Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Bill (No 2)

I present a legislative statement on the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Bill (No 2).

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

I move, That the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a second time.

I would like to take this time to thank all those involved in getting this bill to its second reading, from the members of the Health Committee to the 850 members of the public who made submissions—including the 47 oral submissions we received.

This Government is committed to reducing smoking rates and to reducing youth vaping. The vaping reforms proposed in this bill sit within the Government’s commitment to achieve the Smokefree 2025 goals. Many people have switched from smoking to vaping. That has been a contributing factor to the recent rapid reductions in New Zealand’s smoking rates. We are committed to sustaining that momentum, and vapes must continue to be available as a cessation tool for adult smokers.

However, the number of young people vaping remains a significant concern. Vapes should not be targeted towards children and young people, and they should not be sold to them. That is what this bill aims to stop. It changes the current regulatory vape settings to better protect the young people of New Zealand.

The bill focuses on four areas to tackle youth vaping. Firstly, banning disposable vaping products. We know that disposable vapes are disproportionately used by children and young people. Banning disposable vapes will ensure that these products are removed from New Zealand’s retail market.

Secondly, it increases penalties for under-age sales. The current penalties in place for breaching the prohibition on selling to minors do not adequately deter non-compliance or outweigh the potential gains for non-compliance. Significantly increasing the penalties for illegal sales to young people of regulated products—that means all regulated products, from cigarettes through to vapes—reflects the seriousness of breaching a retailer’s obligation and will help to prevent these sales.

Thirdly, the bill introduces visibility restrictions. I believe the visibility of vaping products has contributed to youth uptake by increasing the attraction and normalisation of vaping. We want vaping to be seen as a smoking cessation tool, and the bill ensures that vapes are kept out of sight and that there are restrictions on where young people might otherwise see them.

Finally, it increases proximity restrictions. The bill further restricts the proximity of new specialist vape retailers to places children and young people frequent. For those applying to set up specialist vape retail stores, in addition to needing to meet the 300-metre proximity restrictions from marae and schools, new applications will also need the store to be at least 100 metres from early childhood centres.

I wish to acknowledge the recommendations of the Health Committee in its final report, and note that these did not significantly change the bill. The main change the committee recommended was to modify the definition of a “disposable vaping product”, provided in clause 4 of the bill, so that the ban does not extend to pre-filled containers and pod system - vaping devices. The committee received extensive and compelling submissions on this issue, and I am pleased this change has been made so that vaping remains a viable option for people looking to quit smoking and for those who have quit smoking, while ensuring our young people do not take it up.

Other changes include removing the ability for specialist vape retailers to provide free, gifted, and discounted vaping products; making it clear that New Zealand - based websites must not link to other websites that do not comply with our laws, such as an overseas website showing images of vaping products; and, finally, ensuring the child safety mechanisms on vape products are not able to be deactivated. These changes strengthen the bill by providing greater clarity and certainty to the law, thereby enhancing compliance and enforcement and better enabling the bill’s intent to be met.

The Government is committed to cracking down on youth vaping and achieving New Zealand’s Smokefree 2025 goal. This bill represents the first tranche of Government changes to ensure we have the right legislative settings and policy levers in place to protect our young people from vaping, whilst ensuring progress towards reducing smoking in New Zealand. Part of that work is bolstering the monitoring, compliance, and enforcement regime. To date, enforcement has not been done well.

In the second tranche, I am considering ways to strengthen the regulatory framework overall. This work will address smoked tobacco, vaping, and other nicotine products.

We have made excellent progress towards achieving our smoke-free goals, but we need to recognise the targeted intervention still required to get to the headline goal as well as what will need to be done in the future to help certain groups when smoking rates are below 5 percent. This will require us to have protections in place so we do not have new smokers or those who have quit start smoking again. Alongside this further policy and legislative work, smoking cessation services will remain a crucial part of our efforts to achieve Smokefree 2025.

This Government has made a commitment to reducing smoking rates and to tackling youth vaping. This bill plays a pivotal and necessary part in protecting our children and young people from vaping, and I commend this bill to the House.

Debate interrupted.