Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill

I will take a brief call on the commencement clause in particular, and that is because a change was made at the Health Committee. If one simply read the commencement clause as it is written, one might think the Health Committee sought to delay the introduction of this legislation by changing the date on which it comes into force to being “at the end of the period of 12 months” as opposed to the original 6 months.

I do not want to venture too far into Part 1, but there are transitional matters in Part 1, and the overall effect of the change to the commencement clause is that all retailers will fall under the Act over a slightly shorter period of time as a result of the changes. The select committee heard from a number of submitters that perhaps the 6-month period for the initial commencement of the Act was too short a period of time for retailers to be able to comply.

I suppose there probably was not an awful lot of sympathy for the position, but we did hear some arguments about the changes that retailers would have to make to their display stands, to their stores, and what that would entail. We wanted to work alongside retailers, to get them on board, and to try to make this transition as easy for them as possible. The transition period has been reduced from 2 years to 12 months. So within 2 years, all-up, of this bill receiving Royal assent, every tobacco retailer in the country will have their tobacco products out of sight.

I have to say that I am really looking forward to the day when we can all walk into a dairy or a service station or a supermarket and not notice that tobacco is even there and available for sale. I would like to congratulate Tariana Turia on getting us to this point where we are just, at the most, 2 years away from that being the way things are in New Zealand. Of course, one day, a few short years after that, people will look back on the thought of advertising tobacco in any form whatsoever and think it was absolutely ludicrous.

It has been a journey, and this bill in itself is, of course, another step on the journey towards having a smoke-free New Zealand. I would like to congratulate Tariana Turia on getting the Government to support it. This will be my last call at the Committee stage of this bill, and I just want to say that I am very pleased to be able to support this legislation.

I will make just a few comments on the title and on other areas of this bill. Undoubtedly, the title of the Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill is totally appropriate. Indeed, we are all aiming for a smoke-free environment. This bill is imposing controls, and we have pretty tough enforcements as well.

However, one alternative title could have been the “Pavlovian Dog Reflex Bill”. The only reason I say that is that we very much wanted to be convinced that there was an evidence base behind these measures that we have taken, and, as we know, over the last 10 years or so there has been accumulated evidence from a whole variety of jurisdictions where they have started removing displays. It has taken some time to make sure that it is absolutely obvious. But what we do know is this: when smokers go into a store for the purpose of purchasing something else and they see signage all over the place, or they see their favourite cigarettes sitting in front of them, they have a Pavlovian dog reflex and they buy those, as well. Clearly, that is not a title that is appropriate, but the evidence was made very clear in the literature right around the world.

Indeed, this is yet another step in this very, very important public health effort to try to reduce smoking in our country. We still have a long way to go. The leadership of the Hon Tariana Turia has been absolutely superb. It has been wonderful that we have had a consensus in this House. The aim, of course, is to make our country smoke-free. Thank you.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment.

Report adopted.