Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Bill

I move, That the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

We have seen a lot of emotion and heartfelt passion in the House today, and it is to be applauded and acknowledged. This is a truly important issue. Firstly, I want to comment that, unfortunately, even today it is clear that there is a lack of understanding on what is being done and the approach that is being taken. Even today, there is commentary about increasing access. It is clear that this is incorrect and it is not what we are proposing.

The black market will hit Māori—I can say that as a sad reality. And that is exactly the point why we are wanting to ensure that there are the tools to enable those who are addicted to smoking to quit. And cutting off supply does not reduce demand. There has been much talk of a landmark position, and I would have to agree. The landmark is that we are all united on the outcome we hope to achieve. We want, collectively, to remove the scourge of smoking harm.

I can, sadly, attest to nursing and watching the last breath of people who I’ve loved more than anything, and felt the loss in a way that draws me to anger at the harm that tobacco smoking has caused. This is why I’m so focused on bringing about legislation and regulation that is targeted where it can do the most good. I will bring a paper to Cabinet next week, and that will provide for immediate actions and longer-term strategies to achieve our collective objective. We will continue to clearly identify what is working and looking at all options that might help those who remain addicted to smoking tobacco to quit. I think it is important at this time to refocus our thinking and provide some balance.

We have heard a lot from the other side of the House about the numbers on which the modelling that drove the development of this legislation we’re repealing. The statistics they relied on were from 2019 and 2020. We have had four years of outstanding progress since that time. In the period since the data was used, 305,000 people have quit smoking. Youth smoking in that time fell from 10.3 to 3 percent. This is the position we are in now and this is the strategy we are focused on to continue to meet our smoke-free targets.

This is why we need to calm the noise and recognise that we are focused on addicted smokers who need help to quit. Currently, we have 284,000 daily smokers that need our help. This is not a contest of who thinks smoking is the most harmful. It is an opportunity to make a real difference and deliver on our Smokefree 2025 targets.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

I rise once again to oppose this bill. This bill repeals the provision of the 2022 amendments to the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Act, and it’s worth canvassing, for the purposes of our debate, the measures that were in that Act.

The Act contains three measures that are crucial to ending tobacco’s hold over the health of our people. Firstly, it addresses the number of retail outlets. Tobacco, despite being the most harmful consumer product there is, that kills half the people who use it, is not regulated with respect to who can sell it, and that means that we do not even know where tobacco outlets are. That, firstly, means that there is a proliferation of outlets, particularly in poor communities, in Māori and Pacific communities, and that drives greater use amongst those communities. In particular, it drives youth smoking in those communities, and it undermines people’s everyday efforts to quit.

Once more, targeted enforcement activities are very hard when you don’t know where the outlets are, and that’s why making an approved retailer scheme would have meant that efforts to do controlled purchase operations, so as to identify where outlets were selling to people who are, say, under the legal purchase age, would have been beneficial.

Secondly, the Act sought to denicotinise tobacco, and that has been studied in multiple clinical trials from around the world. It is incredibly effective at helping people to quit with the correct dose of nicotine, as the studies have shown. The correct dose, a very low dose of nicotine in those cigarettes, will make sure that people do not compensate in their smoking. Many of them—a majority of them—go on to be able to quit with that. Of course, in the context of a safer alternative—not a safe alternative—like vapes, there is a way for supporting people with their addiction, too.

This proposal, the denicotinisation proposal, was incredibly popular with the National Party when we debated this in 2022. In fact, Dr Reti’s key concern about the bill, if I recall, during the debates, was that the denicotinisation should be brought in first. The evidence clearly points to its effectiveness.

Thirdly, the Act does something that you would think all people in this House could agree on, which is to create a smoke-free generation to mean that people born after 2009 would never be able to legally purchase cigarettes. It’s not prohibition, as some have suggested; there is still nicotine available in the form of vapes. Secondly, it is not a criminalisation of the people who are underage. The Act says that this will be enforced by fines against retailers who sell to those people; it does not regulate social supply.

Those measures together were deemed to be incredibly effective, and modelling presented to the Health Committee—that’s separate modelling from the one that the Ministry of Health commissioned—showed that this was not only incredibly effective for reducing the costs on our health system and for saving the lives of New Zealanders; that modelling also showed this was far and away the most effective public health intervention of any intervention that the investigators could think of on the books. So on a day when the House has heard so much about wanting to promote better outcomes for Māori, this is the same day for Māori health that we are repealing an Act that could have done so much.

In fact, the modelling also showed that the Act would have eliminated one-third of the life expectancy gap for Māori women—one-third. That is such an important difference. It is not a difference you’ll be able to make by speeding up wait times in emergency departments or getting surgeries faster. You cannot make that type of difference, as the research has showed, any other way. This is such an important thing for the health of our people.

I want to thank all of the researchers who put time into coming up with that evidence. Not only did they do considerable work to support the deliberations of the select committee but they also have had long careers in tobacco control, which are not the most comfortable careers to have. And there have been notable examples of academics who do this type of research and activists who support tobacco control being targeted for their views and for their work. Kia kaha to my friends who are doing this work. You know we will continue to make sure that your findings are heard in this House.

I want to go back to why the Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 goal was set, and it’s worth remembering that that is a 5 percent prevalence rate across all of New Zealanders, but also recognising the inequities—5 percent for Māori and 5 percent for Pasifika. My colleague the Hon Peeni Henare has also already pointed out the work of his whanaunga Tau Henare, who was on the Māori Affairs Committee at the time that that goal was set. The Māori Affairs Committee took deliberations up and down the country in the course of setting that goal. They heard from people who had lost their relatives to tobacco. They heard, I believe, some quite confronting stories, and so that’s why it was with bipartisan support that they were able to bring the goal for Smokefree Aotearoa 2025. Now, the advice we had was that we would miss that goal and we would not achieve it until 2061 without doing something differently, and that is why the 2022 amendments are so important.

I want to touch on some of the issues that the Minister has raised about what else, not just the—our approach to tobacco is never just a regulatory approach. There is also a very important role for quit services in New Zealand and for other supports. I agree with that. In fact, that was embedded in our smoke-free approach. We had over $20 million allocated in the recent Budget for supporting those initiatives.

I’ll tell you about one of them, one that is really dear to my heart. I went to visit a service called K’aute Pasifika in Hamilton, where they are promoting smoke-free, and they explained to me that the types of services that they are running are culturally specific. They’re not confrontational; they don’t sit you down and ask you why you haven’t quit smoking yet. Instead, they create a positive environment around people where they do waka ama, they are surrounded by people of their culture, taking pride in their culture, doing physical exercise, and smoke-free messages and support are provided incidentally to that. Those sorts of initiatives are really important.

Vaping has played a role in supporting quitting as well, but I am also concerned that the way in which vaping has been regulated has meant that what is intended as a quitting tool is now far too frequently available to younger people. I was pleased to attend the rally with members of Vape-Free Kids at Hastings in the weekend. We must make sure that our tobacco control initiatives are also making sense in terms of keeping kids away from vapes. I know that group who is present in the gallery desperately want a meeting with the Minister, and I hope that that meeting will happen soon, because the issues they raise about keeping kids off vapes are very important.

This issue is one that is of profound importance to our health system, and our health system, full of its hard-working staff, has struggled in recent years coming out of the pandemic. I think one thing that really cuts to the core of so many health workers is an absolute belief that we have to get rid of the scourge of tobacco from our communities. So I know that many of them are hugely disappointed by the idea that the 2022 amendments are about to be repealed. I think it really behoves the members on the other side to listen to the perspectives of hundreds of organisations that have called out how awful this bill is, how shameful it is that such violence and harm is being done to the health of our people.

E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. My question for the House is: who asked for this? Because, freely and frankly, looking through the select committee submissions and the public outcry that we’ve seen in response to this track of agenda from this Government, and the support that we saw when this world-leading legislation came in, is that the only entities that we can identify who are asking for this legislation to go through the House today are New Zealand First and the tobacco industry. If that doesn’t give you a clue of who this legislation serves, then I do not know what does.

The next question is: why is this legislation going through under urgency? Because, we’ve had a lot of back and forth over the last few days about the fact that this Government is ramming through an agenda under urgency, without any regard for convention or public input—the select committee process that would usually occur when legislation is before the House. The argument that we’ve frequently heard in response is, “Well, there was an election. An election therefore means that, you know, with all of the things that we went out and said that we would do, well, we can just do that.”, without any regard for parliamentary scrutiny, without any regard for due process or the usual protocols of this place.

That kind of leaves us with the outlying question of whether it’s the case that this Government sees that simply because there’s an election every three years, we can revert to authoritarian rule outside of that. Because that does fall as a question to the feet of this Government, because what we have here is a piece of legislation that, so far as we can identify, has only been asked for by the tobacco industry and by New Zealand First. It is going through under urgency by virtue of the fact that that exists as a commitment in the New Zealand First - National coalition agreement.

The next question then becomes: what does this legislation actually seek to achieve? Because I’ve got to be honest with you that I’ve heard some really Orwellian and completely contrarian contradictory statements from the Government on this. They’re saying that we’re reverting back to a track by which we were already seeing a decline in smoking rates. That is what existed prior to this landmark legislation. But the really simple question for them, which they have not been able to front up to and be honest with the New Zealand public about, is that this legislation will—must, by virtue of the evidence and the advice that they themselves have commissioned—result in a slower decline in rates of smoking in this country. What that means, by matter of fact, is that more New Zealanders will die as a result of this legislation going through the House. That is a fact. That is the evidence. That is a fact. It is irrefutable. I dare any members of the Government to stand up and say that, to say the opposite.

What this bill does is slow down the reduction in smoking rates, therefore meaning that a product that kills 50 percent of its consumers will continue to do so while there are slower rates of people coming off smoking.

We’ve also heard in question time, just today, that there was some apparent concern for the black market, and for, you know, dairies. I just wanted to put, actually, in the public record—once again because, you know, facts do actually kind of matter when we’re debating legislation, not the least when they’re doing this under the guise of urgency, within less than 24 hours. There has been a lot reported on and a lot kind of undertaken by our investigative journalists in this country to get to the heart of the fact that the campaigns and the petitions that have been fronted by ostensible dairy owners have been backed by Big Tobacco, which takes us back to the core point that the only people, the only entities and organisations, asking for this legislation to go through, let alone under urgency—

Tim Costley: You just held up a picture of dairy owners. What about dairy owners?

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —without due public process or scrutiny, is the tobacco industry, which will kill half of its consumers, Mr Government member, and New Zealand First. So, we come back to this point around the black market. I was saying, off hand, just as I was leaving the Chamber before, to another member of Parliament, that evil and cruelty in a Government agenda does kind of frustrate me, but, more so than that, the most fundamentally frustrating thing is inconsistency, because we’ve heard this Government consistently say that they’re concerned about the black market that’s going to be generated by virtue of greater regulation in the tobacco space.

Tim Costley: Are you consistent?

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: I dare members of the Government to show any logical consistency whatsoever—

Tim Costley: Smoking marijuana is fine; smoking tobacco is not!

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: I am really glad that a member of the Government brought up cannabis, because if we want to talk about cannabis and we want to talk about sensible regulations to cannabis, you are saying that criminal prohibition of tobacco results in further issues with regards to people consuming tobacco. What we’re saying, when we’re talking about regulation of substances, with the Greens being the only party consistent on this, is, if you’ll listen to me, that at both ends of the extremes, my friend, criminal prohibition of substances results in extremes of harm. A completely legal free market results in extremes of harm. The reason for that is that whether you have commercial entities or criminal organisations who are responsible for the supply chain of these substances, you have the maximisation of harm. That is because profit is the core motive. So, my friend, if you will listen to me and engage in a meaningful debate about evidence-based policy on substances and drug harm reduction in this country, then get up and actually make a meaningful contribution.

The point is that we have to take away from those extremes and get into a space of sensible regulation. That means that we do not have criminal prohibition and we do not hand over controls to an unregulated free market. So what the legislation did—which the Government passed through before there was this change of Government and now this unpicking, shredding, of all of the actions that were undertaken in the last six years—is that it would have reduced the number of retailers in this country who were selling tobacco. That would have resulted in less tobacco being sold and less tobacco being consumed.

We have it here in black and white, actually, from an Official Information Act request, through Treasury and a number of other Government officials who were asked to reflect on what the impact this might have for revenue forecasts for the Government. We have it on record, as tabled today, that half a billion dollars in extra revenue will be added to the Government coffers as a result of this change. Once again, that gives us irrefutable evidence that there will be an increase in consumption of tobacco, and, as a result, more New Zealanders will die.

That leaves us with the final question of “why”—why the Government is doing this outside of the fact that New Zealand First and the tobacco industry have asked for it; why the Government is doing it under urgency without any due process for public scrutiny as is the typical convention in this place; why they’re riding roughshod all over that; again, that question lies at the feet of the Government.

The kind of quite dark insinuation that you can draw from all of this is that this Government also is pursuing an agenda of austerity and of tax cuts. They are cutting public services—they themselves declared that in black and white—and they are pursuing tax cuts, which we know, again, based on their own public statements, will disproportionately benefit the wealthiest and the highest income earners in this country. It is not outside of the realm of believability, because, again, it is in black and white here from Treasury and their own correspondence that this is going to add half a billion dollars in revenue to the Government’s coffers because more New Zealanders will die consuming tobacco.

It’s really just that black and white, and it boggles the mind that the Government is somehow trying to say that they’re still really concerned about—in fact, the Minister, the Hon Casey Costello, was saying that this is not a contest of who cares the most. Well, Minister, I would say to you that this is a contest of putting your money where your mouth is. This is a contest of actually following through with evidence-based policy. So far, all I have heard is quite Orwellian statements akin to “War is peace.” We are being asked to believe one thing, one piece of rhetoric, when the evidence just says completely the opposite. We are not even able to have a meaningful parliamentary process with select committee, with experts coming in and telling us how this is actually meaningfully going to function.

If that doesn’t frustrate parliamentarians, new MPs, particularly on the Government side, who came to this Chamber—I heard their maiden speeches over the last few months saying that they really care about this country. They really want to do this thing properly; they really want to reach across the aisle and do things for the future outside of the three-year cycle. Guys, I hope you’re waking up and realising that you’re the bad guys. This is what happens when you railroad across democracy. You actually really not only frustrate those who would like to come forward and put their opinions forth, and showcase what the evidence and data says, but you also make the country a worse place.

I’ve just got to say in summation that it’s a dark day. It’s really, really gutting. It’s really, really gutting that in the blink of an eye—in the blink of an eye—we are going to undo some of the most evidence-based measures that any Government has taken on reducing substance harm in this country.

Just finally, I wanted to point out to what the former Minister the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall was speaking to, with regard to how the framework that this Government is repealing is not criminal prohibition. The Greens fought really damn hard to make sure that the framework that the Government put in place just prior to the election was not criminal prohibition; it was sensible regulation, and we do not commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’d like to start by sharing some of my experience with smoking personally. It’s not about a family member; it’s about me. You know, I was a young builder on a building site smoking rollies without filters for years. It’s not a good look.

Why did I quit, right? I didn’t quit because it was made impossible for me to buy. I quit because one day I realised that every tax that I was paying on that cigarette was going to the Government. And, as a young, ideologically consistent person, I couldn’t quite do that. I didn’t want to be ripped off, so I stopped buying cigarettes. I threw a packet out the window and no longer smoked anymore. It took me a long time to lose the cravings, so I understand how hard it is to actually quit cigarettes. And I was only smoking for a few years, right? It’s actually difficult. People who have smoked for decades, I can only imagine how much that tears at you. I have family with addiction, not cigarettes, but I can see how hard it is to quit and how reliant you can become.

So the idea that prohibition of nicotine, which is essentially what this is, was going to have any good result, the fact that it was a gradual lowering of the nicotine in cigarettes to the point where it basically was driving people into the arms of the worst to get their fix—and yet the last Government decided that banning outright was the thing that was actually going to solve this, not push it into the black market, as we’ve heard about. Addiction, as member Hamish Campbell said, is not rational. People with addictions go to irrational places to feed that addiction.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Decriminalise drug users, then.

CAMERON LUXTON: Well, I mean, if you guys had done a better job in 2020, we might be able to liberalise it a bit more.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: We weren’t in Government in 2020.

CAMERON LUXTON: Well, you campaigned on it. So the point is—

Hon Julie Anne Genter: We weren’t in Government.

CAMERON LUXTON: You guys had it; there was—look, let’s not get derailed into a cannabis—

Chlöe Swarbrick: You’re derailing it.

CAMERON LUXTON: Yeah, sure. Fair enough—fair enough. I’ll get back on topic.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That’s the Speaker’s choice. You can either get into the debate or you can carry on with your—

CAMERON LUXTON: Yeah, sure. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

But last week in this House, Greg O’Connor gave a speech in which he referenced the book Chasing the Scream, and it talks about how prohibition, when poorly thought-out, leads to bad results. There’s evidence accumulating over the Tasman, over our own borders, and in container ships coming in in my home city with black market tobacco on board. A small and illegal market versus, as we currently have, a large legal market will invert. We will have a large illegal market putting profits in the pockets of gangs, and that is the last thing that we need to have in this country. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, there’s a lot of passionate debate around this. I want to acknowledge my colleague Chlöe Swarbrick for her contribution—very passionate evidence-based contribution, and I continue to enjoy your efforts here.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Give us some passion!

SAM UFFINDELL: I can bring my own passion, and the reality is that the National Party supports this bill. Look, we want to be clear on our intent that we want to continue reducing smoking rates in New Zealand. We want to stop young people from smoking and taking up vaping. We’re just taking a different regulatory approach.

I remember when we were having this discussion last year and—he was the Opposition health spokesperson at the time—Dr Shane Reti put through a few Supplementary Order Papers around vaping, which would have made a tangible difference to the significant uptake in youth vaping we’re seeing in New Zealand. The Government at that time did not support them and I was very upset to see that, but we can revisit that in time.

Look, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) says New Zealand’s progress is unprecedented and we are on track to hit the smoke-free target. We will provide people with the practical tools to stop smoking and vaping, and better protection for young people to stop them accessing vaping products. But, you know, this is a much better approach to the prohibition-style approach that the Opposition has put forward and planned by the previous Government. We’re going to be a lot less punitive than they were. We’re going to provide them with more choice to help them quit, and we are supporting a package of initiatives to ensure we reach the smoke-free goal 2025. I support this bill.

The next call is a spilt call.

Tēnā koe. Thank you e te Pīka. So I rise for the second reading and continue our approach on disagreeing and standing in opposition to what’s been proposed. I do want to make reference to the Minister and reflections on—often we’re here and we agree on the same goals, just not the same way to get there. And we all agree that a healthy, smoke-free country is something that we all aspire to. So, on reflection, I have absolutely no doubt of the new Ministers and some of their intentions to assume their role and make their mark, and obviously make their mark in the hundred-day time line that they’ve got as well. But—I guess the “but” has to be—on the basis that in this particular case, and the ones before, actually, there is not the support of the experts—there is not the support of the experts—of those communities most affected. And I cannot say that enough. I think it’s really important that we as politicians remember that as much as we can do—all that we do in this House—it’s the experts out on the ground that have to live with this and live with the decisions that this place makes.

The second thing with my “but” is it’s really reconciling the Minister’s absolute intent to make a difference—is that the decision coming out of this Government is aligned with the amending and the intention of the tax cuts. So it’s really hard—and actually there’s a third “but”.

The third “but” is that this is done through urgency. So those experts, and those that know a heck of a lot better than you and I in this House—I beg your pardon, e te Speaker—are not given the opportunity to share what it is that, in their expertise, they know we’re going to have to contend with as a country beyond the three years of Governments—the three-year terms, six; whatever. So it’s really hard not to remain cynical about this Government’s intent.

I understand the appeal for us to be quiet and to be calm. And yet there were 47,000 signatures on the petition that we received that asked us to be extremely loud and extremely vocal and make sure the views of those who had opposing views were heard and seen. And this continuously is the theme because we are a Government, and have a Government, that did not get supported by 83 percent of Māori. So we have to make sure that the Government feels and hears and sees them. It doesn’t matter that you may have relationships. It doesn’t matter that you may have had a side conversation. The reality is that the stats are the stats; the facts are the facts. And while you have a mandate, you do not have a Māori mandate. So it’s really important—our place in here is to make sure that the opposing views to your views are heard. You cannot debate with 47,000 signatures. If we are going to use these positions of influence to ignore that, then what else are we going to ignore going down the track? So we are here, by right, to make sure that we speak for those that haven’t voted for you, that we speak for those communities you don’t reach into, and that we make sure that they are seen and heard. So they urged—they urged—that we don’t support this bill and that we stay focused on the Smokefree 2025 vision that’s been in place since 2006.

Today, I heard a member on my left saying Māori should take personal responsibility—damn right. Damn right we should. Every time we try to—it’s called “tino rangatiratanga”—you take it away. Every time. Every time we go to self-determine—through the Speaker—you take it away. You take our ability to look after ourselves, you take our ability to speak to ourselves, you take our ability to be well.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Could the member please refrain from using the word “you”. Thank you.

DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER: The Government—the Government. Thank you. The Government—particularly this Government. So this assertion that there is no such thing as “personal responsibility” is actually, simply, an ignorant point of view of how we work as Māori. That’s my whakaaro.

So I think it’s really rich—it’s really rich—that we continue to see a Government that promotes and says, “Māori, get up off your backside and go and look after yourselves.”—that’s my summary of what “personal responsibility” is. But every time we go to do it, we have a Government to my left, who has absolutely no reach in that community, saying that you should repeal, that they will disestablish, and they will counsel every move we make. I hope that those petitions and those signatures get seen and heard in this place. Kia ora rā.

Madam Speaker, members of this House, we have a whakataukī in te ao Māori: He aha te mea nui o tēnei ao? [What is the greatest thing in the world?] Sang a song about it too earlier. Engari māku e mea atu ki a koutou, he pūtea, he pūtea, he pūtea. [I will say to you, it is money, it is money, it is money.]

What is the greatest thing in the world? As we’ve heard today—and, in particular, around smoke-free and the cuts that are going to come—it’s pūtea; it’s a dollar, because the tax cuts that are to come need to be funded from somewhere, and it’s this Government’s proposal that it’s going to come from the pockets of those addicted to nicotine. Five-thousand people die annually from smoking-related illnesses, and I’ve been on the front line in my history, working as a quit coach. I can tell you about the ABCs, offer you some brief advice, and access some cessation support. I know the work of the sector has been strong and long, and Smokefree 2025 was a reality for us all. I acknowledge Auntie Catherine Manning and the team that have been in the House today monitoring the debate, hearing the kōrero, and, in fact, the passion and commitment that we have to continue to push for a smoke-free generation.

Increasing access to tobacco products and retailers in our communities only leads to further harm. I spoke earlier about Kawakawa having nine retailers in the community. We don’t need any more—we don’t need any more. And the Health Coalition Aotearoa, they released an analysis around, actually, if we maintained the trajectory of Smokefree 2025 and implemented it as planned, we could save $1.3 billion in health spend. We would not need to fill up our hospitals with those who are impacted by ill health caused by nicotine.

We heard on the campaign trail the National Party talk about better health outcomes and a relentless focus on results. Yet I can’t find anywhere in the National Party’s campaign where they said they were going to repeal smoke-free legislation—something that’s world-leading, that the entire sector looks to us for leadership—can’t find it. Maybe I’ve missed it. It might be somewhere. Or maybe it’s just been a kaupapa of New Zealand First bringing it into the House as a part of their coalition agreement. I am disappointed, as a kaimahi of the sector, having worked with Māori health providers in DHB, and also as a portfolio manager at the Ministry of Health, knowing the gains made to date.

Will resource be put into smoking cessation services, community awareness, and pushing for further community action? The inception of Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 was based on evidence. You’ve heard that from this side of the House. Because, ultimately, this repeal will see te iwi Māori as casualties. It will impact us the most. We have the highest smoking rates. The goal was never about maintaining addiction e tātou mā; it was about eliminating the harm within our communities, because our communities are the ones who are dying from these products. And yet we have a Government now and this legislation wants to remove the approvals of the Director-General of Health to sell tobacco products, remove the limits on the number of retailers so that there can be more than nine in Kawakawa, remove the Director-General of Health’s approval of products to be manufactured and produced and sold in New Zealand, and remove the requirement of tobacco products to meet the low nicotine limit of 0.8.

I worry about the retention of the sale age of 18. My baby, my pōtiki, born in 2009—we need to see a smoke-free generation now, not tomorrow, and not in the future. May we make the commitment to better health outcomes for all New Zealanders based on real evidence, not on political lobbying. Kia ora tātou.

I rise to speak in the second reading of this bill. I want to thank the members who have shared their personal stories of overcoming addiction, because it is a great challenge here in New Zealand. But I am glad that over the last number of years we’ve seen a steady decrease in the number of smokers, down from 16.4 percent in 2012 to 6.8 percent last year, and those rates have been continuing to fall before even this last amendment comes into effect.

In the last three years, 219,000 people have stopped smoking with vaping playing a key role. Importantly, close to 80,000 of those who stopped smoking were Māori. If these trends continue, New Zealand will hit the smoke-free goal of less than 5 percent of the population smoking daily by 2025. We already have a smoke-free generation. Smoking rates for young people have dropped hugely. The 2023 Action on Smoking and Health survey of year 10 students shows youth smoking rates of 1.1 percent. These numbers should be encouraged. We would suggest that people stop smoking, but we don’t think the previous amendment legislation will do it. That’s why we support this bill. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m not sure where to start, to be honest. It is a sad day, it’s a dark day, it’s been a terrible day for this Parliament, and it’s been a terrible day for New Zealand. Why I’m not so sure where to start is because I just listened to the previous contribution and I expected something a little bit more passionate from a cancer researcher. I remember sitting by Hamish Campbell, the member who has just resumed his seat, at the Christchurch Cancer Foundation pre-election, where not one single mention of repealing this legislation was made.

In fact, when I look back, I remember him feeling a bit sheepish, and I remember the good people of the Christchurch Cancer Foundation being very specific and being very exercised about what might happen if this lot took Government—and hasn’t that just come to fruition, because National didn’t campaign on this. They didn’t campaign on it because it wasn’t a priority for them at the time. It wasn’t a priority for them at the time because it wasn’t until afterwards, when New Zealand First and ACT got in on the act, that they realised that they now had to fund those tax cuts somehow. So all things were now on the table, weren’t they?

When I think about the legislation that’s being repealed, I remember my time as the chair of the Health Committee, listening to the submissions and all of the experts who lent their time, who gave us their expertise, who were very passionate about not only their lived experience but their life experience as experts in this area. If we recall, as our contributions that have come before us have done so, about the three legs to this piece of legislation that’s now being repealed: reducing the outlets, reducing the nicotine in cigarettes, and actually creating a smoke-free generation. It’s like a three-legged stool: each of those components was part of taking the next step forward.

It is true that smoking rates have reduced—fantastic. That’s happened over time, but now comes the gnarly bit where we have to get to the tough-to-reach people. Now comes the bit where we don’t just say to ourselves “We’re dealing with the people who are over 18 and under 100 today.”, because people age into this cohort. Every year, those young people are growing up and they’re growing into the cohort that we are talking about. It’s not going to end unless we do something more, and this was a really, really good piece of legislation that’s now being repealed. It was regarded as being world-leading.

How did we go from literally talking about end game for the tobacco industry in New Zealand, to now talking about “Wow! What an influence the tobacco lobbyists in New Zealand have.” We’ve caved into them. We’re protecting people who, by virtue of selling smokes—as long as you take it as directed—will kill half of the people whom they’re selling to, and all the time just to fund tax cuts. It’s just incomprehensible to me. I don’t see many people on that side of the House who can actually look straight and go, “We knew that this was going to happen.” You didn’t know this was what you were going to do. You didn’t know this was what you were going to have to sit there and defend, but that’s what you do.

I think about all the people who made submissions to the Health Committee, and, in particular, some of the experts who have spent their life, whether it be in behavioural science, whether it be in economics, whether it be in health research—people with various expertise, different modalities, and different methods of getting to the nub of the facts, and they all were so excited. Almost all of them had to get up in the middle of the night to submit to the Health Committee because they were in the Northern Hemisphere, and they couldn’t wait to do so because they were so pleased that New Zealand was making this move. We had media from all over the world talking about what good legislation this was going to be, and we know that officials and people within New Zealand, within the ministry, within advisers—many, many people who brought a whole expanse of their expertise and their evidence to pass, and it just seems like such a shame.

When we talk about the smoke-free generation in particular, it was said by Dr Humphrey, who was the then chair of the New Zealand Medical Association organisation, that the best way to become smoke-free in Aotearoa was to prevent our tamariki taking up smoking in the first place. That just seems like a no-brainer, doesn’t it?

It makes me think about the Minister now being faced with an opportunity to make some compromises. I just can’t get it through my head why those compromises wouldn’t be undertaken. Look, I understand you’ve got to save some money to make tax cuts work. But why can’t some compromises be made?

There were compromises offered to the Minister to introduce a purchase age of 25, which was not ideal, but it still would have saved some lives and it still would have saved some money; there were compromises being offered to the Minister to introduce a nicotine limit of 1.3 milligrams per gram, which was a little bit more than the 0.8 that we were aiming for, but an awful lot less than the 15 that exists at the moment; and there were compromises offered to the Minister to consider maybe even a higher cap of 600 outlets, maybe a few more, maybe a sinking-lid policy. There were plenty of things on the table, but they were all turned down because, by hell or high water, this was going to go through.

When situations arise to that effect, you’ve got to wonder—as other contributors have said today—who’s actually running this show. For whose benefit is this repeal? This is just the tobacco lobbies and this is just for tax cuts, and you know it.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can I just take a moment here. We looked up a Speakers’ ruling earlier, and I just want to make it very clear for the House, because we’ll have a committee of the whole House stage coming up soon, but under Speakers’ rulings 55/5 and 56/1, a member can say that the Government has been influenced or was given advice from outside. That’s fine, but I just want to let people know, before anyone steps over the line, that it’s not in order to say that the Government has been dictated to or subject to outside domination or has received instructions or directions. Just so members know where we stand on that one at this point in time.

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN: Thank you, Madam Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m not suggesting that the member has gone over that line.

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN: Point taken—point taken. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m happy to move on. I’m absolutely happy to move on.

One of the other things that we’ve heard in the contributions that have been made to date is this bogeyman of the illicit tobacco trade. Again, this is something that came up in select committee. I remember the New Zealand Institute talking about “Black markets, black markets”. So afterwards, we asked researchers “Give us everything you know about that. We need to be informed.” They came back and said, “Not so much so.” There wasn’t any hard evidence to justify those lines.

Then, when you look at it and you look at the academic study, just a quick google search five minutes ago shows the British Medical Journal in 2019 did a comprehensive study looking at all of the different research that’s been done—that which was commissioned by the tobacco industry versus that which wasn’t—and it just showed up that tobacco industry data on the illicit trade of tobacco is not reliable, the methodologies aren’t good, there are lots of different ways in which it’s not robust, and that is the conclusion. So if that’s what you’re basing your arguments on the black market and the illicit trade, it’s a white elephant, and it’s not good enough.

We’ve also heard about the cost-benefit analyses and all of the other things that made sense with the previous legislation that’s now being repealed. We heard that the New Zealand health system stood to save $5.25 billion in health spending with these repeals in place, not to mention the $6 billion in increased productivity over the lifetime of the New Zealanders who were alive in 2020, and that’s not to be overlooked.

What we’ve also heard is that whilst the Minister has said, “We’re still committed to reducing smoking. Everybody’s committed to reducing smoking.”, no one has come up with a plan, and, if this was something that they were hellbent on doing, if this was something that they’ve got their mandate from, why haven’t they done the policy work? Why do we have to sit here today and have this repealed without any idea of what’s yet to come? It’s because the policy work hasn’t been done, because it’s an afterthought.

We also know that despite all those well-meaning wishes of how the Minister would like to see smoking continue to be reduced and how it’s only just a matter of continuing on with the status quo, even though that trajectory hasn’t been played out in real life, we know that the reduction in those rates won’t be achieved until 2061. How many people die in between that year—2061—and when we would have achieved that?

Look, honestly, National and the Government have death on their hands. I just think it’s a shameful, shameful day when after we have just sat through a day and a half of listening to the vacuous arguments about repealing the Māori Health Authority, we’re now doing exactly the same thing for a piece of legislation that collectively we all should have been proud of, but because someone’s got to get $2.50 a week for tax cuts, we have to see it repealed. I think it’s a very dark day indeed.

I would like to acknowledge all the healthcare workers, community leaders, and volunteers for their contribution to the Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 goal. Under the current legislation, we—together—have successfully driven the smoking rate down over the last decade. Daily smoking is down from 16.4 percent in 2012 to 6.8 percent in 2023. The number of year 10 students who smoke has dropped from 11 percent in 2009 to 3 percent in 2022. However, this is not good enough. More work needs to be done, especially in the Māori and Pacific communities.

This Government is committed to the Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 goal. Our new approach will be focusing on those who need—and we’ll accelerate progress towards our 2025 smoke-free goal. I support this bill.

This call is a split call.

Kia orana, Madam Speaker, thank you. Look, I do feel for some members opposite because I think they’re being forced to get up and take a call and talk about something that, in their heart of hearts, they know is absolutely the wrong thing to do. What I would say to them is that there is still an opportunity for them to do the right thing and to cast their votes in favour of the future generations of this country, something that is still always open through to them to the last moment.

This is an absolutely outrageous opportunity for this Parliament to effectively repeal amendments that were put in place; that there was no doubt about the fact that they were going to make a real difference. They were changes that were based on evidence. It seems something that this current Government is actually not willing to take a look at, is actually not willing to make sure that evidence is something that they are basing decisions on. I know that, for example, the Health Committee that looked at these particular amendments at the time did consider things like a sinking lid, but in the end decided not to head down that particular path, instead limiting the number of licensed premises. I also know in terms of denicotinisation, that was something that was discussed; there was evidence around that and landed where the current law sits.

What’s really compelling, I think, is the opportunity for a smoke-free generation to come from all of this. That is a fantastic opportunity that this Government seems happy to just squander away. And we know why: because this is something that was not campaigned on. This is a Government that is very eager and keen to remind everyone that they won a general election. Well, I tell members of this House that they did not win a general election going to the polls based on this particular policy. Recent movements—recent examples—indicate that that has come as a huge surprise by members of the community, that they have, effectively, been blindsided by this. To have this piece of legislation rushed through this House in urgency is an absolute shambles. This is, effectively, a report card on a Minister who is deficient in her ability to actually deliver change that is meaningful for our community up and down Aotearoa New Zealand.

I had the privilege of chairing the Health Committee when this piece of legislation progressed through the Parliament, and I recall that there were members who came from all around the country. I recall Tau Henare, I recall Hone Harawira, who encouraged the select committee to go far and wide to hear from the very communities of interest for whom this piece of legislation that is currently enforced would make a huge difference—and we did that. I recall going to South Auckland, and not a single member of the National Party members of that committee bothered to turn up to that select committee hearing. Not a single member bothered to listen to the evidence, the experiences, the personal tragedies, the personal stories, the opportunities that this piece of legislation would provide for them and their whānaus now and into the future. That is an absolute indictment on the way in which some members on the opposite side of the House seem to take the views of communities of interest for whom this will make a huge difference.

Earlier this afternoon, my colleague Dr Verrall talked about visiting Manukura in Palmerston North. I can attest to the fact that those young folk who are there—who are largely from members of our Māori cohort—were absolutely dumbfounded that this was something that this Government wishes to progress, that this is a Government that, effectively, is prepared to sign the death warrant for future generations by this particular piece of legislation.

This is something that, actually, also members of Manukura talked about: “Why is this not actually something that members can vote along matters of conscience? Why are members bound by party politics when it comes to protecting the health and wellbeing of future generations?”

Hon Member: Kids are smart.

TANGI UTIKERE: And that is that—kids are smart, particularly in Palmerston North. I know that that was something in particular that they felt should be available to the Parliament. But we all know, don’t we, that if this was a matter of conscience, we know that the Government would not have the numbers to pass this legislation. Because deep down in the hearts of members of this Government—

Hon Damien O’Connor: Must be a few.

TANGI UTIKERE: —they know that—and some of them do have a heart, Mr O’Connor, I’m sure.

Hon Damien O’Connor: A conscience.

TANGI UTIKERE: A conscience is another matter. But they know that this is the wrong move; this is the wrong route to take. Well, I say to members opposite that this is not going to be an easy run through the House—this piece of legislation—because members of our community all around Aotearoa New Zealand who submitted to the select committee and who didn’t expect us to hold members opposite to account—and we intend to do that because this is a crap piece of law.

A member across just asked “Why haven’t they done the policy work?”, and can I just remind the House and those viewing today of a couple of key pieces of legislation: the 2011 Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Act and the 2016 Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Standardised Packaging) Amendment Act, all under a previous National Government. And there was also a plan to more than halve the smoking rates and haven’t we achieved that so well. As Dr Campbell said, we are on track to reach Smokefree 2025, where 5 percent or less smoke. And so we are on track to achieving those goals of 10, 12 years ago, and so I commend this bill to the House.

Three weeks ago today, I said farewell to my elderly mother. She passed away and we had her funeral. My mother was 87, and she is someone I would describe as a born-again non-smoker. So, when I grew up, my mother smoked—she smoked a bit. She smoked quite a bit, actually. And then, I remember when I was about seven years old that mum had a really bad asthma attack. And I remember her pointing to a number—it was 111 on a piece of paper—and indicating to me that I needed to call that if she was going to pass out. That was the last time that my mother—who had cut back to two cigarettes a day—ever touched a cigarette. And after that, she became an ardent non-smoker.

I mihi to her today, and I am so proud of her for making that choice, because my mother lived to 87 years old, and she got to meet my three children, the last of whom is 10 years old. That would not have happened if my mother had kept smoking. She got to spend holidays with them. I got that joy of seeing the relationship between my mother and my children. It’s something I am so grateful for.

But my best friend did not have the same experience. Her mother also smoked at the same time my mother did. My best friend, Beth, and I, I remember we would go on car trips. In those days, the tobacco companies were really pumping out a lot of misinformation about the harm from tobacco, including passive smoking. And I would feel physically sick at the end of the drive for two hours as she chain-smoked in the car. When my eldest son turned one year old, my best friend Beth’s mother passed away from lung cancer. She never got to see any of her grandchildren. My best friend has missed out on that whole journey with her mother, and so have her grandchildren.

This is the reality of what we are talking about in this House today. This is a product that kills half the people that use it. I find it appalling that members of the Government stand and read off notes, that they have not acquainted themselves with the arguments of this incredibly serious matter before us today. I take the point that my colleague Tangi Utikere said—it is not too late. This is your nuclear-free moment. This is the moment. Through you, Madam Speaker, I address members of the Government to say, “You can cross the floor.” It happened in 1984 when Marilyn Waring was nearly stopped from speaking on a nuclear bill. She threatened to cross the floor and it resulted in a snap election. That is how seriously she took her duty to her constituents. It happened in 2004 with Dame Tariana Turia and the foreshore and seabed legislation. Well, guess what? It’s 2024—let’s have another 20-year cross of the floor. Let’s see the Government members find their conscience and do what is right for them, for their constituents, and for their communities. That is the justification for crossing the floor. Because Tangi Utikere is absolutely right: this should really be a matter of conscience. Alcohol and drugs are matters of conscience. For some quirk of history, or perhaps it is the misinformation peddled by the tobacco industry, this has not been included in the conscience voting. And I guarantee you, if it was, they would not have the numbers there today.

It is absolutely incredible that the Government, who has not campaigned on this, is taking this incredibly serious matter and using the numbers, providing MPs with notes—MPs who have not engaged with select committee, who have not engaged with the hui around the country—to just read off notes, to do one- or two-minute speeches and rush this through urgency.

The experts are saying that this is wrong. The experts—9,000 doctors—not just my colleagues. And I have to tautoko to Dr Ayesha Verrall here, who did incredible work leading the smoke-free legislation—world-leading work. That has not been acknowledged. And she was continuing a journey that was from Governments of all stripes. So it is disingenuous for the previous speaker, Cameron Brewer, to say that it was their Government. This has been an ongoing trend where Governments of all stripes have taken the responsibility seriously. This is the first time there’s a break in that. The experts wrote to the Prime Minister. They asked for this to be repealed. And they said, “If it cannot be repealed, at least put it to a select committee so we can hear from communities whose whānau will die as a result of this.”—the 8,000 whose lives would have been saved by this legislation. But, no, that hasn’t happened.

What about the $5.5 billion to the health system? That is not only cost savings for those who would have not smoked, but we know the strain on the system. What about all the other people lining up for other health-related issues who will not get their operations, who will not get their interventions, who will not get their scans because it is being taken up by a new generation of smokers?

The amendment before us has been described as weak, deceptive, and embarrassing by Health Coalition Aotearoa. They have collected more than 50,000 signatures, and yet this Government persists in the face of all that opposition. Why? I’ll tell you why, because they seem to hate Māori—they seem to hate Māori. On Radio New Zealand 10 minutes ago, there is a story by Guyon Espiner which says that the Minister was told that putting this bill through would be seen as a breach of the Treaty of Waitangi—she was told that. She was told that the health gains for Māori would be five times that of the general population. That might have done something to bring the smoking rates down from 17.5 percent to the 5 percent that this Minister purports to want to achieve. Well, I don’t know how she’s going to do that unless she can come up with something radical in this ghost paper that we have not seen yet going to Cabinet.

This is an affront, on the day that this Government has dismantled the Māori Health Authority; in a week where this Government has said that cultural reports will no longer be available to those who cannot pay for them in our judicial system, which is going to put more Māori into prisons. That is the advice that the actual justice Minister Paul Goldsmith gave to Cabinet—it is on the record. He said, “This will put more Māori in prison.” But, no, they’re going to do it anyway.

The thing that offends me the most is the sneaky, insidious way that this is being done. Where is the health Minister? Why has this number one public health issue that has so much impact been delegated to an Associate Minister of Health? Where is he? Why is the Associate Minister rejecting any compromise at all, carte blanche? We heard from Dr Tracey McLellan that perhaps there could be changes around the nicotine levels that were a compromise, or the age of sale, or perhaps, at least—at least—get the outlets away from our schools. But no, carte blanche. What does that mean? Why does the Minister seem to have lines that echo very clearly with those of the tobacco lobby? I will quote from the Public Health Communication Centre: “Tobacco companies have an overwhelming commercial interest in opposing effective tobacco control policies … They have made misleading or false assertions, lobbied and influenced decision makers, manipulated research ‘evidence’, undermined independent researchers, and developed alliances by creating or cultivating front-groups to promote their goals.” That is an evidenced report, which is more than I have seen from this Government.

Their data is shonky. There’s been the question that Dr Ayesha Verrall has raised time and time again in the House about the inexplicable handwritten note about an excise tax change for tobacco companies. We have not heard adequate answers to that. There have been Official Information Act requests on vaping from leading New Zealand media. The Minister has failed to answer any one of them. She has said that she will answer when she puts this bill in the House. I take that as an indication that this Minister is going to stand up at the committee of the whole House stage—given that there is no select committee and that this is in urgency—to answer the very, very, very many questions that we have. Because, as other people have said, this Government did not campaign on this. They cannot say they have a mandate within their 100 days. It was not transparent, they are doing this under urgency, they have not got the consultation and the voice of community that has been demanded by experts, by communities, by petitioners.

So, Madam Speaker, through you, I urge members of the Government—it is not too late—to do the right thing. Do the right thing by the constituents that no doubt are lobbying you and walk across the floor and cast your vote according to your conscience. I guarantee, if that happened, we would have a historic nuclear-free moment, and this Parliament would have done its job.

Madam Speaker, I’m not going to stand here and listen to members opposite parading around on their moral high horses as if they’re the Midas of anti-smoking. I’m not going to be lectured to by those who drove our health system into the ground, to hear the Leader of the Opposition, who clearly cares so much about this that we haven’t seen him in the House ever since he spoke.

The arrogance of those who would say that their bill, their measures in 2022, were all that was going to work to deal with smoking in New Zealand when none of them are in effect. They haven’t banned smoking; the ban was going to trickle in slowly over the next 80 to 90 years. Well, frankly, I say a ban in 90 years is not a ban at all. The only measures that have worked for anti-smoking in this country are those measures that this bill leaves in place. They have halved smoking in New Zealand in the last 10 years, and they will get us through the next 10 as well. I commend this bill to the House.

This bill is set down for committee stage immediately.

In Committee

Part 1 Amendments to principal Act