Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Bill (No 2)

I move, That the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Bill (No 2) be reported to the House by 31 October 2024 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It’s quite extraordinary, isn’t it, that on a day where the Government have gone black and blue defending this idea that they have to put the Treaty principles bill through a full select committee hearing, even though that’s not in the coalition agreement, we are now debating as a House to put through a piece of legislation that the previous speaker, Cameron Brewer, was crowing about solving the youth vaping crisis, even though he knows it’s going nowhere near that. If they want to solve it, then what’s the rush? Why not do a full select committee process and take the Hon Peeni Henare at his word and work with us to do it right? Why rush through this, only to have to come back and do something later?

Then they complain—they complained, “Oh, well they had six years.” What’s the rush then? Why don’t we get it right? All they are interested in, as we’ve seen with all the other pieces of legislation, is doing just enough to be seen to be doing something, rather than actually sorting it out. They’ve spent more time considering the tax cuts to tobacco companies than they have actually looking at the legislation that might address youth vaping. And it is a major issue. They can crow and they can cry and they can pretend to be outraged, but it’s true. They are asking this House to agree to an instruction to the committee to report back by the end of next month.

Every single community is affected by this. There are vape shops in communities where the idea of a vape shop only a few years ago wasn’t even considered. Every country is dealing with this. There are examples of what other countries are doing to curb this issue, and many of them have been successful. If we had a full select committee process, we could consider that. The Health Committee could look at submissions from overseas to see what worked and what didn’t. I can almost guarantee that there are provisions in this bill that if properly considered and compared with what’s happening overseas, they would in good conscience look to improve it, because that’s what a select committee is for. Why the hell do we have to put up with six months of people that have been emboldened by racially selective positions and politically motivated views that they’re going to come up and say divisive and hate-filled things at the select committee for the Treaty principles bill, but we can’t actually hear decent submissions that are evidence-based, that are actually going to look to improve this?

There are good things, and speeches from the Labour Party and other Opposition parties outlined those, and that’s why we are supporting it. But we also outlined that we don’t believe that there are things in here that don’t need improvement—of course there are. We also outlined that there are things that we are willing to work with the Government on to improve. They’re not willing to do that. They’re not willing to work constructively. What happened to the calls of being bipartisan on important issues? They turn around, they scrap things, and then they say, “Come work with us.” And then they say, “Oh, we’ll work with you if you agree with us.”

Here’s another example: they will sit there in the protracted period of the select committee and they will encourage the Opposition members of that select committee to work with them, and then they will turn around: “OK, if you agree with us then we’ll work with you.” You cannot expect the select committee in a protracted period of time to take into consideration the views of those affected communities, those that are affected, that are working with youth, that want to put forward the perspective that perhaps this could go further.

I have a personal view. I happen to think that there should be no flavours for vapes available, other than those flavours that are allowed for tobacco, because, at the end of the day, vapes are a cessation device. They were brought in to help people get off tobacco, and I am one of those people. I used to smoke. I no longer smoke, but I do vape. I vape a tobacco-flavoured vape product. I’ve managed to reduce the level of my nicotine in half in the time. I am slowly weening myself off nicotine—exactly what these are intended to do.

What these were never intended to do—and I think it is fair to say it’s an unintended consequence—is for these to be targeted to children with things like bubble-gum and lollipop rainbow and all the other types of flavours that are quite clearly not intended to be used as a cessation device. It’s extraordinary. How the hell can anybody argue with that? It’s true. Yes, they are. The comments earlier that the members’ hearts aren’t quite in this—I think the Government members are demonstrating that. This is a wasted opportunity, an opportunity where the House could actually demonstrate to the public that we are willing to work together for the benefit of New Zealanders, particularly the health and wellbeing of our young people, and they’re not interested.

The question is that the motion be agreed to. I call Tangi Utikere—although I will say we are now at 5.59 p.m. I will suspend the debate at this stage—although I realise now, Mr Utikere, you have got to your feet, so I will actually have to allow you to finish.

💬 Hon Kieran McAnulty: Point of order. We are willing to knock off now, as long as we have your assurance that, given this is a referral motion and people are only allowed to speak to it once, Mr Utikere wouldn’t be penalised. If he would, then we’d like to continue, but if not—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): No, that was exactly what I was in the process of saying. Mr Utikere, you can continue your speech because you have actually stood up and begun. You will only have the opportunity to speak once.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, I am appalled that this is a shortened report-back date that the Minister has moved through to 31 October. And the reason for that—

💬 Hon Casey Costello: I thought you said it was urgent.

Well, it is urgent, but the other thing that’s really important is that so many people want to be able to participate in this process that we need to hear it.

I’m pleased the Minister asked me that, because I want to reflect on the experience as chair of the Health Committee when this particular issue was last in front of it—was tangentially sort of linked to it. It is important, because I reference the fact that we had Manukura previously, who we’d spoken to as a local school in my electorate at the time, and what was really important there is that they talked about the fact that it was having quite an impact on their school community. It’s important that we ensure that these individuals, these school groups, these others are not short-changed as a result of having a shortened select committee process, so I think that making this through to the end of October will actually prevent a fulsome opportunity for folk to consider the many various things that they can engage about.

The bill itself does talk about a few things. One example is banning the manufacturer, sale, supply, and distribution of disposable vapes. There’ll be people who are in the manufacturing sector who will want to have an opportunity to speak on this. There’ll be people who are in the sale sector who want to have an opportunity. There will be those in the supply sector that want to have an opportunity, and those in the distribution sector. Those are just four various sectors that will benefit from an opportunity to actually have a chance to have their say in all of this. I note that we’ve talked about this bill having early childhood education (ECE) sectors—something that this Government usually is not that supportive of in terms of the welfare and wellbeing of them, but this is one example where it would make a difference. We want to hear from those ECE providers, and the opportunity that they would have to participate in the select committee process will be curtailed. Ensuring that we give them adequate time is really important.

Some of the issues that we have in terms of bigger considerations are things like the community concerns about access and ensuring that their accessibility to vape shops to others are able to—

💬 Suze Redmayne: Stop procrastinating. We just want to stop kids vaping.

Well, we want to hear what’s going to work. One important thing is ensuring that the process is right and making sure that, actually, anyone that wants to have an opportunity can do that. By effectively truncating this through to 31 October, is this going to ensure that the Health Committee, which we’ve resolved to support the bill going to, is actually going to be able to have its dedicated focus?

Now, one of the things, when this issue was raised previously, is that the committee itself went out around the motu. We went to South Auckland. There were opportunities in the South Island. This will not make it an easy choice for those that wish to do that. There are those considerations that are really, really important as well.

When we’re looking at the advertising rules and opportunities and reviewing the available flavours—colleagues have touched on what they are currently and what they might look like as well—we want to hear from folk. Is it actually only that early childhood education (ECE) should be the only thing that is a sensitive side? Should we be looking to broaden that? Well, the longer that we have—because let’s remember: the default position here is a period longer than that which is through to 31 October. It’s important that we do consider that.

We don’t believe this bill goes far enough, and so we want to make sure that the community has a chance to adequately submit in this process. Members opposite, I’m sure, will know that whenever there is a truncated or shortened period for a select committee referral, inevitably you get folks that come in well after the closing date for submissions, because they have something that they want to say. There are those opportunities.

This is, effectively, the Government saying, “Well, we want to make this change, but we don’t want to give adequate information or availability to the community to actually say anything about it.”

This debate is interrupted. The member will, of course, be able to finish his five minutes and 36 seconds when the debate resumes. The debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 17 September 2024.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 6.05 p.m.