Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Bill. I move, That the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

This bill is primarily about giving effect to one of the Government’s 100-day plan commitments by reversing the changes the previous Government made to the regulation of smoked tobacco products. The bill removes the previous Government’s policies in three areas primarily: to cut by 90 percent the number of retailers that could sell smoked tobacco products, which was to happen later this year; introduce a low nicotine limit, which was to happen next year; and a policy to ban sales to all those born after 1 January 2009 that was planned to take effect in 2027.

To be clear, none of the measures being repealed are in place. Like so many of the previous Government’s initiatives, the smoke-free initiatives were, to be generous, intangible. We are not stopping anything that is currently helping to drive smoking rates down, and that is the Government’s focus: we want smoking rates to reduce, we want the harm from smoking to reduce. This Government is committed to the Smokefree 2025 goal, but we are taking a different regulatory approach to reducing smoking rates and the harm from smoking.

We know smoking is harmful, everyone knows this, smokers know it. What they need is help to quit and what we are going to focus on is providing them the programmes, tools, and support to do this. New Zealand has seen some of the largest drops in smoking rates across the world in recent years, and we want to build on the practical tools and approaches that have worked to date. That means reverting back to, then building upon, the regulatory regime that Labour planned to change.

The settings we are focusing upon have been incredibly successful. The New Zealand Health Survey results released in December last year showed that 6.8 percent of New Zealanders are smoking daily, down from 8.6 percent the previous year, and down from 16.4 percent when the survey began in 2011 and 2012. In the last three years, 229,000 people have stopped smoking. If those trends continue without any additional measures, New Zealand will hit the headline smoke-free goal of less than 5 percent of the population smoking daily by 2025. Importantly, 79,000 of those who stopped smoking, more than a third of those who quit, were Māori. As for the smoke-free generation, in the last three years, the quit rate for young smokers—those aged 15 to 24—has been 31 percent in 2021, 37 percent in 2022, and 42 percent last year.

When the health survey started in 2011 and 2012, there were 119,000 young smokers. Last year, there were 19,000. Young people—and this is a very good thing—are turning their back on smoking: a generation that are non-smokers. These achievements have all occurred since the modelling behind the last Government’s initiatives were done. These achievements were well in advance of the starting position of the modelling, which has been referenced as justification for the measures we are repealing.

We have seen success worth giving recognition to. This is what is happening in the real world: our smoking rates have fallen drastically in recent times, better than in any other developed country. This is one of the few areas where the last Government could have actually claimed success in health. Instead of that, they seemed obsessed with trying to prove they loved a good slogan. The last Government was moving towards an untested regime with a focus on prohibition that ignored how well quit-smoking initiatives were working, the potential downside of a prohibitionist approach for smokers, and also the impact on retailers and crime was being ignored or, at the very least, trivialised.

This Government isn’t interested in the virtue signalling in health. We are about measurable outcomes and, importantly, on getting smokers the right resources to enable them to quit. This is why we are progressing the amendment bill. We want an approach on the regulation of tobacco that allows a practical, workable, and tested approach to reducing smoking.

I spoke in particular of the gains we have made with youth smoking. This means that most of those who currently smoke daily are mostly long-term smokers who are addicted to nicotine, and that’s who we need to focus on. That’s who we need to help. When dealing with an addiction of this nature, reduced supply does not remove demand and it presents a real risk of increasing demand and increasing desperation. Tobacco-control initiatives should work for and be targeted to those who need it most, including Māori and Pacific peoples who have higher rates of smoking.

We cannot ignore that vaping played a key role as a cessation tool. It is a major reason we have made such progress and we need to ensure that vaping is available to adults for that purpose. This Government supports initiatives that will provide people with practical tools and access to alternate products like vaping, to help smoking cessation. We also want to ensure continued provision of effective, targeted stop-smoking services and marketing campaigns. We will provide smokers a range of tools, advice, and support that will work for them and that will help them to quit smoking.

We have seen that approach is working, and I will soon be taking a package of measures to Cabinet to increase the tools available that will actually help quit smoking, while at the same time tightening regulations on vaping to prevent young people accessing vapes. Good policy requires balance, and it is important we balance the need to continue to allow vaping as a cessation tool while minimising the impact on our young people.

This Government wants workable, practical policy that improves people’s lives and we are committed to our smoke-free future. I commend the bill to the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

As a four-year-old, I recall sitting on my grandmother’s armchair while I took a puff on her cigarette. I didn’t much like it, but the thing that I liked even less was the look of horror on the face of my parents that my grandmother would have allowed me to do that. But the thing is my grandmother, at that point, didn’t know better, because the overwhelming evidence that now exists didn’t exist 40-odd years ago. My parents were more aware of the risk of smoking, but my grandparents were not. So that was their excuse.

My question to the members opposite is simple: what’s your excuse, because the evidence is now overwhelmingly clear—12 people a day in New Zealand die from smoking-related illness, and this Government wants to liberalise the sale of tobacco. Where is your moral compass? What is it that has happened between pre-election and post-election that has forced you to completely abandon the platform that you campaigned on? Why is it that you now believe that liberalising the sale of cigarettes is an appropriate way to raise half a billion dollars in revenue every year so that you can fund tax cuts that will disproportionately benefit the wealthiest New Zealanders?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Can I interrupt the member and remind the member not to bring the Speaker into this.

I’m not, Madam Speaker. In fact, I made it very clear that these were questions to the members opposite, but thank you for doing the Government’s bidding by interrupting my flow.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The member will stop.

This is a Government that has no moral compass—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The member will stop.

—whatsoever—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Excuse me. Do not bring the Speaker into your debate—

I didn’t.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): —and do not disrespect the Chair.

I didn’t.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): I will ask the member to withdraw and apologise.

Do not disrespect me by interrupting me with a point that is not relevant.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The member will resume his seat. Your debate is now interrupted and I will give you the opportunity to stand, withdraw, and apologise for your aspersion on the Chair, and then you can resume your debate.

I withdraw and apologise. This is a Government that has absolutely no moral compass whatsoever—quite content to continue to promote and support an industry that literally kills its consumers. This is a Government that thinks that more people smoking for longer and smoking more is an acceptable way to fund tax cuts. This is a Government that has turned a blind eye to the fact that this bill will cost New Zealanders, the New Zealand health system, $5 billion. They’re willing to pay that price in order to fund the tax cuts that are simply not affordable.

Who will be disproportionately affected by this legislation? We know it will be young New Zealanders, it will be lower-income New Zealanders, and will be Māori and Pacific New Zealanders. This is overwhelmingly clear from the evidence.

Doesn’t it say everything about this Government, that after disestablishing a programme that was specifically designed to improve Māori health outcomes, the first thing they do is bring a bill into this House that will make Māori health outcomes worse? They know it will, because the evidence is there and it is clear—it is clear. The members opposite might be shaking their head about the fact that I’m angry about this. My question again to them is: why the hell aren’t you? Why the hell are you not angry about that, to the members opposite?

This is a bill that will kill people; it is a bill that will increase smoking in New Zealand. The hollow words that we just got from the Minister sponsoring the bill are nothing more than regurgitated talking points from the tobacco lobby. We have heard it all before from the tobacco lobby, and the Minister promoting this bill simply stood up and read it out on their behalf.

But it goes worse than that, because we know that the instructions she gave to the officials that prepared this bill probably came from the tobacco lobby as well. This is a Government that is firmly in the pocket of the tobacco industry, and the Minister presenting this bill is simply doing their bidding, bringing a bill before the House that will do harm to New Zealand.

What happened to notion of the common good, the public good, being the guiding force behind the decisions that we take in this House? Members opposite might not have agreed with everything to do with Smokefree Aotearoa 2025, although that’s not the position that they had before the election when they were supporting that, but there are other changes they could have made. Why not raise the age to 25, as the Ministry of Health offered as a compromise? Why? Because that wouldn’t meet the needs of the tobacco lobby, who are so firmly behind the actions of this Government.

This is a morally reprehensible piece of legislation. It is a stain on this Parliament. Twelve people a day die from smoking-related illness in New Zealand. Let’s put that into context: the equivalent number of all of the members of Parliament in this House die every 10 days from smoking-related illness in New Zealand. This is a stain on this Parliament that we are passing legislation to liberalise the tobacco industry in New Zealand.

We should be driving forward for Smokefree Aotearoa 2025. When the Government get advice to say that these changes will push that out to 2061, it says everything that they choose to ignore that and stick to their tobacco lobby talking points. It is a disgrace on this Government.

Tēnā koe. This is a landmark moment in the history of New Zealand. This is a landmark moment in New Zealand history, and I reflect on Tariana Turia in 2011, who stood with pride when the National Government brought into place the smoke-free legislation that had set the scene for my daughter and our future generations to live a smoke-free lifestyle.

But no, this is landmark for all the wrong reasons. You have blood on your hands for te iwi Māori: Te Aka Whai Ora and now Smokefree. For the thousands that die every year—you don’t know the pain of burying your dead over and over because of smoking-related diseases. It was the National Government who committed to this path—Smokefree 2025—and yet now we have a Government who’s huri kōaro—in te ao Māori we call it huri kōaro [you’ve flipped]. You’re a flip-flop. The Government now has chosen to end that pathway for the smoke-free generation. I’m speaking as a māmā of a daughter born in 2009, and actually thinking about what she will inherit. She’ll inherit greater access because retailers—like in Kawakawa, we have nine right now in Kawakawa: vape and tobacco stores, across supermarkets, dairies, and the petrol station right now in Kawakawa. Nine outlets; we can have more in Kawakawa now, whānau—it’s going to be awesome—but also greater access to product. There’s a plethora of product already out on the market but, through this legislation, this Government is opening up a pathway for more into our communities—vulnerable communities who don’t need more than nine in, what, maybe 300 metres of Kawakawa on State Highway 1.

But there is a silver lining, of course, because we’re getting tax cuts for the rich; tax cuts for the rich and to support those of our whānau who work in the tobacco industry. So, therefore, this is a very dark day as a māmā, a mother of the smoke-free generation that will see more deaths from smoking-related illnesses.

There are gross inequalities in this space. Just because there’s been a drop, it’s still not good enough. Te iwi Māori make up 17.1 percent of smokers compared to—and let’s look at the gap—6.1 percent for non-Māori. That gap is still a gross inequality that exists. But further, Māori make up 38 percent of daily smokers. I want to reflect on our matua, our cousin and whanaunga, Anaru Waa, who’s the co-director of Aspire, who shared, “Smoking prevalence among Māori and Pacific peoples is still far too high. It’s not time to put the handbrake on and let on a bit more tobacco; it’s actually keep moving forward.” But we’re not seeing this because repealing the smoke-free legislation, as Anaru shares, means Māori will continue to suffer unacceptable levels of harm due to smoked tobacco products for many years to come—many years to come. Goodbye, Smokefree 2025.

I acknowledge the sector who paved the way in this House, who are watching. Our pioneers, te ao mārama; those of our health workers who have worked so hard in this space to promote smoke-free environments, smoke-free pubs and clubs, smoke-free parks and playgrounds so that our tamariki will not know what it’s like to wake up smelling like an ashtray after they’ve been out for a night on the town. Because that’s the work: we’ve got to provide the smoke-free environment. We’ve got to actively promote community awareness—

💬 Hon Members: We are.

HŪHANA LYNDON: No, you’re not. No, you’re not. You’re opening it up for more—more, more, more—and a billion dollars’ worth of tax revenue to give to your rich mates. And, ultimately, for te iwi Māori, we know we are the most impacted. Why are they doing this? Why? You never campaigned on this. We never knew it was coming. Te iwi Māori never knew. New Zealand did not know. Don’t say this is something that you had planned.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Wow! What an animated display we are seeing over this legislation. Quite quickly we’re talking about lobbying from the tobacco industry, but what about the lobbying from gangs? Because under the legislation, the only people that would be profiting would be the gangs: 8.5 million illegal cigarettes were seized by Customs in 2023. How are you not concerned about a black market?

We need to ensure people who smoke have more choice and more help to quit smoking if they wish to do so. This includes effective stop-smoking services, alternative products such as vaping, and targeted campaigns aimed at quitting smoking. New Zealand already has impressive quit rates. The latest New Zealand Health Survey results show that in 2022-2023, 6.8 percent of adults were daily smokers, down from 8.6 percent the previous year and 16.4 percent the year previous to that. What is in place has been working.

What I saw the previous Government legislating was yet again another initiative or another piece of legislation that sounded great but would have an adverse effect on all kinds of people. What about our small businesses? Believe it or not, ACT has actually spoken to our retailers in our communities, our local dairies, and many family-run businesses and shops about the difficulties that they are facing. They are constantly being robbed and ram raided. They are at risk of being violently attacked in their own stores. And then the previous Government wanted to push up to 80 percent of them out of business. These local little dairies are sometimes the only shop that people go to in their community. How is that caring about our local communities?

It is not the Government’s decision to radically reduce nicotine content in cigarettes so smokers who can least afford it will spend more on their habit and in turn do harm to those around them. It is our job to help people quit smoking and to stop young people from starting smoking and vaping. This is a prohibitive Act and we do not support the previous Government’s legislation. I support this bill and commend it to the House.

Members, this debate is interrupted. The House is suspended until 2 p.m.

Debate interrupted.

Sitting suspended from 12.59 p.m. to 2 p.m.

The House is resumed. We come now to oral questions.