Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time the bill will be referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I want to first of all mihi to all of those visionaries who began the journey of smoke-free legislation over two decades ago. The Smoke-free Environments Amendment Act in 1990 was one of the major turning points in New Zealand’s tobacco control history. In the space of more 20 years these people—too many to name—have reshaped our attitude to tobacco, and this bill is but another step on that journey. I want to also acknowledge the dedicated enthusiasm of officials, who continue to impress me with their tireless efforts to support the Government’s agenda to be smoke-free by 2025. Tēnā koutou.

This bill is about saving lives and protecting our future generations. In the Budget debate there is always an avalanche of numbers that falls upon the public, but in my mind there is only one number and that is the 5,000 New Zealanders who die each year due to smoking and exposure to second-hand smoke. It is profoundly disturbing that over half of all long-term smokers die of a smoking-related illness, losing an average of 15 years of life. It is not right, and we can, and we must, do something about it.

This bill reflects the view that smoking is not part of our future. Increasing tobacco excise taxes by 10 percent per year in each of the next 4 years is a key part of our strategy to prevent young people from taking up smoking and encourage existing smokers to quit. We know from New Zealand and international experience that increasing the price of tobacco is the single best thing that we can do to reduce tobacco consumption, and consequently prevent tobacco-related harm. After the four annual increases in tobacco excise promulgated in this bill, it is expected that a typical packet of 20 cigarettes will cost over $20, or $1 per cigarette. This is likely to be a huge psychological price point. I have read all the headlines that tell me that this is a hard-hitting move and it will hurt, but I ask the question: what sort of future are we shaping if we do not try to do everything possible to extend life expectancy, improve health outcomes, and strengthen our families? I would have to ask as to which is the greater hurt when we consider the impact of this addiction on far too many family members—loved ones who have gone far too soon.

At the moment, one in every five people over the age of 15 continues to put their health and their lives at significant risk by smoking. For Māori, the data is even more distressing. Some 155,000 current smokers are Māori. That is 45 percent of the Māori population aged between 15 and 64. I care deeply that almost half our population is living with compromised health and the expectation of a reduced lifespan. I know that together this Parliament can act to change that situation, and I look forward to broad support across the House.

We know that people are more responsive to price than they are to any other marketing intervention. A tax increase will stimulate smokers to make a quit attempt and successfully become smoke-free. One of the things I am most pleased about as a result of the last term’s changes is that we have seen a large reduction in the number of young people who are taking up smoking. The annual Action on Smoking and Health year 10 student survey included 26,000—or nearly 50 percent—of all students in this year and showed the lowest rate ever recorded of year 10 students who were daily smokers, and the biggest year-on-year drop in daily smoking was from 16.3 percent in 2010 to 11.3 percent last year for Māori girls, who have the highest smoking rates. That is a great result, and a result that I believe this entire House can be proud of in having voted for the previous tobacco excise increases.

The Government’s goal of a smoke-free Aotearoa New Zealand by 2025 has in no uncertain terms signalled that it is serious about eliminating the harms that are caused by smoking. The tobacco industry and wholesalers and retailers of tobacco need to understand this message: selling tobacco is a sunset industry in New Zealand. It is not our future.

I was intrigued to read the National Business Review yesterday, with the headline “Budget 2012: higher tobacco tax may encourage black market”. On reading more closely, it was revealed that the robust research basis for the article was none other than the viewpoints of the Imperial Tobacco Group. That is the company that produces brands like Drum, Horizon, and Peter Stuyvesant; it is hardly an objective observer. It is a pity that the National Business Review had not opted for a more balanced opinion by including the advice of people such as Professor Janet Hoek from Otago University. In the Science Media Centre, Professor Hoek responded to these allegations with the following statement: “I have never seen any evidence to support these claims and closer analyses of the industry’s claims have raised serious questions about their validity …”. On the contrary, there is a wealth of research available that gives even more reason for introducing this latest legislation to reduce the long-term burden on the health system and make people’s lives better.

Just 2 days ago, research by ASPIRE2025 funded by the Health Research Council and published in the international peer review journal Tobacco Control revealed that smokers strongly support tighter regulation of the tobacco industry, and almost half support an outright ban within a decade. I think that is amazing. These further four 10 percent increases are important and meaningful steps that are a necessary part of the Government’s commitments to achieve the 2025 smoke-free goal.

This bill is but one of a multi-pronged strategy. From 23 July this year a complete ban on the display of tobacco products will apply in everyday retail settings—out of sight, hopefully out of mind. Cabinet has agreed in principle to introduce a plain-packaging regime following public consultation later in the year. We have increased the fines for selling tobacco to minors from $2,000 to $5,000, and I have many other initiatives in progress, including that of stopping smoking in cars. I have stated that my approach is to do whatever it takes to support people to quit. The motivation is clear. I want all New Zealanders to enjoy the highest quality of health, and, of course, to benefit from more money back in their pockets, rather than feeding an addiction that sees their income literally go up in smoke. I am also clear that smokers should not have to do the hard yards on their own. It is about promoting and sustaining supportive environments that encourage us all to be smoke-free.

I am really proud that we have been able to establish a fund of $20 million under the umbrella of Pathway to Smoke-Free 2025. This fund gives us an opportunity to initiate programmes that support positive and healthy lifestyles, free from tobacco harm. We are calling this an innovation fund because we are seeking wider solutions to support our goals of becoming a smoke-free Aotearoa.

There is one particular feature of this legislation that I want to describe in a little more depth. When the increases in excise on tobacco products occurred in 2010, time-limited legislative amendments were made to exclude tobacco price increases from the annual CPI-based adjustments to the main benefits. This bill proposes to continue to extend the time-limited provisions to ensure that until the end of 2017 the following bills will exclude tobacco product price increases from required CPI indexation: the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989, the Education Act 1989, the Income Tax Act, the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act, the Social Security Act 1964, and the War Pensions Act 1954. The purpose of this is to ensure that recipients of social assistance are not reimbursed for increases in tobacco excise.

This bill takes us another step forward towards being a smoke-free nation by 2025. It is continuing the momentum created by the previous three tobacco excise tax increases. Raising tobacco excise is our most effective lever to influence the price of tobacco products, and I commend this bill to the House.

I would like to, like the Associate Minister of Health the Hon Tariana Turia did, acknowledge the over two decades now of work on reducing the impact of tobacco and the harm that tobacco causes to our communities. The Minister mentioned the introduction of the Smoke-free Environments Act in 1990, which I believe was introduced by Helen Clark. There have been other members—Tukoroirangi Morgan I know did a lot of work, and Stevie Chadwick, of course. She actually had a pretty rough time when she introduced legislation to reduce the impact of tobacco. I would like to acknowledge Dr Paul Hutchison, who actually had the fortitude to cross the floor at times when his party was not quite seeing things the right way. Dr Hutchison crossed the floor and voted with the Labour Government and other parties to put in place the right legislation to reduce the impact of tobacco. And of course, I would like to acknowledge the Minister. Her work over the last 3 to 4 years has been just stupendous and has really driven this agenda where we now have a target of making New Zealand smoke-free by 2025. I applaud the Minister for all the measures that she has been able to guide through Parliament—the excise tax increases, the removal of tobacco displays, which we will actually start to see happening in the months ahead, and now this measure, the Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, which we on this side of the House are happy to support.

We understand, of course, that increasing tax is a burden on people, but the message is really clear: if you want to relieve yourself of that burden, give up the smokes. It is as simple as that—give up the smokes. It will do more than just put money in your pocket; it will put years on your life and it will put life in your years. It is well—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: And a spring in your step.

And a spring in your step, Simon. So we absolutely support this move on this side of the House.

We look forward to more progress in other areas, as well. The Minister mentioned stopping people smoking in cars. We on this side of the House would prefer to focus on stopping people smoking in cars when there are children present in the car. We think that is the more important area to focus on. Children cannot make that decision themselves. They cannot ask an adult to not smoke, and we would like to see smoking prohibited in vehicles where there are children under the age of 18 present. That seems like a good next step.

I would also like to congratulate the Māori Party, and I know the Green Party is on the same page, because, like the Labour Party, their position on tobacco control measures has been absolutely consistent over the years. The same, of course, cannot be said for our friends on the other side of the House. Their conversion to supporting tobacco control measures is entirely down to Tariana Turia. I do not believe—well, I did not believe—that this bill would be coming into the House if Tariana Turia was not a member of the Government, because this just is not the sort of thing that the National Party has ever voted for.

But there is one thing that has maybe just made me think about that. I think that maybe, actually, even in the absence of the Māori Party, National would have brought this bill to Parliament this year, but for different motivations—completely different motivations. Because it will raise $528 million over the next 4 to 5 years, and we know that this Government is scrounging around everywhere to try to get revenue from wherever it can. We know it has been picking the pockets of the paper boys and paper girls. We know it has been cutting funding for our older people who want to go into rest homes. We know all the different ways that this Government is tinkering around the edges to try to find some revenue, and here is another way. So it disappoints me that a good, robust, evidence-based public health measure that we should actually be celebrating is really being supported by those members over there because they are desperate to make up the hole in their revenue, caused by mismanagement of this economy and unsustainable, unaffordable tax cuts that they brought in during their last term of Government. That is where the support for this bill in the National Party really comes from.

Dr Hutchison wants me to wind up. I know the optics are not good on this, are they, Dr Hutchison? I know that the member supports this for the right reasons, but his colleagues around him do not feel quite the same way. We know why they are really supporting this bill today. It is because of the failure of this Government to actually grow New Zealand’s economy. We have seen it time and time again, and, in fact, that is the only reason that each of the three pieces of legislation that we have debated under urgency over the last 24 hours have actually come to the House this week—because this Government has failed to grow the economy.

However, I do want to just finish by again applauding the Minister on this move. This, from a public health perspective, is absolutely the right direction. It is a next step in the journey that started decades ago, and hopefully a journey that we will be able to complete maybe in 10 or 12 years’ time from now, when we actually see New Zealand becoming smoke-free. Thank you.

As a smoker, a non-smoker, a smoker, a non-smoker, and, unfortunately, a smoker—but tomorrow will be another non-smoking day—I say that that speech we heard then from Iain Lees-Galloway was from a man who has never ever had to worry about giving up smoking after 25-odd years. It is so easy for that person to come into the House and pontificate about this, that, and the other thing, and smoking in cars, and blah-blah-blah. But the fact of the matter is that what he should have said right from the start is kia ora to our Minister in charge of this Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill—

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: I did.

Oh yeah, he did. He did. But he could not help saying what Labour had done back in 1990. Why do you not just stick to the issue in front of you, which is to say kia ora to the Hon Tariana Turia?

Being a non-smoker, a smoker, a non-smoker, a smoker, and then, hopefully, a non-smoker again, I say that this bill is a good thing. It will say to our young people that actually you should not be smoking, because of all these reasons, but also because, hey, cigarettes are going to cost 20 bucks a packet. You have got to be a fool—you have to be a fool—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Oh, order!

—if you are going to pay 20 bucks for a packet.

💬 Hon Annette King: Oh, Mr Speaker, you’re not a fool.

You know what I mean. You also have to congratulate the Minister, because if you extrapolate it out, say, 10 years, what we save in health costs is going to be millions and millions and millions of dollars, and not only through preventing the odd heart attack that a member of Parliament may have; respiratory problems, all sorts of problems, come from smoking. I am not a zealot. I will tell you now that if it ever comes to the House, I will not vote to ban smoking in cars or even to ban smoking in cars with children in them. That is a decision for mum and dad or whomever. If you get to that point, it is just one step away from being a dictatorship, and as far as I am concerned I will be voting no.

But, other than that, there is $20 million in this package that is going towards other assistance packages for people who find it difficult to give up smoking. I can tell you from experience—from several experiences—that even if you have been off the fags for 2 years, it is so easy to pick one up and get off the wagon. I am not ashamed of it. I know that it is a buzzy thing to be a non-smoker these days, like the former speaker, but I have got to tell you that it is not the easiest thing to do.

💬 Dr Jackie Blue: It’s an addiction.

Yeah, yeah, and we know all of that. We know all of that. Smokers know all of that. One thing that I ask of this House and every member in it is that they do not vilify the smoker—

💬 Dr Jackie Blue: We’re not.

But you do. [Interruption] You do not, but she does. It is a very easy thing to do. It is a very easy thing to do.

💬 Hon Member: Yell at us. Yell at us. Yell at us.

I would not waste my breath on yelling at the Labour Party. It is easy to get up and be a zealot and tell people what to do. What we have to do is use some of that money that our Minister has saved for us and got in the Budget to actually prompt people in the right way to give up smoking. Kia ora.

I am happy to take a call on the Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill and I reiterate Labour’s support for this bill and congratulations to the Associate Minister of Health the Hon Tariana Turia on bringing this to the House. I am a long-given-up smoker, but I was around in the 1990s, and Helen Clark—in 1990, was it not—was not my friend at the time. We all smoked at our workplace, and along came Helen Clark and told us that we were not able to smoke. But I have to tell you that that was the best thing that happened to me. From then on there was a smokers’ room, and then that got banned, so from then we had to go outside, and then that got cold. So eventually I gave up smoking. So I think those sorts of measures do encourage people, and, certainly, if I was having to pay 20 bucks for a packet of fags now, that would be a very, very strong incentive.

Just one other comment: I am interested that we are sending this to select committee. I am very pleased about that. It is nice to be debating a bill that is actually going to select committee in this urgency period. I think there are still some issues around smoking in the workplace. I certainly know there are some at Skycity with its so-called outdoor high rollers area, where people are smoking. Issues have been brought up there with me and I am sure others—

💬 Kris Faafoi: Skycity?

Skycity—yes, that is right. So I hope that the select committee process will give us the opportunity to have a really good debate about Skycity, but also we can talk about the very, very important issue that those workers, I know, feel very strongly about and actually campaigned to support Stevie Chadwick’s bill in 2005. Thank you, and we support this bill.

I want to begin by joining with other members of this House in once again applauding the singular and extraordinary contribution made by the Hon Tariana Turia to this agenda towards a smoke-free Aotearoa. I agree with the comments of Iain Lees-Galloway that it has been her drive and commitment on this issue that have seen this agenda take positive steps forward, and I greatly appreciate that.

Next week—31 May—is World Smokefree Day, and it is a good time for us to look back on the progress that we have made on this agenda and the steps still to take. Cigarette smoking is the biggest cause of preventable death in this country, causing somewhere between 4,500 and 5,000 preventable deaths each year. As George Thomson and others have established through their research work, the single most important intervention in the prevention of those deaths is the mechanism of price increase. So the measures in this Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill that we are debating today are the single most important thing that we could be doing about the single greatest source of preventable death in this country. They are pretty important.

There is considerable evidence of high quality that excise tax increases are very closely linked, in fact, with increased quit attempts and increased successful quit attempts. That, from a public health practitioner’s point of view, is a very encouraging thing, because it says that by making this one intervention it is possible to have a very direct effect on the problem that we are trying to deal with. It is solid, nationwide evidence, but I particularly note the evidence from my home area of the West Coast. In 2010 when the House debated a similar bill around increasing the excise tax on tobacco, I drew attention to the fact that the West Coast has one of the highest rates of cigarette smoking in the country, and the pain I felt as a result of that, and my desperation and determination to do something effective about it. Last week I was very pleased to receive a communication from the West Coast Primary Health Organisation—and some other members may have also—recording some of the progress that that organisation has been making on its smoke-free agenda. I am very pleased to say that it is making some very good progress. In the current year to date it has some 436 smokers currently engaged in cessation attempts, and 24 percent of those attempts are successful. That is an extremely good rate; 24 percent may sound like not very much to some people, but as my colleague the Hon Tau Henare has just pointed out, quitting is a really hard thing to do. The last evidence I saw was that it took, on average, seven quit attempts to be successful. So keep going, brother, and congratulations to the West Coast Primary Health Organisation, because a 24 percent success rate is extraordinarily good.

But the thing that I particularly drew encouragement from was the evidence from the primary health organisation about when quit attempts were being made. It has tracked that over a 2-year period and has noticed a surge in those attempts in the April to June quarter over the last couple of years. It attributes those surges to two factors. It says they are associated with the excise increases that have occurred in those 2 years, and also the quit-smoking campaigns that have occurred in May associated with World Smokefree Day. Again, that is great encouragement for what we are doing here today with this bill.

There have been in the last week several opportunities in the House to talk about health promotion. I want to briefly remind the House about what health promotion says. It says that illness is a function of, effectively, marginalisation or disempowerment, and the social and physical environment that surrounds a particular community. It is those socio-environmental factors that drive the fact that illnesses are clustered in particular communities. The West Coast population has the lowest median household income of any population in New Zealand. It is a relatively marginalised population. That is why the smoking rates are higher. That is why the smoking rates on the West Coast are comparable with those amongst Māori and Pacific Island people—two other population groups that are marginalised in our community. The answer to that problem is to address the marginalisation and also address the environmental factors surrounding those communities. So the price increase is important, but not by itself sufficient. There are many other things that we need to be doing in the area of public policy, social and physical environment, resourcing community-based programmes, assisting people with personal skills, and reorienting our health services.

The Ministry of Health has funded a research programme to assess what it would take to halve smoking rates by the year 2020. I say it is great that such a programme exists, but I want to encourage a redoubling of the effort, because, in fact, halving smoking rates by 2020 is still insufficient. That will not be enough to get us to our goal of rates less than 5 percent by 2025. We still need to do more. The Minister has talked about some of the other things that we are doing, and I take a lot of encouragement from them, but I would also draw on some other things that we could be doing. This House has had, for example, the recommendations from the Māori Affairs Committee. We are doing some of those things, but there are an awful lot of things on that agenda that the Government is not moving on. That agenda was set by I think the biggest and most important and powerful inquiry into tobacco use in New Zealand—certainly, in recent years. There was a great action programme set out by that select committee, and we should be following it. I want to mention a particular initiative that we could be following, and that is to take more of the excise tax from tobacco products to fund cessation programmes and health promotion programmes around smoke-free environments. That would be another concrete step that this country could easily take towards that goal of a smoke-free Aotearoa by 2025.

I want to finally refer to, I guess, a time line prepared by Regional Public Health here in Wellington. It records the achievements in this journey since 1990 and it was prepared in 2010. It said we should increase the tobacco tax by 10 percent each year until 2012, prohibit tobacco product displays, have tighter control of the display of trading names, look at infringement notices for selling to the under-aged, clarify trade rebates and discounts—we are doing that—have plain packaging, reduce the transitional period, amend the health warning, and look at infringement notices. We are moving in that direction. And then we move on to licensing retailers, local authority control over the number and location of outlets, the prohibition of vending machines, embedding the framework convention, annually reducing the amount of imported products, and so on, until we achieve that goal. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tātou e te Whare, tātau e wetewete nei i tēnei pire nā te Hōnore Tariana Tūria i whakatakoto ki mua i ō koutou aroaro. Ka nui te mihi ki a koutou e mihi mai ki a ia. Me mihi ki a ia ka tika, nāna tēnei pire i kōkiri ki mua i te aro o te Kāwana Nāhinara. Nā, kua eke tēnei o ngā pire ki tōna taumata i tēnei wā, nō reira, mihi mai ki a ia.

I ētahi wā, ka pātaia te pātai, he aha te take o te noho o tētahi rōpū pakupaku pēnei i te Pāti Māori roto i te Whare Pāremata? Anei. Anei te puāwaitanga o te kōrero. Ka taea e ngā rōpū pakupaku te kōkiri ngā take nui mēnā kai te noho rātau hai hoa haere mō te Kāwanatanga. Nā reira, kai te mihi ki a ia, kai te mihi ki te painga o te noho i roto i te Whare Pāremata. Kai te mihi ki te rā, he rā whakahirahira mō mātou o te Pāti Māori, ka mutu, te tikanga ia mō te motu whānui tonu. Koia tētahi kaupapa kua roa e kōkirihia ana e te Pāti Māori, mai i te rā tuatahi i eke mātau ki roto i tēnei Whare Pāremata. Koia tētahi kaupapa nui, whakaharahara, anā, koinei te puāwatanga i te rā nei, ā, he rā anō āpōpō mō ngā wetewetenga o roto i ngā komiti whāiti ēngari, tōna mutunga mai, kua āro mai, me kī, te nuinga o te Whare Pāremata ki tēnei o ngā pire. Ka mihi rā, ka mihi, ka mihi.

[Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Greetings to us who are here considering this bill, which the Hon Tariana Turia has put before you. I really appreciate your acknowledgments to her. It is apt, indeed, that you praise her, as she is responsible for putting this bill before the National Government. This bill has reached its pinnacle at this point in time. So acknowledge her, indeed.

There are times when the question is posed: why exactly does a minor party like the Māori Party remain in Parliament? Here it is. Here then is the fruition of the talk. It is possible for minor parties to broker matters of huge significance if they are an associate of the Government. So I applaud her, I applaud the benefits of being in Parliament, and I applaud this day. It is a wonderful and magnificent day for us, the Māori Party, and generally for the entire nation, eventually. The topic at hand is one that the Māori Party has been dealing with for a long time, right from the first day we entered this Parliament. It is a huge and enormous one and its fruition is at hand today. Of course, there is another day tomorrow for select committee considerations but, at the end of it all, the majority of members, shall we say, will have taken due diligence to this bill. My acknowledgments to each and all.]

It is a good day to be a Māori Party member when all of the things come together, the stars align, and you happen to get a nice, sharp, concise, well-thought-out, common-sense bill that is going to take the country forward. I made up all of those words just by myself. I do not think there is too much to argue about in this bill, the Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, as we really focus on looking after the well-being of the people of this land. We know that cigarettes are highly addictive and lethal, and they cannot be made any safer.

He mea mauhere i te ngākau, i te wairua, i te tinana o te tangata, koinei te mate, pēnei tā te Hōnore Tau Henare e kōrero nei.

[It is like what the Hon Tau Henare said: the problem is that it grips the heart, spirit, and body of the person who is imprisoned.]

It is something that obviously grabs you. You can be un-grabbed, as he was un-grabbed, and then it grabs you again. That is one of the unfortunate things about it. This is one of the things that we of the Māori Party call a social hazard, and it is something that we clearly wanted to address from day one when we arrived in the Parliament of this land. It is an epidemic and, unfortunately, we do not always have control over it.

I can say that there have been many approaches and many ways that the Parliament of this land has attempted to deal with this issue, from disease warnings on tobacco packaging through to bans in the workplace. Others have spoken this afternoon about subsidising medicinal nicotine, but it has not had too much of an effect. I for one have been to tangi after tangi after tangi, in particular of women—Māori women—who have suffered from cancer. There is nothing worse than seeing the children who are left behind because of the effects of cancer on not only that person who has passed away but the families and the children and the partners. As I say, the consequences of this are pretty grim. Lung cancer mortality rates for Māori are three times that of non-Māori, and we have much to think about as we take this bill forward.

It is about life and death. We are at a critical point, I think, in our history, where we have never been before, seeing the levels of support—from both sides of the House, and both from politicians and from the public—to take a serious look at tobacco control measures. As I say, I am really proud of the outstanding leadership and the dedication that the Hon Tariana Turia has shown in progressing this bill. It is acknowledged that some of the work was done through the Māori Affairs Committee as well, and there are members of the House who were on that committee who really did push this issue out into the public arena. In terms of the Hon Tariana Turia, she has been at the front of this for the last couple of years, certainly. Not that I should necessarily talk behind her back, but she is one who does not tolerate inertia too much. She wants some action, and I know that she was pretty disappointed that we could not, unfortunately, send the legislation all the way through the legislative process today. But we get that it has to happen like that. But we must try to seize the moment to meet the vision of having a smoke-free Aotearoa by 2025.

It is also about the leadership that each of the MPs in the Parliament of our land has in exercising and voting on this particular issue, supporting raising the tax as a catalyst for change. The great thing that we know about the rise in the tobacco excise tax increases that were introduced in April 2010 and in January 2011, and then again in January 2012, is that putting up that tax not only prevents young people from smoking but also encourages existing smokers to quit. I hope the Hon Tau Henare will follow through on that particular issue as well.

It is particularly pleasing to read through the Action on Smoking and Health year 10 study, and to see that Māori students had the biggest decline in daily smoking compared with other ethnicities, with a change from 14.1 percent in 2010 to 10.3 percent in 2011. As that points out, it is all about changing attitudes and creating an environment that enables smokers, basically, to quit. Research from the Otago University study of 1,300 smokers reported that almost 70 percent of Māori who smoke and 74 percent of Pasifika people who smoke actually supported tighter regulation of the tobacco industry. The study also showed that 66 percent of the Māori smokers and 78 percent of the Pasifika participants thought the Government should do more to tackle the harms of smoking.

I have heard all of the arguments that tobacco tax increases can induce financial hardship and result in ill health in families. But I would have to say that, on balance, increasing tobacco tax actually benefits poor families far more, because, as we all know, the harms from smoking are far greater than the harms from tobacco tax will ever be. The ill health and premature loss of life caused by smoking, particularly for Māori, as I say, is a real disgrace. It is also a perfect opportunity right now to put in place an immediate strategy to eliminate a social hazard that has done so much to hinder economic and human growth in Aotearoa, and, as other members have said, it costs literally millions of dollars in health care.

I want to commend, again, the Hon Tariana Turia for looking at this issue in a wider context, as we take on this issue with all of the other initiatives that we have in train—for example, the plain packaging, tobacco not being displayed in the shops from July of this year, the issue about making cars smoke-free, and all the other ideas to advance the tobacco control strategy to be smoke-free, as I said, by 2025.

Although the tax increases are effective, we know that tobacco tax alone will not do it by itself. We need to support those who are struggling to quit. So with that in mind I am really proud of the Budget that we are currently debating, and of the Māori Party being able to negotiate through some gains across the board, but, in particular, the $20 million for health promotion initiatives, which are basically about supporting positive and healthy lifestyles and freeing people from cigarette smoking. The initiatives can relate to a wide range of things, and I am hoping they are talking about sport, recreation, creating incentives to quit smoking, healthy homes, and all of those sorts of initiatives.

Finally, I recognise that this is a huge challenge. Who would think that in another 15 or 16 years or so we can, hopefully, realise the dream of a smoke-free Aotearoa? If we achieve that, it will be a great day for this country. But it is going to take some leadership, and it is going to take some action. We saw last week the Iwi Leaders Group taking a leadership role at the AFFCO plants around the country. It was able to negotiate through the communication gap between the unions and that firm, and I would hope that the iwi take up another leadership role in respect of this particular kaupapa. I know that Dr Pita Sharples, through Ngāti Kahungunu, is skiting about Ngāti Kahungunu’s youth tobacco strategy. It has certainly looked at banning cigarette smoking on marae, in the whare, on waka, at the urupā, at the cemetery, and so on. We hope that that rolls out throughout the country.

Finally, we want to invite all New Zealanders to pick up on the challenge to quit smoking, to support and encourage whānau members to give up, and to discourage our younger ones from ever starting. That would be the ultimate. Smoking has robbed us of too many of our treasures. We need to de-normalise smoking, and we need to support our whānau to be smoke-free. The Māori Party supports this bill absolutely.

Talofa lava, Mr Speaker, in Samoan Language Week and heading towards Samoa’s 50th anniversary of independence in the next week. Tēnā koe, Minister Tariana Turia. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. We read in the bill that this bill will see cumulative 10 percent increases in tax on tobacco, commencing 1 January 2013 and on every 1 January thereafter for the following 4 years, taking a packet of cigarettes from about $14 per packet to over $20 a packet by the year 2016. The bill states that the increase in the price of cigarettes will discourage tobacco consumption, which, in turn, will improve the health of New Zealanders. New Zealand First will not oppose this bill; we will support it. However, we agree that it is in New Zealand’s interest to tackle the harmful effects of smoking, and the cost of cigarettes is only just one tool—a very simple, basic tool—to limit consumption.

New Zealand First has some concerns that this may have been just a pay-off by the National Government to the Māori Party in order to keep its vote and support. This is a common thought throughout New Zealand. Was this just another sop to one of the cling-on parties attached to the National Party—a bit like the charter schools for the ACT Party? We hope we are proven wrong. We hope there are real reasons for this, and that this is not something being put through by the National Government just as another one of its sops to its cling-on parties.

We are also concerned that this is being done in the interests of the health of New Zealanders, that it is not being done by a nickel-and-dime, pick-a-pocket Fagin Government looking just to extract more tax and money from the hard-working everyday man, woman, and child—or even people in rest homes—in this country, and that this is being done for genuine reasons and is not just another means of topping up the coffers of the National Government.

New Zealand First, on the other hand, expects that increases in tax on tobacco and cigarettes will see these taxes making a real difference with the effects of smoking in New Zealand. We would expect that the increased funding from the taxes taken from the increase in the excise will go into the following things, which are already taking place, to a certain extent, but which we would expect, as a result, to be beefed up. We expect an increase in the media spend on public awareness campaigns, concentrating, for example, on the media showing the real effects of smoking on unborn babies—real stories, real people, the good and the bad, and getting the real information out there to show the effects on our children. We would expect that such campaigns would dispel the whānau myths. Smoking is a killer, but the messages that come down through the Māori whakapapa contradict that. “I smoked through all my pregnancies, and you lot are all right.” is a common comment.

The truth is cigarettes now contain many more poisons than they ever did before. They are more potent, and New Zealand cigarettes have one of the highest levels of nicotine in the world, which therefore makes them more highly addictive and harder to do without. Tau Henare is testimony to that.

New Zealand First would also expect that more funding from these tax increases would allow health professionals to work with specialist populations, such as more specific support for those with mental illness, who may find it extremely difficult to quit without extra assistance. We hope more funding will go into programmes with those with mental problems who face difficulties giving up smoking. Our very able primary health organisations throughout New Zealand are already doing a great job in terms of their smoking cessation programmes. We hope those primary health organisations throughout New Zealand will get more funding to raise awareness of the importance and seriousness of tobacco-related harm. Smoking cessation programmes need to become more integrated and prioritised across contracted funding streams such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Quitting smoking reduces risks across these other health issues, and this must be part of the tax package that goes back into these health programmes.

Cigarette taxation needs to fund research, with resources made available to those who are at the coalface, without there being huge application processes or bureaucracy, and access to researchers who can give their time to help write up case-based realities to share and grow existing smoking cessation services. We need more training and recognition of the smoking cessation workforce, and access for funded quality training of those people providing those programmes.

We also need money from these increased taxes to go into an innovation fund to recognise that there are lots of great suggestions to try, such as quit cafes, for example, which have been tried around the world. In other countries they have been very successful. Let us give them a go. Let us have some quit cafes developed in New Zealand. New Zealand needs to look at innovative ideas and methods to help our population reduce the consumption of tobacco and cigarettes.

New Zealand First will not oppose this Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, but we will put the Government on notice. New Zealand First will be monitoring what funding is being provided on the other side of the ledger to help deliver programmes that will make a real difference to smoking consumption in this country. We will expect to see funding and delivery of smoking cessation programmes to go up quite a few notches—not just lip service but proper funding and delivery of good programmes. These cigarette tax increases must not be just another way for this penny-pinching Fagin Government to pick the pockets of good everyday New Zealanders in order to balance the books of an ever-failing Government.

Talofa, Mr Speaker. It is a great pleasure to speak on this Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. It is hugely encouraging to think that every member in this Parliament supports it. I think that it is well realised that increasing the excise does indeed diminish smoking. The issue is in the order of 15 premature deaths per day and 5,000 premature deaths per year.

Last night TV3 dragged out a fairly elderly man with a deeply nicotine-stained finger and crinkly skin, and he claimed that his doctor 60 years ago had encouraged him to start smoking to ease his anxiety. The interesting thing is that that may well have been so, because at that stage of events members of the armed services right throughout the world were literally encouraged to smoke. But it was in the late 1950s that Sir Richard Doll, epidemiologist, demonstrated unequivocally the harm associated with smoking.

It has been since then that groups of professionals, NGOs, and many others have worked in this long journey towards achieving a smoke-free New Zealand. Might I acknowledge all those groups: Action on Smoking and Health, and the Labour Party in the 1990s, which worked so hard to progress the legislation. But, more recently, I acknowledge people like Tariana Turia, who has worked extremely hard and led so extremely hard, and people like my colleague the Hon Tau Henare and the Māori Affairs Committee. I acknowledge people like Hone Harawira, and Tukoroirangi Morgan from New Zealand First, but even more recently the glorious National Government and the Hon Tony Ryall, who have, indeed, supported this tobacco excise tax and made it possible. It is indeed very, very satisfying to be able to support this first reading of this bill in the House. Fa‘afetai tele lava.

Are there any further speakers?

💬 Gareth Hughes: Mr Speaker—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Well, you are standing. I call Gareth Hughes.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. I am going to take a very brief call. The Green Party supports a smoke-free nation. We think that increasing the price of tobacco is an important market signal. That is why we are voting for the Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill tonight. Kia ora.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

I seek leave for the Minister to move an earlier report-back date, under Standing Order 286(1).

Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is no objection.

I move, That the Finance and Expenditure Committee report to the House on or before 26 September 2012.

Motion agreed to.

The House adjourned at 5.06 p.m. (Friday)