Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I move, That the Chairman report progress and ask for leave to sit again.

That request is out of order.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Why is it out of order?

That request must be done on a call, and not on a point of order.

💬 Hon PETER DUNNE: Mr Chairperson, I sought advice from advisers from the Clerk’s Office about the way to proceed, and was advised that I could do this by way of a point of order the moment you assumed the Chair.

To move to report progress is to take a call in the Committee stage. Indeed, Mr Chairman, you may have noticed that the senior Government whip was already seeking a call, which was why Mr Dunne called for a point of order—to get precedence. If he had been merely seeking a call to move a motion, which is the normal procedure for reporting progress, Mr Benson-Pope would have had the priority call.

I thank the member for that. That clearly explains the position. As I said before, a motion to report progress must be done on a call. It was done on a point of order. I have dealt with the matter.

I move, That the question be now put.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. You will recall that when this matter was last before the Committee, I raised with you both formally and informally the fact that my colleague Mr Alexander had been seeking a call all evening. You had been retaining a very strict record of parties getting the call, you had been punctilious in ensuring that every party got a number of calls in proportion to its strength, and you acknowledged to me at that time that Mr Alexander was—if one likes—one call short, and that he would get a call before Part 2 was put. Mr Chairperson, I seek your indulgence to uphold the commitment you gave to me when we last considered this matter—that is, that before you accept a closure motion, whether it be now or later in the debate, you will give Mr Alexander the opportunity to make a speech.

The member is quite right. Calls were being sought by others.

I am delighted to be able to take a call in this debate, because for me the issue of the Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill comes down to those of us in this Parliament who truly believe in the right of individuals to make choices, compared with those of us who believe that the Government can dictate what we do in our own lives.

I would much rather go to a restaurant that was smoke-free. I do not like cigarette smoke. I prefer not to be around it. But I would prefer by far to be able to make that choice myself; to be able to look around, see that a restaurant has a sign up saying it is completely smoke-free, and say: “Wow, I quite like the idea of that. It’ll get my business.” But on the other side of the political spectrum in this House are those who say: “No, we know what’s best for individuals. We are going to be dogmatic and have an across-the-party vote.” I know that a number of members in the Labour Party think this bill is nonsense, but will Labour let the whip off and let there be a free vote? No, it will not.

So we come down to something that I think has some real substance to it. I want to hammer home this point of choice. I refer to the Returned Services Association. In my own case, most of the old diggers in the Howick Returned Services Association have for many years told me they are Labour voters, they support the workers, and they vote Labour. That is all right; that is OK. I say to them that that is their choice, that I have just come along to have a chat, and that is fine. If members went to the Howick Returned Services Association tonight, they would not hear them saying that any more. They have had a gutsful of this Government.

Those old diggers were sent off to fight in a war, the Government provided them with tobacco, and they got hooked on it. They are addicted to it. That Returned Services Association club has done everything it possibly can to fix the polluted air in its club. It has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on an air management system that rips the air out from the bar areas and the restaurants and flicks it up through the filtering systems. I have seen it happen. One can light a cigarette and see the smoke just go whoosh and it is gone. Someone a couple of feet away does not get any of that smoke. The association has also set aside a part that is guaranteed to be smoke-free. It has also set aside a restaurant area as smoke-free.

The association has surveyed its members; it has asked its own members. Members should remember that that club is not a public institution. It is not like a restaurant. It is a members-only club. It has asked its members what they want. If I recall properly, 96 percent want the choice to smoke to remain. That is why I have moved an amendment in my name to section 12, in clause 6B. All that my amendment does is exempt the Howick Returned Services Association. I know that a lot of other members in this Parliament have gone for such an exemption for their own Returned Services Association clubs.

But I want someone from the Labour Party to tell me why an institution that is a club should come under this provision. A person cannot just walk into that club off the street; he or she has to be a member, or to be signed in by a member. It is a person’s choice to go to that club, because of his or her membership. No one is compelled to go there. It is not like sitting on a bus or in an aeroplane and having to breathe somebody else’s air with smoke in it. A person chooses to go to a Returned Services Association club. Those people fought for their country. They were hooked on tobacco by the Government itself. Now what are we telling those old diggers? [Interruption] No, Jill Pettis is telling them she knows best. I can tell the Committee that not a single member of the Howick Returned Services Association thinks Jill Pettis knows best about anything, but she says she does.

All that I say to the Labour Party is that if it truly believed this legislation had merit, it would take the whip off. Some of its own members are quietly sneaking around the lobby saying it is just a disgrace. This is the old centrist attitude of “We’ll take control of people’s lives. We’ll determine what they do.” There are a number of Labour members—I will not embarrass them by naming them, but some of them are here today—who would simply love to have the freedom to vote against the bill. Ross Robertson, the member for Manukau East, whose electorate comes right up to the Howick Returned Services Association, is always there telling its members he is their friend. They like him, because a lot of them are Labour voters. Well, I do not know whether Ross Robertson will get many invites back unless he does the decent thing and supports my amendment.

I am glad to finally get a call. I sat here for hours on end and never got the chance to take a call. A lot of the other members spoke once, twice, or three times. This is the first chance I have had to actually get up and say something.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): The member will please make his contribution.

I ask the question of who will be liable for the loss of revenue to the businesses adversely affected. We are talking about individuals up and down the country who employ thousands upon thousands of Kiwis and who have put their money into an enterprise, a hospitality venue, and now some do-gooder Government spokesperson will come along and tell them what they can and cannot do in their comfort of their own investments. It makes absolutely no sense. Yet at the same time the State-funded prison system allows those at Her Majesty’s pleasure to smoke. Taxpayers are paying for that—apparently, what is good for the goose is not good for the gander—but people who want to pay for their own hospitality venues are denied that right. How on earth does that make any sense? If the Government is going to disallow people from making decisions in their own investments, it should at least have the gumption to apply the rule right across the board and disallow smoking in all prisons, yet the State will not do that, because it is in the too-hard basket.

Who will be liable for the loss of choice to the proprietors of the various hospitality venues when the numbers of people going to them go down? Will the State be liable for that, as a direct result of its interference in what should be a micromanaged business decision taken by the people who actually run the businesses? The Government will not make up the shortfall. It will not even give them a tax cut on the money that they earn, despite the huge amounts of money that it is raking in from them and stealing from their pockets. Taking away their choice and their revenue is another nail in the coffin of the hospitality industry.

Who will be liable for the loss of choice to the customers in choosing the businesses they wish to frequent? There are people who want to go into certain bars and have a drink, have a chat to their mates, have a cigar or a cigarette, and the Government is taking away their choice. It is ironic, is it not? What sense does it make that those who want this bill to pass will be exercising their choice to vote, with the result that those affected by that choice will be deprived of their own choice by this legislation? There is an irony there that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

It is often true that the people who pass these sorts of bills are the very people who do not have to live with the consequences of the decisions that they impose on others. It makes no sense for the Government to come along and impose something else on those people who have built up their businesses and who have sometimes scrimped and saved and borrowed money from the bank to get their businesses to a certain level of success. That makes no sense whatsoever. I would have a little more respect for the members who are pushing this legislation through if they were in the hospitality industry and would be directly affected but—guess what—they are not. They are immune to that, because they are here in Parliament earning taxpayers’ money, not opening their own businesses and being a part of the hospitality industry, thus suffering the effects of the decisions that they have made.

We have made appeals using scientific evidence to show that ventilation systems can and do work, but Labour is not interested in science when it has its own ideology and prejudices to ram through. Again, that makes little sense. There is no common sense here, at all. The Government will not listen to reason or to the evidence that science can provide that there is a perfectly reasonable common-sense answer to the problem of air quality. We have made appeals using common sense to show how nonsensical are the health reasons advanced by the health zealots, the health Nazis of Labour.

Something that happens in the rural areas—which is not something that I subscribe to—is that parents will go into the pub and take out a packet of crisps to the kids in the car who will be waiting while the dinner gets ready, or whatever. Now what will happen is that those parents, instead of smoking in the pub, will come out, join their children in the car, and smoke in front of them. That is exactly what will happen. The Government will not stop smokers from smoking. All it will do is shift the problem and take it somewhere else. That makes absolutely no sense, whatsoever.

Why does the Government not go after people who smoke in homes where there are children, who have no choice at all? Why does it not go after that? Instead, what the Government is doing is taking its health zealotry to the people who want to choose to go into—

I move, That the question be now put.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): We have had 38 speakers and there have been eight closure motions. I will take one last speaker.

Here is a Government that has no respect whatsoever for private property, because that is what a restaurant is. That is what the Cuba Bar is. It is private property. No one has to go into it. If a person sets foot into a cigar bar, that person is likely to know that cigars will be smoked there. No one is holding a gun to that person’s head and telling him or her to go and smoke a cigar. What will happen under this Helen Clark Government is that a person will go into the cigar bar, have a wee brandy, buy a beautiful Cuban cigar, and then walk out on to Parnell Road in the cold to smoke it. That is what Helen Clark wants.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: The “Heleban” are in charge.

It is the “Heleban” for smokers. I do not understand it. How come, under this legislation, one can still smoke in Parnell Road? Members should imagine it. People will be going along on the footpath. It used to be that all the smokers were in the cigar bar. Now people will not be able to get past, because they are all out there puffing away. Where is the freedom in that? They will have to stand out in the cold, smoking away, and, according to the “Heleban” it will be suddenly be dangerous to be on Parnell Road. What is wrong with people choosing to go into the Cuba Bar or into the Returned Services Association for a puff? It is because the “Heleban” does not like it.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: The Greens want us to walk. We’re going to walk down pathways.

The Greens do not mind if someone lights up a joint. They are happy about that because they say it is safe, but people are not allowed to sit in the cigar bar and have a cigar.

Here is another thing. Where is the logic, according to the “Heleban”, in allowing people to still smoke in their own houses? People visit us in our own houses. As I understand the “Heleban”, we can sit at home and light up, not just once but several times. We can sit at home, having dinner and smoking.

💬 Marc Alexander: What about State houses?

No, one would not be able to smoke in a State house. I am sure the “Heleban” would apply to State houses, because they belong to the Government. It will have all the people in State houses smoking outside. God forbid, if this Government lasts another year—

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

💬 Brent Catchpole: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Before the dinner break you indicated that that would be the last call. I would like to point out that I have not had a call on this part, at all, and I have been calling for the last 2 days on it.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Thank you for that.

Before the dinner break we were discussing the mad effects of the “Heleban” and how, we understand, it will now apply to State houses. I am looking at new section 10 in clause 6B, which will apply to ships. People will not be allowed to smoke on a ship that is sailing in coastal waters unless it is a foreign ship. So people on a foreign ship can sail around New Zealand puffing away on pipes to their hearts’ content, as long as it is not a New Zealand ship. Why is the law not applied in the same way to everyone, including foreigners in New Zealand? I know why it is not. Foreigners would think that that was the maddest thing they had ever heard of. Someone sitting in the captain’s mess puffing on a pipe would have to put the pipe out when the boat crossed into New Zealand waters, because the “Heleban” police might chopper in, in a night-time raid, and discover foreigners on a boat puffing on pipes. So foreigners have had to be excluded.

Everyone here, except for Craig McNair, is old enough to remember the radio pirate ship Hauraki. We can all remember it. Well, I have a cunning plan to make money. We are going to have in Auckland the pirate ship “Cuba Bar”. That is what we will do, and we will put that ship along and pile it up with all the people who would like to smoke a cigar with their friends, in comfort. They will be able to smoke their pipes on the pirate ship “Cuba Bar”. I invite people to come on board. We will steam out 13 miles, give the proverbial fingers to the “Heleban”, lie out there, and smoke to our hearts’ content.

I move, That the question be now put.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I have put in a substantial number of amendments and I really would appreciate a call to explain the amendments I have lodged. There are some 20 pages of them.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): I thank the member for making that plea. We have been debating this part for a long, long time—with some 40 speakers—and I have decided that I am going to—

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Is this a new point of order?

Yes. I seek leave to have a 4-minute call to speak on this part.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Leave has been sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. We are still taking the vote on a split vote basis, are we not? For example, it could be 12 against and one in favour. I am just making sure.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Yes, but on the closure motion they are all cast one way.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 121 in the name of the Hon Damien O'Connor to clause 6(2) be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

The amendment to clause 6A in the name of Larry Baldock is ruled out of order because it is outside the scope of the bill.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I raise it now because I suspect we will have a number of similar incidents during the time we vote on these amendments. As you indicated, there are a myriad number. Although members will be keeping track of them on the Supplementary Order Papers they have in front of them, it might be useful, particularly if you are about to rule an amendment out of order, if you indicate to the Committee the broad tenor of the amendment so that members who are desperately trying to follow where we are at can be better informed. I happen to be familiar with the tenor of Mr Baldock’s amendment, but I am not sure that every member will be. Therefore, members will be a little at odds to wonder what the ruling is. So I suggest it would be helpful if you were to indicate, without going into huge detail, just what the amendments are about before we have to make decisions on them.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Yes. I thank the member for that. In respect of the amendment we are dealing with, I tell members that it relates to private areas, and the bill and the principal Act are concerned with smoking in public places only. Therein lies the conflict, and I rule that amendment out of order.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 123 in the name of Peter Brown to section 10(2) in clause 6B be agreed to.

A great number of amendments have been handed in. There are very large numbers of such amendments in the names of Katherine Rich, the Hon David Carter, John Carter, the Hon Maurice Williamson, Simon Power, Lindsay Tisch, and Pansy Wong. They are amendments to clause 6B: to add a new subsection (4) to section 12 and to add subsection (4) to section 13. I have had the opportunity to look at these amendments over quite a number of days, and those amendments seek to exempt certain premises from the provisions of the bill. There are also amendments in the name of Richard Worth to insert a new clause 7AA, and those amendments are to exempt other premises. All of these amendments are out of order, as they are in the nature of private legislation and are not admissible as amendments to a public bill.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I must say that I anticipated your ruling. I think, indeed, that some in Parliament may have done so. Given the fact that you are ruling all of them out of order and that there are a whole number of them—I think that in total they probably amount to the hundreds rather than the tens—I wonder whether the House might consider having just one vote on them as a whole. I will seek leave for that to happen, so that at least we can vote “Yes” or “No” on them. Even though you have ruled them out of order, the Committee could nevertheless give itself leave to vote on them one way or another. I seek leave accordingly to put them all as one vote.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): I make no comment when leave is sought. Leave has been sought to do that. Is there any objection to that course of action? There appears to be.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I hesitate to question your ruling, but if I heard you correctly, you are ruling all of these amendments out because they seek to exempt premises, or categories of premise, from coverage under this legislation. Yet a little earlier in this round of voting, you did allow amendments moved by Mr Worth that exempted cigar bars. It seems to me that there is a potential inconsistency in allowing us to vote on that amendment, which, given the relatively low number of cigar bars in New Zealand, is highly specific, and then not allowing the Committee to vote on the amendments you have just alluded to, which are equally specific. The difference is that those amendments name particular premises, but Mr Worth’s amendment, while it might appear to be generic, was actually highly specific, given that there are only about two or three cigar bars in New Zealand. So we have a potential inconsistency here, in that it was perfectly proper in your judgment for the Committee to vote on an amendment that, because it was generic in form although specific in substance, did not breach that sort of specificity rule, yet now you are going to rule out a whole series of amendments that specifically exempt premises. I think there is an inconsistency there that needs to be addressed.

I thank the member for that. One could say that the amendment in the name of Richard Worth was just put in there to test you, but it was not. It was a generic amendment. We have passed that stage, and we have voted on it. In looking at all the amendments I have just ruled out of order, I mentioned that the bill is a public bill, and it contains matters of public policy that affect the general law. The vehicle for an exception to the public law is a private bill, and exceptions could be, for example, for an individual, a statutory company, or a private corporation. Exceptions of this nature cannot be accomplished by an amendment to a public bill. They can be achieved only by means of a private bill. That is the reason I am ruling them out of order. I would like now to move on to the amendments we have at hand.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. If I heard you correctly, you talked about an individual, a statutory company, or one other public institution—I forget the precise terminology. None of those organisations come into that category, so I would be grateful if you could indicate to the Committee what the source of your ruling is by reference to a Standing Order or a Speaker’s ruling, or some other authoritative text. It appears that the amendments you are ruling out are being ruled out because they seek to exempt particular premises, yet the categories of premise you outlined do not cover those types of organisation.

Indeed, if you follow the logic of that, the premises we are talking about are public places. The very reason why they are in business is that they expect people to come in as part of the service they provide. They are not private in that sense at all, as a home might be. They are places where the public congregate, and that is the reason why we have this bill before us. Some people believe that some of the substances used there are harmful, and they are trying to stop the public from being harmed by them. So by that very logic, one cannot say that we could exclude them on the basis that they are private, or that there is some other description for them. They are public places, and therefore by your very ruling we now have a contradiction. The fact is that these are public places. If this is a bill that affects public places, then you would have to rule that the amendments are in order.

You have ruled very clearly and quite unequivocally on two occasions. That ruling has being relitigated and challenged by the previous two speakers. I move, That the Speaker be recalled.

I thank the member for that. I was going to explain matters further, but that stops that. I would be very happy for the Speaker to return.

House resumed.

Motion agreed to, and

Speaker Recalled