being a little bit ambiguous. So that seems like a sensible suggestion that the Minister has put forward.

I do acknowledge that the Minister has given similar responses to what appear to be the same questions that have been put to her. I would, however, like her to reflect on new section 20M, inserted by clause 13, and it relates to the retail premises. One of the changes in the bill is one where it moves the specified number in terms of the limit from regulation through to being specified specifically in the legislation. So I was interested in whether the Minister was comfortable with that particular change, given that submitters had referred to that.

The other is just the level of cap being set at 600 whereas the regulatory impact statement actually went a little bit more conservatively around that and went at a lower level, from what I understand—so, seeking a lower threshold. So I really, in terms of perhaps when the Minister takes her call to answer the next batch of questions—if she could just reflect perhaps on the level of comfort around those changes in the bill.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Look, a very quick contribution. One is to ask the Minister’s reconsideration around the proximity argument around vaping stores. I do appreciate the distinction that she’s making, but what I think unites it all is what I would term as “ubiquity”, and Dr Reti and others have well talked about it and she knows—the Minister, that is—herself just the sheer ubiquity of these stores now. I think, in my own electorate in Tāmaki, of the number of little dairies which are dividing off spaces to, basically, turn them into vaping stores—it is ubiquitous.

The reason why I think we need to support Supplementary Order Paper 315 in particular is that we cannot simply rely on the advice coming out of the Ministry of Health—and that’s no disrespect to the individual advisers, but I personally feel we need to have it quite explicitly written into legislation. The reason I say that, Minister, is I was chair of the Health Committee when vaping was coming on board. There was a great push at the time that this was going to be the replacement for cigarettes and nicotine in particular, and a number of us on that committee, myself included, were saying, “Well, what is the evidence around the use of vaping? What is the harm here, as laymen or laypeople?” There was a concern that this was going to become ubiquitous, this was going to become the new fad, and we were told there’s no evidence. Now, at one level, that’s true because it was new, but at another sign—and, again, it’s hard for me to phrase this without trying to throw aspersions at the ministry, that does a good job, but, in effect, they said, “No, this should be OK.”

Well, it’s demonstrably not OK—it’s demonstrably not OK. This has become the “cool thing”, for want of a pretty old phrase, for young people to use it everywhere. Parents in my electorate are almost literally pulling their hair out. There was a public meeting recently where hundreds of parents turned up to hear about the harms of vaping, from the experts but, obviously, reflecting what they’re seeing in their children.

I think the reason we need to support the likes of Supplementary Order Papers 315 and 312 is that some of the suggestions at the moment to put detectors into schools and so forth are just not going to work. As principals and parents have pointed out to me, as soon as the alarm goes off, the vapes are hidden in a whole range of places. It’s just not helpful. We need to be getting in first and foremost on that educative front. Secondly, we need to address it by reducing that—I’m sorry to keep using the word, Minister, but I think it’s critical to the argument and the question I’m trying to put to you: it is just so ubiquitous we have to pull it back, and a part of that is, I think, the ministry accepting, I would suggest, and others, myself included—actually, not myself included, I think for others who said, “This will be fine. This is just a great anti-tobacco smoking product; all else will be fine.” Well, it’s turned out to be demonstrably the opposite, and particularly parents in my electorate, what I’m hearing, and, I’m sure, all MPs, they’re crying out for some assistance.

So if proximity is based on schools or proximity’s based on just how frequent businesses around—I don’t, in some ways, particularly care; we have to pull this back. So the two questions—well, actually, the last observation is, ultimately, you can take nicotine out. Well, some will make the argument that there’s no nicotine in vapes. Well, that’s true until you get some liquid nicotine and just mix it in. That’s pretty simple and easy to do. So we’ve got wider, wider problems here, which then feed back into our smoke-free approach.

I suppose that the fundamental question is: can she see, with the erroneous advice, if you will, given to us—granted, five, six years ago—there is a need to move into very strict primary legislation for what the ministry must do, so that there’s no wiggle room or mistakes. And, secondly, and I think I do know the answer: does she appreciate the urgency by which we need to address this growing—I don’t want to use the word “pandemic”; we’ve used it far too much, but, you know, there is an urgency here. It’s only my opinion, Minister, but the window’s closing for us to be able to nip this in the bud, which is probably a very bad cannabis pun or something, I don’t know.

Thank you. It’s good to hear the comments of concern around vaping, from across the committee. I’m going to keep my comments with respect to the bill, but I am very happy to talk in other fora about education that the Ministry of Health has under way on vaping and its monitoring and compliance work.

With respect to advice on vaping, I think two things. One, it is true, and advice has been correct—and we’ve heard statements to this effect in the Chamber today—that vaping is less harmful than tobacco, but there have not been long-term studies because there has not been long-term experience with vapes. None the less, the fact that vaping is addictive and that that changes the behaviour of young people in terms of seeking it out—we’ve heard from school principal that they’re concerned about the behaviour of children and their ability to concentrate in class because of addiction. So I think that is the basis on which we can continue to work to address vaping-related harm.

I want to come to Mr Utikere’s comments about section 20M. Indeed, that’s correct that that was the recommendation of the Health Committee—as he would know, he chaired the select committee—which was to reduce the retail reduction number which was initially proposed. The bill as originally drafted said that that should be done by regulation. This is now in the primary legislation as 600. That 600 number is one that, I think, reflects the intent when the bill was drafted, but I believe some of the modelling supported an even lower figure than 600. I think one of the things in moving the number into primary legislation is that it’s clearly less flexible, it’s a bigger deal to go back and fix it once it’s in primary legislation. So the number of 600 being in there reflects the fact that one wouldn’t want to overshoot and make it overly onerous, so that’s why the 600 has been moved into primary legislation. Indeed, I am comfortable with the committee’s recommendation on that. That is why it’s reflected in the bill.

I am going to take Dr Shane Reti, but I warn him that I will have to interrupt his speech, if he’s still speaking, to report progress at 5 minutes to 1.

Sure. Thank you, Madam Chair. I wanted to address—the Minister has said that Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 315 is unnecessary because it is primarily just part of the ordinary business for the ministry. The simple response is: how’s that going for us? Clearly, not doing so well. And to address what my colleague was saying around the SOP not specifically mentioning funding, my intention was for it to be inherent that, of course, there would need to be funding and resources to support the increased monitoring. But I take her point.

Can I point for the first time to the Minister’s SOP 313, which came into the Order Paper—gosh, the ink was still drying on the second reading. On the website it’s declared “Proposed amendments”, and I ask her to talk to that—why she felt this wasn’t well covered in the Health Committee, the changes that are there in SOP 313; particularly the commentary around the change to commencement for herbal cigarettes—where did that come from? I don’t recall deep discussions in select committee, yet, suddenly, mysteriously, 24 to 48 hours after we’ve just had the second reading, it is suddenly in her SOP 313. So can she talk to that, please?

Matt Doocey—two minutes.

Thank you very much, that’s a great choice. Thank you very much. Look, I want to talk to Dr Shane Reti’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 314. Once again, you’ve got a hard-working Opposition MP who’s doing all the heavy lifting around proposed legislation. You know, it just beggars belief when we’ve just got a bloated bureaucracy of armies of officials that couldn’t write the succinct drafting that Dr Shane Reti has. So when you look at SOP 314, it’s looking at what we do first on that next step for Smokefree 2025.

Now, in the Government’s view, they want to reduce the number of tobacco suppliers through dairies from 6,000 to 600 first. The reality is, with this Government’s soft on crime approach, there’s dairies closing down every day without this legislation because they just do not feel safe in their workplaces, and that’s an absolute blight on this current Government. But I would like to hear from the Minister why she would not look at and have interest in Dr Shane Reti’s proposal in SOP 314, because I would argue it’s actually a very pragmatic way forward. If we can look at reducing nicotine in cigarettes and use that as the heavy lifting of this tool to move forward for Smokefree 2025, then why would we not look at that for a period that Dr Shane Reti says, for a number of months, and then, after that, have a review around the implementation? Dr Shane Reti has very clearly said if denicotisation does not work, then we would pragmatically look at the reduction of outlets for tobacco sales.

But, I think, at a time when there is a lot of pressure on our dairy outlets and our small retailers—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Sorry to interrupt the member, but the time has come for me to for me to report progress.

Progress to be reported.

House resumed.