Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Bill (No 2)

We come now to the debate on clauses 1 to 3. This is the debate on title and commencement and principal Act.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I would like to ask the Minister questions about the name of this bill, which is the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Bill (No 2). As we have submitted continuously throughout this evening, this feels like it’s kind of a fraction of a wider piece of work, and, therefore, we would like to suggest that perhaps the name be amended to the “Smokefree Environments (Part of) and Regulated Products Amendment Bill (No. 2)”.

I’d just like to draw your attention to the things that the bill does not do, which many submitters were really frustrated with, because these are things where there has been evidence from submitters, and also New Zealand - based evidence rather than all this UK, Australia—I think there was even Hungary or something in the regulatory impact statement at one point. This is New Zealand - based evidence that speaks to the correlation between young people vaping and what is enabling them to vape, and it is not all just about visibility and about advertising and marketing.

What we heard from submitters was there may be a need, if we’re really serious about cracking down, to license retailers, to actually have a licensing regime so that we can get the information and evidence which seems to be so scant. I have referred to that in a previous contribution around the community-based assessment centres, where there hasn’t been a fulsome cost-benefit analysis because the information simply hasn’t been gathered. By licensing retailers and having a licence regime, we would be able to get valuable information to be able to inform policy and to make this a better piece of legislation.

There’s also been no regard that we can see given to the idea of a sinking lid on retailers. That is just allowing them to exist until they close and then not letting any others in those areas, particularly where we know that some of them have seven times the number of vape stores than others—for example, in low socio-economic areas. So this is another reason why we would want the title to reflect that this is incomplete and that there is more work to do.

We’ve also heard submissions about the density limits for specialist vape retailers, that there’d be a more scientific approach given to that. We’ve heard nothing from the Minister, nothing in this bill, and yet many submissions in the select committee process about further restrictions on flavours.

💬 James Meager: How many on the title?

Well, we could maybe call it the “Smokefree Environments (Not Changing any of the Flavours) and Regulated Products Amendment Bill”, if that was going to be helpful to members opposite. It’s great to see them engaging with this.

A really key part of this that we received submissions on was allowing different nicotine levels and reducing the allowances of that. Now, that seems to be a fundamental—

💬 Sam Uffindell: Point of order.

—way of reducing—sir, if I may, I’m speaking to—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Point of order, Sam Uffindell, but if you’re going to a point of order about relevance, you can sit down. That’s a job for the Chair.

💬 Sam Uffindell: Noted, Mr Chair. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Just anticipating, to save you a job.

There were lots of submissions that showed evidence around tapering out nicotine levels and the impact that has on the addiction to vaping and the appeal to young people, and yet this bill remains silent on that. I’d like to ask the Minister, as one of my questions, whether the next tranche of legislation is going to address that and, therefore, whether we should amend the title to reflect that we’re only at the sort of halfway mark at the moment.

We also heard submissions about plain packaging, and one of the things that hasn’t been addressed tonight, actually, around visibility—and I know my colleague in the Greens Hūhana Lyndon was very interested in this in the Health Committee—is the fact that there’s a big focus on visibility and yet vape stores can have giant neon signs outside their store. That doesn’t seem to be captured by this legislation, so perhaps the Minister can explain whether that is going to be in the next legislation.

There are other things as well that I know our colleagues will want to speak to, including public health measures—proactively educating young people about vaping. How do we change the culture of vaping? None of these have been addressed by this bill and so I would like to ask the Minister if she would be willing to change the title. I think that would be very helpful in terms of allowing the public to understand that this is not the full measure of her commitment to reducing youth vaping but that there is indeed much more work to do. Perhaps we could also have “enforcement” in there.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): I will just say that we are on title and commencement. In that first speech, there was a lot of context in there; we occasionally went back to the title and commencement. Further speakers now will be expected to be much more direct around title and commencement.

Thank you Mr Chair. I actually don’t want to speak about the title. I would like to focus on the commencement, and specifically clause 2(2).

The reason I want to focus on this is because, somewhat unusually—although not totally out of expectation—there are different commencement parts to this bill in the second clause. The first one is a relatively regular one: “day after Royal assent.”, and the second one actually goes through it—and I’ve just gone through the bill and tried to highlight all of the sections that come into force six months after Royal assent. It is quite a substantive part of the bill, and I don’t want to go through all of those clauses—one could, but I don’t.

What I did want to ask the Minister is, well, two things, really. The first thing is: I assume that the reason that there’s a six-month delay in coming into force is to basically allow retailers and people to come to terms with the change of the regulatory and legal framework and be able to be compliant with it. That’s what I assume, but if that’s wrong, keen to hear the Minister.

The main question that I wanted to ask is about the infringement offences, which I understand do come into force after that period of time as well. I just wanted to check with the Minister if that was also just so everyone had six months to change the way that they did things and they weren’t subject to infringement offences, or whether that was for some other reason.

I did want to understand if it was the intention to, essentially, give a period of time where, even if people were not acting in accordance with other sections of this bill, they wouldn’t be found to be infringing it under clause 2(2). That just stood out for me as a particularly interesting one—which obviously it’s not to do with allowing compliance; it’s due to punishing under this particular clause—and I just wondered if she had any further advice about why that was specifically included. I note that it was not one that the Health Committee specifically included—or they did move them around quite a bit.

We’re in a difficult situation, really, where we have some of this coming into force one day after Royal assent, and then, from what I can see, the vast majority of active clauses coming in after that date. I just wanted to get some clarity on that from her—if I’m correct that the main thing is to give notice and then people are going to be covered by this, both retailers and law enforcement in terms of enforcing infringements under this bill—and why, in fact, some of it is therefore appropriate to be introduced at an earlier stage. It just seemed to me quite an unusual way to divvy up a bill, and I just wondered if she wanted to elucidate the reasons for that.

I thank the member for the question, and, yes, you’ve largely touched on the reasons. Because we were talking about displays, there are some components around that that would require some preparation around that process and therefore the changing of stock and those sorts of things, which is consistent with when we’ve made previous changes in this legislative process. Yes, it was cognisant of the fact that there would likely be some significant changes around displays, as we’ve seen with the stores as the way they’re currently set up. There was recognition of a need for preparation—so important that the legislation was put through, but allowing a lead-in time for those things where there may be penalties applied.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I would like to ask a few questions of the Minister in the chair regarding the title of the bill.

Now, one of the things that we’ve heard through the committee of the whole House stage, when it comes to the Minister’s response to a lot of our questions, is around the fact that many of these are considered out of scope of this particular bill. But, as we have seen in terms of the problem statement definition in this—and some of the Minister’s own responses and own targets that she says, both within the committee stage and also more broadly around this bill— we want to address the issue of smoking and vaping in Aotearoa New Zealand and we want to hit those targets. One of the things that we are consistently coming up against in this committee stage, and also in getting some advice from the Minister, is that there are a lot of things that are considered out of scope, and it is within the Minister’s remit to make them within the scope in order to hit some of those targets.

From a title perspective, I feel like we are actually falling short of the overall consideration, the overall thing we’re trying to address here. The Minister could consider having the Act being called the “Partial Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Act (No 2)”, because it is in fact that we are only partially there. We’re not really dealing with the fundamental issues and some of the fundamental levers that allow us to be in that smoke-free environment.

Also, one of the other things that we have been hearing consistently throughout the committee stage is the fact that this bill looks great on paper but there is still a lot of uncertainty, and all of the regulatory impact statement submissions express the uncertainty around the enforceability of this and particularly some of the limitations and restrictions that we’re going to be putting around disposable vaping devices. In that sense, we’re looking at this Act being called “Regulated Products”, but, in fact, possibly what might be better for this particular Act is “Smokefree Environments and Regulated (But Not Enforced) Products Amendment Act (No 2)”. I think that is much more adept in terms of some of the responses that we are getting from the Minister regarding this particular bill.

One of the other things that we are hearing as well from the Minister on this suite of different bills is the fact that this is one of many—in fact, this is “(No 2)”—but we have no certainty to know how many there are going to be in this number. It would be really, really helpful, and I genuinely would like to hear if the Minister would consider—you know, she probably has a plan for this—having the total number being indicated as part of the title name. For example, we have “(No 2)” here for 2024, but maybe it’s good to give a signal to the House and to the legislature that this is “(No 2 out of 3)”, “(No 2 out of 4)”, or “(No 2 out of 5)”. How many more of these sort of bills are we going to be seeing dragging things out?

💬 James Meager: Why would you put that in a title?

Please, if the members would like to contribute and take a call, you too can contribute on the title of this bill.

Now, finally, if the Minister would consider as another alternative title—because often we do see the bills going through the House having titles or brackets that pertain to at least somewhat of the content of the bill. But what we’re seeing here in terms of “(No 1)” and “(No 2)” is that “(No 1)” and “(No 2)” are, really, fairly non-descriptive in terms of the content of the bill. I ask whether the Minister would consider including “Smokefree Environments and Regulated Product Amendment Bill (Disposable Vaping Ban) (No 2)”—like, even then, it would give some indication as to what the content of this bill is. We have seen that across the board with a number of other bills as well.

Those are some of my suggestions. Some of them are probably more serious than others, and I would like to hear from the Minister, particularly with my recommendation for “(No 3)” and “(No 4)”.

I thank the member for his passionate contribution. My response is no.

I move, That debate on this question now close.