Smoke-free Environments (Prohibiting Smoking in Motor Vehicles Carrying Children) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Smoke-free Environments (Prohibiting Smoking in Motor Vehicles Carrying Children) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Talofa lava and happy Samoan Language Week. I’d like to thank the members in Parliament, Government officials, NGOs, and all members of the public who made submissions and advocated and played a role in getting the bill to this stage. I especially want to thank Brendon Baker, Nidha Khan, Kirsty Shepherd, Sally Stewart, and the rest of the tobacco control team at the Ministry of Health for their tireless work on this bill. I’d also like to acknowledge and thank the Director-General of Health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield, who’s been a leader and an advocate and a strong person in terms of tobacco control and public health for many, many years.

Our collective desire and commitment to protecting our children, tamariki, and rangatahi have been a critical driving force behind this bill. I know this bill has taken a while. In fact it’s been a decade since the Māori Affairs Committee recommended that the Government should investigate banning smoking in vehicles carrying children. Today, it is good to know that we are finally going to pass this important piece of legislation.

This Government has been clear that children’s wellbeing must be at the front and centre of our policy agenda. With this bill I can stand here and proudly say that we are on our way to making New Zealand the best place in the world to be a child. At its core, the Smoke-free Environments (Prohibiting Smoking in Motor Vehicles Carrying Children) Amendment Bill protects our tamariki, our children, and our rangatahi from the dangers of second-hand smoke. It amends the Smoke-free Environments Act 1990, and makes it an offence to smoke in a motor vehicle carrying anyone under the age of 18.

The Health Promotion Agency will be running an education campaign to inform people about the changes being made to the law prior to the enactment of the bill. While this bill gives police the ability to issue an infringement fee of $50 when the bill comes into effect in 18 months’ time, it is important to note that enforcement efforts will only focus on public education and changing social norms. Police will use their discretion over whether or not to issue an infringement fee, give a warning, or provide information and referrals to the local stop-smoking services.

During the select committee process members of the public raised concerns about the exemption that makes it permissible for adults to smoke in a vehicle with a child if the vehicle is stationary and used as a dwelling. They contended that all tamariki and children, regardless of their current living situation, deserve equal protection under the legislation. This Government reflected on these concerns and agreed that the exemption was too broad. This bill will now only exempt motor vehicles that have been manufactured for use on occasion as a permanent dwelling, for example, caravans or motorhomes, while they are stationary on a road and used as a dwelling. Any other motor vehicle—for example, a car that is in use as a dwelling—will not be included in this exemption.

To conclude, I’d like to thank everyone that has played a role in getting the bill to this stage. This includes the Health Committee and everyone who has submitted on this bill, especially our tamariki and young people, who came to make submissions. Your stories, concerns, and suggestions made a valuable contribution to the committee’s consideration of this bill.

The public has been waiting for this bill for a decade and people want action as soon as possible. I’m very pleased to be able to stand here today and say that I strongly commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I share the Associate Minister of Health’s aspirations for tamariki that New Zealand should be the best place in the world to raise a child. I fear that the rhetoric and the reality under this Government are two quite different things. We have family violence rates that are shameful by any measure. We have child poverty rates that are going backwards, and have been since this Government came to office. And yet, in order to create the environment in which this is the best place to raise a child, and in the middle of a great pandemic outbreak, we have this bill. Apparently, this is the Government’s solution to the problem of child raising. Well, we will support this bill, with serious caveats—

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: Who is the member talking to? The schools that have all been asking for it?

The member interjecting is going to defend this. Well, it’s defending the indefensible, actually, because child wellbeing is going nowhere except backwards under this Government, and that Minister knows it. However, we will support this bill—

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: Oh, great.

—despite it not being the great, dare I say it, burning issue of the day—did she like that?

And we have concerns. I mean, the Minister—talk about gilding the lily. She talks about how the Government listened carefully to the submissions on the stationary vehicle issue. They were lampooned and shamed into making something of a change, which is still not materially better than the nonsense that we had when this bill came in at first reading. Apparently, we’re now talking about campervans when they’re used as dwellings, but only if they’re stationary. So if the campervan is travelling at 80 kilometres along State Highway 6 on the way to Cromwell, it’s not lawful to have a ciggy, but once it’s parked up on the side of Lake Dunstan, with the windows wound up, it’s OK. Actually, it’s still a vehicle. Somebody might sleep in it, a child may sleep in it, but it’s still a vehicle. And if this is harmful and if this is important enough to disallow, then it should be disallowed.

I also know, as the member for Waitaki certainly does, the definition of a vehicle used as a dwelling is a very loose one. We know that from freedom camping and the idea of a self-contained vehicle being used as a dwelling. So that is a nonsense. It hasn’t been fixed adequately.

Then we have the issue of police powers. Now, I wanted this bill to come in with immediate effect, because the Government’s goal is to have an education campaign. Well, that’s fine. Let’s make it an offence now. But, actually, the offences regime is not going to come in for 18 months so that the police can build the necessary information systems to record the infringements that the very Minister says won’t be issued because they’ll take an education approach. Well, if that’s the case, why not take the education approach from day one? Why wait for so long before those infringement regimes take effect?

And why on earth are we even involving the police, who have enough to do in this country, frankly? And yet they are now, in addition to all of the serious violent offending, which again is going up on this Government’s watch, and the victims of crime also—and we have the police now being expected to check whether somebody is having a ciggy in a car with a child; something that is not appropriate. It should be discouraged. It should be made, culturally, a bad thing to do. And now we’re going to get our police to enforce that. I think that is a complete waste of police resources.

💬 Michael Wood: The member’s voting for the bill to create a law. The police enforce the law.

That’s right. Says Mr Wood, “The police enforce the law.” And boy, some people have said we’ve become a police State lately, because they’re knocking on doors now without a warrant, taking a head count to see whether or not there are more than 10 people in a house, just because there’s a few cars up the driveway. That’s a strong democracy! That’s what we really need! The Attorney-General chuckles, but he knows it’s not that funny, because that’s exactly the sort of police powers the State has been granting them—

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: Has had for years.

—and now they’re going to check on the ciggies. Well—oh, no. You see, the Minister for Children says, “Oh, it’s been like that for years.” Well, no, it hasn’t. These are new powers, given by a Government drunk on the powers—

💬 Hon David Parker: They’re in the Health Act. They’re not new powers.

Yes, they are. We passed the legislation only a week ago. The member forgets. Reasonable cause, without warrant, entry into people’s houses to check numbers of peaceful occupants going about their private business: that’s where we’ve got to, and now we include smoking in cars.

Well, I know what the police think about this. They cringe, because that is not what they were sworn to do. That is not what they want to be doing. They want to keep our community safe, but this isn’t a safety issue. This isn’t a matter for police. Yes, let’s pass the legislation, if that’s what the Government wants to do. But are we really going to divert police resources to this? I very much hope not. It’s not going to change the world. It’s not going to make the lives of our children materially better. Actually, laws—if it was as easy as passing laws to prevent crime, well, we’d have no crime. But people—the human nature that they are is such that they will continue their habits regardless of the law, and the thing that changes it is their fear of getting caught. And their fear of getting caught is a direct correlation with police’s actions. Poster campaigns aren’t going to change behaviour; the actions of police are going to change behaviour, and that’s what worries me about this. This is a very, very strong step in that direction. I don’t think police are going to spend much time on this, and I hope I’m right, because it’s not what they should be doing.

With all of that said, we’re going to support it. We’re got to support it, because, as my friends on the other side continued to tell us for nine years, it’s unlikely to do any harm. But let’s not pretend for a moment it’s going to do a material amount of good. And if this is so important that the House’s time, right now, should be dedicated to this, then I fear for the next few months, when the economic tsunami hits and this Government has run out of ideas. The response has been pretty good; the recovery is going to be woeful, if this is their idea of what’s important right now.

I welcome the member the Hon Michael Woodhouse’s support of that bill. Obviously, he had a slot to fill and had to find something to say. For a bill that he supported, he certainly went around the houses, shall we say. I think what we also need to acknowledge, though, is his point on police entering without a warrant. There are numerous situations where police have always been able to do that—the Arms Act, the Misuse of Drugs Act, the Health Act. And the member knows that even council noise control can enter. So he is really in danger of misleading the House in this situation when he doesn’t acknowledge those other situations where police are able to enter the building.

Now, I do want to acknowledge the work of the member Jenny Salesa to get this bill through the House. Thank you for your leadership on this issue. It is an issue that has been around for a very long time—a very, very long time. It’s something that we don’t foresee the police spending a lot of time on, other than public education and information campaigns and the like having an effect on the population. We know that children can be harmed from second-hand smoke. We know that asthma and other things—lifelong debilitating illnesses—can result from exposure to second-hand smoke. So this is a really good step forward, and it comes after committees previously—in 2010 the National Government ignored a recommendation from the Māori Affairs Committee on tobacco to investigate exactly this issue. In 2016, there was a recommendation from the Health Committee, then chaired by National MP Simon O’Connor, calling for a ban on smoking in cars with children, and there was no action then, of course. The National Government rejected that recommendation. So we do welcome their change of heart. It is good to have progress here.

💬 Hon Member: It’s never too late.

It is never too late, that’s right, to make a difference in children’s lives. And we also want to put on record that, of course, child poverty is being reduced by the efforts of this Government, and that member, Michael Woodhouse, stating otherwise, again, is not borne out by any of the facts that have been put before this House.

So this is a part of a wider effort to make sure that we do get towards Smokefree 2025. We’ll continue to provide smoking cessation support for people. We’ve got vaping facts launched now so that people who want to quit smoking through vaping have a way of getting there. And we also know that there are myriad other ways in which we are supporting people with the health issues that are created by second-hand smoke. This Government has taken seriously the responsibility of funding our health system after it’s been neglected for a very, very long time. So I am delighted to support this bill. Unlike the previous member, who acknowledged that it would be good just to get it through and then spent 10 minutes talking, I intend to keep my speech short. But, to acknowledge the member Jenny Salesa for putting it through: thank you for your leadership, Minister, on this matter. It’s really good that our children will not be threatened for ever by second-hand smoking, because we are going to change the social norm that it’s acceptable to smoke in a car with children present.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. We will be supporting this bill through its final stage here, and I’d like to thank the Health Committee, who it was a pleasure to work with to progress to this stage. The member who has just sat down, the Hon Dr David Clark, commented on the vaping bill being close to maybe conclusion. Can I point out that in the regulatory impact statement of 2019, end of 2019, the comment was made—in fact, it was the departmental report from September last year—that the vaping bill will be introduced shortly, in the next few weeks. Wow. Six months ago we were told it was only going to be a few weeks away, when the departmental report for this bill came out. Unbelievable. Yet here we are now. That’s a long time to get to this stage.

So I want to just focus initially on the cause of the damage that we’re talking about here today, and then speak briefly on the health consequences as well. Can I reach out, first of all, to part of the genesis of this bill from a child’s perspective, which was actually some of the schoolchildren in Northland in 2016 who were the Northland branch—the Whangārei branch, actually—of the Cancer Society. They had a Blue Light enterprise with the Relay for Life, and they surveyed those who were participating in the relay and asked them around their position on second-hand smoke in cars for children, formed that survey, put it on a big board, and came to my office and presented it to me and asked if I’d bring it to Parliament, which I was pleased to do, of course. So it’s a reach-out back to some of those children. It’s 2016; four years ago now. They’ll have left the intermediate school, as I recall, that they were at, but I want them to take a little pat on the back here today because part of their work gets us to where we are tonight.

If we look at some of the statements around how second-hand smoking in cars is damaging—not quite what it’s going to do; I’ll come to that in a moment—we have a large amount of evidence showing us that in a vehicle where there’s second-hand smoking, even if the window is halfway down, even if there is air conditioning on, the New Zealand Medical Journal tells us that it’s still as if you were in a smoky pub. Absolutely. You might think just winding the window down or turning the air conditioning on will make a difference, but still: significant second-hand implications.

I think what I found interesting—what I’ve always found interesting—is the third-hand smoking, and that is the residues long after smoking in the vehicle is finished. I mean, that’s really fascinating—these studies that have looked at second-hand vehicles, vehicles on lots that haven’t been used for a while and where one vehicle, for argument’s sake, had been a vehicle where smoking had occurred and another was not, and then to do wipe samples of the seating and do air and dust samples in each vehicle and look at the difference. Many years later, we still find residual effects of smoking in the upholstery where vehicles have been used as a smoking receptacle, and in the air and dust samples. So this third-hand smoking is really important—another piece of compelling evidence, as to why we are supporting this bill.

I want to reflect for a moment on the health consequences. We know—certainly, the regulatory impact statement told us—that there is an impact on asthma and on glue ear. I think we’ve probably known that for a while. I think the submission from the Auckland Regional Public Health Service (ARPHS) was really useful through the select committee stage. The select committee stage was very good, actually. We had 120 submissions, and I found them all very, very useful, with experts from a range of domains. But I particularly found the Auckland Regional Public Health Service useful, because they actually quantified the damage. It’s enough to say, “Look, it affects asthma, it affects admissions, it affects glue ear.” Well, that’s kind of an easy statement to say, but give it a number. Give it a number so we can really identify what the impact is and compare it to what other interventions we might be looking at.

So that’s what ARPHS did, and they said that, for under-16-year-olds, 15,000 children with asthma attacks will be prevented. It would’ve been useful to do a cost-benefit analysis on that, because I think 15,000 children with asthma attacks is probably going to get up to a big fiscal number that we’re saving and able to deploy elsewhere in the health system with the bill that we’re passing here tonight. They said that for under-two-year-olds roughly 500 children will be spared from being admitted with chest infections. Now, I imagine the case rate for an average admission for a child starts at about $1,500. So again, if we do the cost-benefit analysis on this, clearly a good saving in passing this bill, if we want to compare benefits.

I think another good number that I hung on to was the number around glue ears. A short procedure—only takes a few minutes, actually. But if we look at those people who are convicted and up at Ngāwhā prison at the moment, 95 percent of them will have had glue ear as a child, with a long consequence of that. So you get glue ear as a child, you don’t hear, so you become disruptive, you get passed into being the troubled child, and your life’s journey will take a different turn. So I think this has a really big impact on those children with glue ear, which are disproportionately for Māori. Again, the number’s a big number. For under-two-year-olds, 15,000 glue ear operations will be prevented. In private, they’re about $1,200. Again, that’s a big number that the system is saving through a systems approach, a systems intervention like what is being proposed here.

There were some concerns that we’ve had, some which linger with us, and we’ll just have to see how they roll out. My colleague the Hon Michael Woodhouse has expressed our concerns around a vehicle as a private dwelling. It’s kind of hard to understand, actually. We have a different view, and we’ll just have to see how that rolls out. We’ve also expressed concerns around the time frames for the IT development and the infringement routine, exactly what the workflow is going to be and how that will look, and is this the best use of police resources, when will they intervene, and what that will look like.

I continue to be aggrieved at new section 20D(2)(a), set out in clause 9 of the bill, that said a person under the age of 18 who is smoking in the motor vehicle, either on their own or while people over the age of 18 are in the vehicle, is not committing an offence under this bill. Well, goodness. We’re trying to reduce harm from smoking at any age, for any cause, at any time, anywhere. Who cares? Yet this bill, where we have the opportunity to be a bit firmer and send a true signal that children under the age of 18 at no time, whether it’s in this bill or not, whether there’s someone else over the age of 18 who’s smoking—who cares? There was an opportunity here to say, “Unacceptable.” But we’re going to leave this weirdness here, where first- and second-hand smoking—certainly, second-hand smoking—is going to be OK, but we’re going to wave the crooked finger at third-hand smoking. I would suggest, as I have in a previous reading, actually, that that’s a lost opportunity.

Look, in summary, we are going to support this bill. There are clearly benefits for this. We, too, have weighed up the effects on civil rights and all sorts of other things, which I’m sure members across the House have as well, as did the select committee. We reached the very firm conclusion that there are more benefits than harms to this bill. We think that we will be doing a good thing for children, who have less opportunity to avoid, less opportunity to take other actions that an adult may take to remove themselves or remedy themselves from a situation in vehicles. We think we are providing them some protections. We think we will be giving them some health benefits. We think we will be sending the right signal for them, as they then become adults and their children mirror them, towards the overall end goal that we want, which is smoking reduction. So with that, I want to thank the select committee, who it was a pleasure to work with on this, and I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to take a call on behalf of New Zealand First in support of the Smoke-free Environments (Prohibiting Smoking in Motor Vehicles Carrying Children) Amendment Bill.

I’d just like to start my contribution this evening by acknowledging the Associate Minister of Health the Hon Jenny Salesa for bringing this bill to the House and congratulating her and the officials as well from the Ministry of Health for all the work that they have done. It has taken some time to finally reach its third reading this evening, and it had its genesis a number of years ago. In fact, about a decade ago there was the opportunity to bring such a bill to the House, but unfortunately the previous Government did not see fit to do so. That was following the Māori Affairs Committee saying this was an urgent response that needed to happen to stop the number of tamariki and rangatahi being trapped inside a smoke-filled car, because the health impacts for them were so great.

So it was an absolute pleasure to have been part of the Health Committee as we took care of this bill, shaped it into the bill that is before us today and that we will pass this evening. To the Health Committee, it’s been a pleasure to work with you all. We generally are fairly collegial and maybe it’s something to do with the gorgeous cheeses and crackers that we tend to eat for morning tea. So thank you to all the members, and particularly the good doctor, Dr Shane Reti, for your contribution just now, relating to the health impacts it has on our children, particularly tamariki Māori.

This bill is all about protecting children, because smoking is a killer. Five thousand people per year are either killed or have some kind of health impact from smoking. A hundred people a year die from second-hand smoke. So although the bill has a narrow focus, it does have a ripple effect out into our community and out into our families and whānau. So it is a sensible and practical bill before us, and it will change the social norm of smoking in vehicles with children.

Back in the day when I was a young nipper in the back of the EC108 Mini that my father drove to work—we had a family car, which was a Holden station wagon. All the kids, we were always in the car without seatbelts, because you didn’t buckle up; it was the social norm back then not to wear seatbelts. But over a period of education and changing what was required, it is now something that you do automatically when you get in the car. So, hopefully, this bill will change the social norm of people smoking in their vehicles with children so that you automatically won’t smoke, you won’t light up, when you’ve got your kids in the car.

Children and tamariki, the rangatahi that came to the select committee—they really added value to the discussions and the considerations that we made inside the committee, so a big thankyou to those young people who presented to us.

I’d just like to mention a former colleague of mine, Duncan Garner. He has a television show some of you may have had the fortune to have been on. At one point recently, it was about a year ago now, he actually made an interesting comment. It wasn’t really that controversial, but he did wage a bit of a campaign to make sure that the Government actually took up this challenge and banned smoking in cars with children. In fact, he was having a conversation with my leader, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, when he said that the common-sense strain of the Government strongly supports the ban, and so, actually, it was good to hear Duncan Garner speaking well of Winston Peters.

The Māori Affairs Committee—as I mentioned before, I was a member of that while I was here at Parliament in my first year, and we joined with the Health Committee and heard submissions on the smoke-free. And particularly one of the themes that came through—we sat in the Legislative Council Chamber as the two committees joined together, and one of the strong themes was we needed to have a piece of legislation that would ban smoking in cars with children.

So that has been a topic that has been discussed publicly. There has been a public call for this legislation. The Māori Affairs Committee 10 years ago was asking for it. This Government has now taken the opportunity, and I’d like to congratulate all the members of this House who have worked on this bill, as I now am very pleased to commend this bill to the House.

Vaiaso o le Gagana Samoa. It’s Samoan Language Week, and we honour the language, its people, its place, its heritage, and its history as well, and the importance of that.

Mr Speaker, before I begin my speech, if I can ask for your indulgence, can I just acknowledge my colleague and friend Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki and say that during the lockdown period, she lost her mother. So our sympathies and condolences to you in the difficult time. Te pati nei tātou ki te Atua no te aroa meitaki ki roto i to’ou tumatetenga, ki roto i to anau, ki roto i teia po nei. So I just wanted to acknowledge you and your family as well.

This bill is called the Smoke-free Environments (Prohibiting Smoking in Motor Vehicles Carrying Children) Amendment Bill. I wasn’t on that committee, so I haven’t been through the process in which we’ve heard submissions and we’ve gone through hearing officials, hearing the regulatory impact statements going through this process, but it’s something that I can speak on from, I suppose, two different perspectives.

I grew up in a time in which smoking in homes and houses everywhere was part of the norm. I can remember that we had a Holden HQ station wagon, and I can remember that the doors had a sort of red leather on them. They had the handle and then they had this smoke—a little latch in which you put your cigarettes. It was for your cigarettes, you know. It was just one of those things. Those of us who are old enough can remember that, and it was just part of what we knew. That’s how we grew up, and that was just part of what life was all about. That’s what people did. But we know that the truth is that second-hand inhalation—the impacts that that had on people’s health brought us to a point that, as a nation and as a country, we are determined to do the right thing.

I believe that this bill is about doing the right thing. It’s been a long time coming, and, yes, we can haggle over when and where it started. I want to put on the record that the Hon Tariana Turia actually made quite a brave statement when she talked about “What if we could have a nation where we could be smoke-free?”, and the evidence behind that is that we knew the impact that lung cancer was having on so many people in our communities. We knew the direct correlation. The evidence, the science, told us of the impact that smoking had on many of our whānau, our family, and our communities. So I want to honour her, because this legislation was part of her legacy that she’s left in this Parliament, and in our nation as well. We’re here today to talk about the amendments to that legislation and, in particular, around motor vehicles that impact our children, our tamariki, and our rangatahi as well that are in our communities.

I believe that there’s no intent, and no one will be standing up to say that this is not the right thing to do. It is the right thing to do. I also want to acknowledge the Hon Jenny Salesa. As the Minister, she has the privilege to take on this and to see it to completion, and today, in the third reading, that’s exactly what we’re doing.

I just want to make a couple of comments on that, I suppose, and one of the challenges is: how do we make sure that we implement that in the most expedient way that ensures the greatest outcome that we’re trying to seek for our children? It was with some concern that I read through the notes, I suppose just trying to get an understanding as to why there were two different elements that were happening, that once this bill passes through the House and has the Royal assent, we then have an 18-month lag between the implementation of Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 452, which was introduced by the Minister, which talks in particular about the dwelling places that are certain vehicles and campervans. So it’s just a bit confusing, and I think the fact is that it would have been better for all of us if we’d just said, look, there’s one rule for all, here’s what the vehicles are, here’s what they do. It does become confusing, because once the vehicle is up and running, it then has to abide by the law, but once it’s stationary, then it’s no longer in breach of any of the conditions which are in this Act.

It just makes it a bit confusing. I think that it would have been the right thing to do. I know that my colleague the Hon Michael Woodhouse tried to petition that across through his SOP, so I just want to say that for us it is a bit of a disappointment. We support the bill, but it just seems like a bit of inconsistency here, when we could have actually had the two going together. Why not say that on the Royal assent and implementation, this comes into law immediately, and why the 18 months? It seems quite an arbitrary period of time, which we’re not sure about as well. That’s important.

I just want to make a couple of other comments, I suppose just in regards, again, to what the evidence is showing us around the children and some of the impact that it is having on our children as well. I mean, the evidence is clear, and the previous speech that was being made about the impact on our children—so while we make this a law, we know that the most effective thing is actually changing behaviour. A law in itself in legislation doesn’t always change behaviour immediately. It becomes, I suppose, a guiding line. It gives us a scope, a direction, about what we should consider, but what actually is important is the programmes, and, again, I look towards the Government in regards to what they’re doing in regards to changing some of that behaviour.

So, for instance, when I was with the Auckland District Health Board, smoking cessation becomes important, and ensuring that we’re getting out there, we’re educating our community about the importance of how they need to change, and look at other alternatives into that. We know that vaping is now becoming a way. Back in the day, it was people putting on patches or using chewing gum. There were different ways to find a way through, and now vaping has come in as another alternative. So that’s in there.

The last thing I just want to put on record is—so, again, we are supporting this bill. Again, I suppose, there’s a situation where as part of a political coalition agreement with the Green Party, there’s now going to be a referendum that we’ll enter into in this country which I believe will start to make people question why there’s not one particular focus around a smoke-free New Zealand, and yet we’re now heading towards an election period with a referendum that will give people another choice of whether recreational marijuana will be another option for people to choose. So there just seems to be this confusing element that we send in these messages we send into our community. We, as legislators, need to be conscious and careful about the messages that we send, because for us here, words do matter. Actions actually make an impact and send quite a clear signal.

So I want to say that we support this. Why? Because the original intent is a legacy that’s really important. It’s about having a smoke-free environment in our country. Cars and vehicles are important to that. We know the impact, and the science and the evidence tells us, but at the same time too, why are we now sending another message into our country that, actually, “We’re going to stop smoking, but you could always toke up and have a joint, maybe in a car.”—we’re not so sure what it will be.

So I finish with that. Again, though, I want to finish on a positive note: that we do support this bill, the intent of what it is to do to ensure the health and the wellbeing and the safety of all of our children in this nation, as well. So we commend this bill to the House.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou, kia ora. Talofa lava. While we’re all sharing our childhood stories in the House tonight, you know, I was raised with smokers as parents and I remember we had an orange Datsun and then a red Ford Escort. And we’ve got footage of me as a child: Dad’s got a cigarette in one hand, ashtray balanced on the knee, and I’m balanced on the other knee. We’ve all got stories like that, because history is a different place, and, luckily for us, social norms have changed. But, sadly, these stories aren’t always just lovely snippets of history. I lost my mum to lung cancer last year, and I have got no doubt that a lifetime of smoking from a very early age was the factor. This is why this is so important tonight, to be another step on that pathway. I tautoko the comments acknowledging the campaigners, including Dame Tariana Turia, on this pathway to get to a smoke-free New Zealand. So I acknowledge the Minister for pushing this through.

Look, we think it’s good legislation. We know that early on there were some debates around the size of what the penalty should be. We think $50 is a reasonable amount. Some of the people who will be affected by this—much higher fines would have a much more detrimental impact on them. So we think they’ve settled on a very reasonable figure. We note the Cabinet paper also talks about the responsibility for warnings, for referral to health authorities, and, of course, we think these are really good suggestions. We’re not going to see cops out there dishing fines out willy-nilly. What we are going to see is a pathway towards changing social behaviour in New Zealand for the better.

I’m aware the most recent stats, in 2012-2013, showed that 5 percent of kids were exposed to cigarette smoke in cars—2.5 percent higher for Māori kids—in New Zealand. That’s simply unacceptable. Hopefully, those figures today are slightly smaller, because we have seen the decline of smoking rates in New Zealand. But still, we know the impact of tobacco and we know the impact of second-hand tobacco smoke.

I do want to pick up on the last comment from the Hon Alfred Ngaro, though, about the—to his mind—apparent contradiction between cannabis legalisation versus the vision for a smoke-free New Zealand. Now, I don’t believe they’re in conflict at all, because what we know—we’ve now got decades and decades of experience—is prohibition for cannabis has not worked. Of course, we’ve tried this experiment in the past when we had prohibition for alcohol. It did not work. In fact, all we simply brought in was a vibrant criminal element and much worse social harms. I challenge the member: if we banned tobacco smoking tomorrow, I think we would have huge problems in this country and huge new criminal elements would prey on vulnerable tobacco smokers. What we know is all this evidence stacks up that prohibition doesn’t work. In fact, we’ve got a hole on the other side of the ledger—voluminous examples internationally, of how regulated health-based safe market approaches actually decline consumption. That’s our vision. We do want to see a smoke-free Aotearoa. I don’t want to see kids growing up smoking cannabis in New Zealand, but the way we’re going about it is totally wrong. So that’s why I fully reject those comments.

But I do want to just quickly return to this bill and acknowledge what a positive step it is for Aotearoa New Zealand. I thank the Health Committee. It’s wonderful they really did listen to youth and children’s voices in their deliberations. It’s a good day to be passing positive legislation. Kia ora koutou.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of the National Party for the Smoke-free Environments (Prohibiting Smoking in Motor Vehicles Carrying Children) Amendment Bill at its third reading. It’s a bill that the National Party will be supporting, although it is our role in Opposition to point out areas where we feel there is room for improvement. And it was disappointing, because I know the Hon Michael Woodhouse did put Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) in that would have made a big difference to this bill, would have given it some real teeth, and, unfortunately, we have got a bill that’s big on intent but a lot lighter on delivery. I think if the Government had taken those SOPs on board and put them into this bill, this bill would have come out better for it. Because the bill has improved through the legislative process, and, like other callers tonight, I do want to acknowledge the 120 submitters that we did have. A large number of them were young people and groups of young people, and I must say it feels like young people today take a marked interest in their health and health promotion, more than maybe previous generations, and they are, or seem to be, a lot better informed about the impacts of things like smoking and drinking. It was great to have them along in person in the select committee—in the old days, when we used to have people and do things in person, of course; things have changed a bit since then.

Although, the submission process did actually highlight one concern I think we do have with submitters: understanding any conflict of interest. Because, of course, many who sat on the committee will probably remember one submitter who had the audacity to submit that, in fact, the young person who was breathing in second-hand smoke in a car was not, ultimately, impacted because, over the course of their life, they would regenerate. And it wasn’t until later on we found out—I’m not going to call that person an academic, but that submitter—their work was actually funded by the tobacco industry. So I felt that was very disingenuous. But, ultimately, a good submission process.

But we are very concerned we’ve ended up with a bill where it still allows adults to smoke in a vehicle—yes, it might be used as a dwelling, and yes, it might be stationary, but surely the intent of this bill says that second-hand smoking to young children, as a result of adults in that vehicle, is not good for them. So why, just because the vehicle is stationary or people are living in it, does it make it any different? I think we should have held the line there, and that’s why it’s disappointing, with the Hon Michael Woodhouse’s SOP, that it wasn’t accepted, and I think this would have made the bill a lot better.

Secondly, the last speaker, Gareth Hughes, spoke about, you know, we’re not really going to see the police going around and enforcing it—maybe he said “willy-nilly”, or maybe I might be paraphrasing; it’s late at night. But we’re not going to, because it’s going to take 18 months. I mean, we’re setting up an offence but there’s going to be 18 months at the very least for any form of enforcement. And that just doesn’t seem right. Yes, we understand the approach of an education programme with the Health Promotion Agency to inform people of that, but I’ve got a suspicion that the people who are going to be committing this offence aren’t really going to listen too much to education, and probably what we do need is some enforcement. So waiting 18 months does seem a very long time and potentially has watered this bill down, so to speak. And it’s disappointing we’re passing a bill tonight that won’t have that and that will have an 18-month delay.

Also, one thing I do want to comment on is the real lost opportunity to understand and to enact the issue of vaping with young people. I’ve got my good friend and colleague the Hon Nicky Wagner, who’s spent a lot of time on the vaping issue, put a very good bill on vaping regulations, but, unfortunately, it wasn’t picked up by this Government, and now we’re in a select committee process with a vaping regulation bill that—well, it’ll be interesting. But, let me say, if you’re a betting person, I’m not sure you’d say it would be coming out before the end of the 51st Parliament. And we missed a real opportunity to look at vaping in this bill, because, of course, we do say that vaping is less harmful than smoking—some academics would say it’s 95 percent less harmful than smoking—but, by definition, it does carry some harm, and this bill won’t pick up those adults that are vaping in their vehicles, whether that be stationary or moving, and affecting the young people. Second-hand smoke is serious and it will have, as Dr Shane Reti said, some very serious physical impacts, but we also know young people who have grown up who have been constrained in a vehicle and forced to breathe second-hand smoke also developed psychological issues as a result of that. And, at times, that psychological impact can be as harmful as the physical impacts as well. It would be my assessment that vaping could be equally as harmful—quite often we see those big clouds of vaping smoke coming out of car windows, and you can only imagine, if those windows were rolled up, the amount of vaping that’s going on in those cars.

So, overall, I think as the country moves towards 2025, where we are aiming to be smoke-free, this bill goes some way. It’s another tool in the tool box, so to speak. It’s another small area that we can now tick off, that, ultimately, will support the young people who, previously, were encountering second-hand smoke as a result of adults smoking in vehicles. But, just to finish, I think it is very disappointing when you have someone of the calibre of the Hon Michael Woodhouse making some very serious and credible SOPs—I mean, that is the legislative process, irrespective of what side of the House you’re on: at the committee of the whole House, you can make some very credible suggestions as to how this bill would be improved. And you can only guess—I don’t know whether it was just politicking for politicking’s sake or whether people were under strict orders—on why those credible amendments weren’t picked up, because the Hansard will show they would have made a very real difference to this bill. And I personally believe they would have made a very big difference to some of the young people that we heard through the submissions process, who have lived experience of this phenomenon of being in cars and being exposed to second-hand smoke. And so I would like to say I commend this bill but, disappointingly, it could have been better. Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

This is a split call.

Talofa lava, Mr Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to stand and take a short call on the Smoke-free Environments (Prohibiting Smoking in Motor Vehicles Carrying Children) Amendment Bill. It’s been a couple of months since I stood in this House, so I’d just like to acknowledge the difference that it feels standing here, in an odd space, and the tremendous amount of work that everyone has done to get us here today.

I’d like to acknowledge the Minister Jenny Salesa for this bill. I think it’s a really, really great little bill. People may think that this is not earth-shattering; however, the thing that this bill does is it starts to address the social norms of smoking in vehicles. It starts to address, actually, what I think a few of us have talked about when we’ve sat in cars and there’s been smoking. Now, I was really lucky as a child that my parents didn’t smoke, but my grandad did and I spent a lot of time with my grandad. So we sat in smoky cars, and smoky houses, and smoky offices, and it was just normal, and it’s one of those things that was just normal at that time—just as normal as not wearing a seatbelt at the time. And I think we’ve seen a change in social norms. I think we’ve seen a social campaign that has made a huge difference to people wearing seatbelts in this country, and I think that this is exactly what this legislation will be doing.

There’s an 18-month window in which, once this becomes law, there will be an education and social norm change. People will be talked to, they will be educated, there will be opportunities to learn, it will be explained if they are driving and they are caught smoking in a car where there are children—and that’ll be great. It’s understanding that children don’t have a choice. They do not have a choice when their parents or other members are smoking around them, and this bill actually gives those children a little bit of a voice. It says that this is the opportunity for their parents or those around them to be educated a little bit more and to think a little bit about our children.

So it’s a great little piece of legislation. It’s taken quite some time to get its way to the House over this COVID period. I remember the first reading, and I remember sitting on the select committee at the time, on the Health Committee. I then came off the Health Committee, but I do know how much everyone in that room at that time was really committed to seeing the best piece of legislation that they could get. So it is for that reason I commend this bill to the House.

Talofa lava, Mr Speaker. National supports this bill because it is another tool to help deter people from smoking and it is a step towards Smokefree 2025. It’s really hard to believe that these days anyone would allow their children to be trapped in a small, confined space filled with smoke and toxins. Yet, that’s what people do when they have their children in the car when they smoke with them.

It’s been interesting to listen to people reminiscing about their childhood. I’m sure many of us had that feeling of feeling sick in a smoky car as a kid. My dad smoked, and nobody ever thought twice about it. Today, it seems really strange that nobody ever put two and two together. When I think of my two brothers and I in the back seat of the Zephyr, no seatbelts, and occasionally vomiting over the front seat of our parents’ shoulders; it wasn’t a pleasant experience for any of us. And yet—

💬 Hon Member: Are we there yet?

—what did we think?—“Are we there yet?” Exactly.

And nowadays, there’s absolutely no excuse, because we all know that young people, and children in particular, are at risk from second-hand smoke, and smoke in confined areas can cause serious health issues. Although we should know better, incredibly enough, smoking in cars still does happen and it is harming our children, and so we do need more tools to try and reduce it.

Personally, I don’t think this legislation will do as much to keep kids safe as getting drivers to quit smoking. I’d rather see us putting in more time, more energy, and more resource into helping smokers quit—and, of course, the most effective way that we can do that is to encourage smokers to switch to vaping.

New Zealanders have been waiting for legislation to regulate vaping since this Government came to power in 2017. So it’s been over 2½ years. I think the time spent on this bill would have been spent far more wisely on vaping regulation. As my colleague Matt Doocey commented, I’ve had a bill in the ballot, regulating vaping, since 2017, and I did offer it to the Minister—unfortunately, she declined my offer. So, because there has been no regulation about vaping at all, and a huge range—a wave, really—of colourful advertising and attractive vaping products with no quality control, it’s lured far too many of our young people into vaping.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Sorry to interrupt the member, but we’re actually on a different bill than that.

I know that.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): If you can connect that to this bill, that would be great.

I can absolutely connect it to this. We’ve been waiting a very long time for this legislation, and we will be waiting for a long time for this legislation, because, although it creates a new infringement offence and associated fine, and the police will be able to stop cars if people are smoking with children, it won’t come into force for 18 months. So much for this Government’s stated commitment to protect children and so much for this Government’s stated commitment to Smokefree 2025.

Then, there’s the curious issue of stationary cars used as a dwelling. This Government think it’s OK to smoke in your car with children if you’re living in it. Now, what type of logic is in that? Children, of course, shouldn’t have to live in a car, and children certainly shouldn’t have to live in a car with someone who smokes there. Does anyone else think it’s odd that this legislation says that travelling in a car with a smoker is bad for children’s health and must be stopped, but living in a car where somebody smokes is A-OK?

National will support this legislation, but we believe there are far better ways to help smokers quit and thus keep kids safe from second-hand smoke, however they travel and wherever they live.

Fa‘afetai mo le avanoa i lau Afioga le Fofoga Fetalai. Thank you for this opportunity, honourable Speaker. It is an honour and a privilege to stand here to contribute to the third reading of the Smoke-free Environments (Prohibiting Smoking in Motor Vehicles Carrying Children) Amendment Bill. I just want to take this opportunity to thank the honourable Minister: fa‘afetai tele lava Minister Salesa.

Afioga i le Fofoga Fetalai. I have to respond to the last speaker, Nicky Wagner, criticising the Government for what we’re doing, yet the Māori Affairs Committee a decade ago had made a recommendation to that side to change the law, and we’re here, 10 years later, talking about it. So it is rich to point fingers. But I want to acknowledge the current Health Committee who brought the voices of children to this House in their report, and I have to read it out, because I want to acknowledge the organisations who support the voices of children to be heard in this House. Quickly, I want to acknowledge the Cancer Society Northland, Wellington Community Justice, Holistic Action Sustainable Health Through All Generations, Hāpai Te Hauora: Māori Public Health, EMPOWER Tāngata Trust, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, Meremere holiday programme, Invercargill City Youth Council, and the students of Wainuiōmata Intermediate School.

It is Samoan Language Week this week, and the theme of the Samoan Language Week is Tapena sou ōso mo lau Malaga, which means in English: “Prepare yourself a gift for your travels.” This is a gift that we’re preparing for our whānau and for our tamariki, for our rangatahi, for our young people: a smoke-free environment. It is enough tautala here in this House. We’ve spoken too much about this. I want to commend this bill to the House. Let’s give our young people a smoke-free environment. Fa‘afetai tele lava.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak on this, the third reading of the Smoke-free Environments (Prohibiting Smoking in Motor Vehicles Carrying Children) Amendment Bill. A catchy title. Third reading, we’ve said it all before, we’ve heard it all before. This was a bill that is a common-sense bill whose time had come long ago. It has taken an inordinate amount of time to come to this House.

One of the more interesting elements that have come up in the overheated comments tonight that we have heard before is what people grew up in in terms of vehicles. We’ve had orange Datsuns, Minis, Zephyrs, station wagons, and we had a Humber Hawk. Many of us have had these experiences where you’re stuck in cars with overflowing cigarettes and an unwise perspective because people didn’t realise the harm it does. We realise, we know and understand—we had the Cancer Society, ASH, Beaglehole, so many good people who knew exactly what they were talking about, come and talk to us about the wisdom of this bill and how we could improve it. I, too, am very disappointed that the Hon Michael Woodhouse’s Supplementary Order Papers and genuine attempts to improve and strengthen this bill were not taken up, and that is a shame. The Hon Nicky Wagner did have a bill that was in a state of readiness that would have taken us further down the track of fulfilling the goal of smoke-free New Zealand by 2025. How are we going to do it at this glacial progress?

I am part of the Health Committee. We are, in fact, deliberating tomorrow on the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Vaping) Amendment Bill. This is something that, to my way of thinking, ought to be part and parcel of the bill that we have been spending a lot of time on in select committee and in this House.

These are all very useful measures to try and get people off the cigarettes, away from the gaspers, and into some alternative form, whether it takes the form of vaping or whether it takes the form of sensible regulation to keep people from smoking in vehicles where there are children. If they are living in the vehicles, it just beggars belief to me that they cannot get out of the car for the three or four minutes or however long it takes them to smoke the cigarette and not pollute the vehicle and the poor little children inside it, who are then doubly disadvantaged by living in a car.

It’s always interesting, if not a little nauseating sometimes in terms of the medical detail, to listen to Dr Shane Reti talking about this bill, which he has very strong views on and a long association with trying to stop this happening and to bring regulation in that would ban it. He talked about third-hand smoking, which is, of course, another horror story. If you get into a cab or an Uber vehicle, the upholstery contains amounts of traces of smoke and the residue lasts, he was telling us, for many years.

So there are all sorts of very good reasons why smoking in a confined space is not a good idea, and we need to put in some limitations of the carrot and stick variety to make it happen. Across the House and across many pieces of legislation there are, I think, the tools that we need to really make a difference in making people give up smoking and helping them. They’ve tried and tried. And, as we know with the vaping bill—that is something that, you know, will work for many people, so why not make it as available as possible? I would suggest, though, not to vape in a small car, which is, again, not really covered in this legislation.

So to me, standing back and looking at this piecemeal approach, it would be very helpful to have all of this coming together in a focused strategy to achieve the goal that Dame Tariana Turia set and challenged this House with so long ago to make this country smoke-free, to set a good example to our tamariki, to our young people, never to pick up a gasper, never to smoke. Whatever happens with this cannabis legislation, as others have pointed out, then why would they not smoke a joint or some cannabis in an enclosed space with children in the vehicle? We need to make laws that will be effective and not ridiculous, and this stopped short of being ridiculous, but it also stopped short of being truly effective in trying to achieve the goals I think everyone in this House wants this country to be able to achieve, which is smoke-free New Zealand by 2025.

So I will leave my contribution there, having spoken on this bill on many occasions, and I’ll be back, hopefully, depending on my valedictory, to talk about the vaping amendment bill and the other very sensible suite of measures that we all need to look at carefully to achieve the goals we all want to achieve. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to rise and speak on the third and final reading of this bill. I just want to reflect back on the first reading. As I was speaking on the first reading, we were coming into winter and I was reflecting on the thousands of sick babies who came into hospital each year for respiratory infections, and the fact that those hospitalisations were about twice as likely if their parents smoked.

I think back to my previous job where I used to monitor child health, and sometimes I used to sit back, and you do thousands and thousands of graphs—and thinking about what some of those actually meant, and just seeing the huge social gradients in respiratory infections, in cot deaths, and in a whole range of things particularly for babies, and thinking about the effect of the social environment on those babies’ lives, and the fact that they didn’t have any choice in that matter. So before their first birthday they were seeing huge impacts as a result of the environments in which they were living.

Thinking through the submissions that we heard from the select committee, the ones that stood out to me were the kids that turned up and said, “We get exposed to smoke in our cars and we don’t really want to talk to our parents about that because we just don’t want to, but we don’t like it.” I think what this bill does, it does two things: one of them is it’s going to protect kids from being exposed to second-hand smoke in cars, but the other thing is it’s going to set the norm that it’s actually not OK to smoke in cars with kids. I think both are very, very important.

So what this bill does—I mean, it does allow the police to issue an infringement, and that’s $50. It’s not a huge amount but it is an infringement. The issue is it’s not really about the enforcement, it’s about education. Even if you don’t pay that infringement and go to court, the maximum fine is $100. So it’s not about the money so much as about behaviour change. Police will have the ability to offer a warning or, also, to provide information or to direct people to some smoking cessation services.

The other thing with the bill is it’s not going to come into force for 18 months, and that’s going to allow the police time just to set up the system so that they can work out and set up how these will be processed and work through their systems. In that time, we’re also going to be having a public health campaign. So, basically, a social media campaign, a big public education campaign, because it’s about changing the norms.

I think people have talked tonight about being stuck in cars with parents that are smoking. I guess my experience of it was when you’re young going out and always going to the pub or somewhere else, and you come home every Saturday night absolutely reeking of cigarette smoke, having to change your clothes. That was just the norm, and we’ve changed that, and we can change this as well. So this is a really good bill. It’ll protect children from second-hand cigarette smoke in cars, and I, therefore, commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a third time.