Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill

Hon TARIANA TURIA (Associate Minister of Health) Link to this

I move, That the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. This bill heralds one of the most significant developments to take place in the public health system of this country. This bill is about saving lives, and I am humbled and greatly heartened by the support of parties throughout the House on this immensely important day—118 votes out of 122. I greatly appreciate the strength of support that has come through this debate.

This move will put the price of cigarettes and roll-your-own tobacco up enough to save hundreds of lives. Our most preliminary estimates are that there will be 300 fewer premature deaths a year as a result of the tobacco excise increase, rising to 500 fewer deaths a year by the year 2031. This development is well overdue. I am reminded of the results of a survey from the Ministry of Health just 2 years ago. It found that 80 percent of New Zealand smokers said that they regretted starting to smoke, and that if they had their time again they would not smoke. This bill is for them. The price increase will give them an added incentive to quit and a huge incentive to all of our young people to never start. This bill is an investment in the future of our country.

I have read over some of the submissions presented to the Māori Affairs Committee inquiry held over the course of the last few months. The challenges laid out there are inspirational. There has been talk of people wanting to live in a smoke-free nation, and to take the opportunity to be world leaders in this land in countering the global smoking epidemic. Some amazing examples have been shared of people trying to make a difference in their own way. There are stories that demonstrate the power of w’ānau, celebrating the impact of loved ones providing the incentive to quit.

I have to admit that many years ago, when I was courting my husband, I had the occasional cigarette. George told me in no uncertain terms that I had to give up, and such was the power of love at that time that I did it. It was an extremely effective strategy, long before the days of nicotine lozenges and patches. Many such powerful incentives were shared by those who had the courage to give their stories to the select committee. In Hokianga the word is out that if rangatahi want to be part of waka ama, they have to be smoke-free. At the Pasifika Festival held every year, Pacific Heartbeat promotes the message of being smoke-free, ensuring that every person who attends that celebration leaves their cigarettes at home.

Other stories simply made me want to weep. One of the most traumatic stories was told by Lloyd and Hinga Whiu. They shared the profound sadness within their midst that within their mother’s line, 14 of the 16 siblings had died of smoking-related diseases, leaving a void that will never be filled. Their submission spelt out in black and white the ghastly reality that cigarettes kill one in every two long-term smokers.

This afternoon, right across the House, we have declared our condemnation of smoking as the biggest single cause of avoidable death and disease. The purpose of this legislation is very clear: it is all about the issue of psychological triggers to quit. We know that most people who quit smoking need to make several attempts before they succeed.

The second distinguishing feature of this legislation is the substantial price increase for roll-your-owns. The Government has decided to equalise the excise duties on a weight-by-weight basis, so that all smokers face the same financial incentive to quit. In effect, the excise on loose tobacco will rise by 24 percent immediately, followed by the same 10 percent increases in 2011 and 2012 as for cigarettes. Loose tobacco accounts for about a third of all the tobacco smoked in New Zealand, and we have one of the highest rates of roll-your-own use in the world, which is hardly something to be proud of. It should be known that the taxation of loose and manufactured tobacco products was last equalised in 1995. Since that time, the proportion of smokers using loose tobacco has increased from 28 percent to 50 percent today. As well as that considerable jump in numbers, users of loose tobacco tend to be younger, to be of lower socio-economic status, and to be Māori or Pasifika people. These groups are the most sensitive to the price of tobacco products and, as such, are the greatest users of loose tobacco.

The bill is intended to prompt people to stop smoking, and I will talk to two particular aspects of this legislation that warrant further explanation. The first is the rationale for why we are not bringing the price increases in all at once. As a Government, we have been concerned about the financial impact of the changes on low-income households, where smokers may struggle to immediately cut down or quit. As a consequence of our concerns, we decided to phase in the increases to give people more time to adjust. But I have a word for those who might suggest that these increases might hurt low-income families in particular. Of course the well-being of our most vulnerable New Zealanders will always concern us, but I ask where the evidence is that their well-being is enhanced by picking up a cigarette.

A far bigger concern for the family members of low-income smokers is the harm that is done through the premature death of a smoking parent, the decline of household income through a smoker’s ill health, the health impacts on smokers’ children from their exposure to smoke, and the health impacts on the children yet to be born when a mother smokes while pregnant. It is also noted that in phasing in the changes, frequent price rises are likely to be more effective than less frequent, larger price rises. A particular concern for me is that 61 percent of smokers who are aged from 15 to 19 years report smoking roll-your-owns. The research tells us that young people are less likely to try smoking if the cigarettes are seen to be too expensive.

Finally, I extend my genuine appreciation right across the House for the vision, the leadership, and the solidarity that has been expressed. It has been an extremely moving debate, seeing parties come together on our commitment to a healthier future for all our peoples in this land. Tonight I place on record my gratitude to all of those smoke-free champions, the advocates and analysts, the Auahi Kore providers, and the researchers. This bill has also benefited from the dedication of officials in Treasury and the Customs Service, and especially the tobacco team in the Ministry of Health.

My last word goes to all of those mokopuna out there who today tell their parents not to smoke, and who carry that message with such pride and vigour. They remind us that when one woman dies, we lose an entire generation. We owe it to our children to pass this bill.

Nā reira, ka mate te wahine kotahi he w’akatipuranga ka ngaro i te tirohanga kanohi ki te pō uriuri, ki te pō tangatango. Mā te wahine kotahi, ara anō he rau w’akatipuranga, koia nei te pūtake o tēnei pire, kua eke panuku, kua eke Tangaroa haere mai te toki, haumi ē, hui ē, tāiki ē.

[So if one woman dies, a generation is lost from sight to the deep and intense night. On the other hand, one woman can conceive a generation that will surmount the realm and ocean of Tangaroa. Welcome the adze; we are about to lead a new life together. This, after all, is the nub of this bill.]

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) Link to this

It gives me great pleasure to stand again in support of not just the progress of the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill but also the progress of this bill under urgency. I will begin, as I began my earlier contribution in this debate, by congratulating the Associate Minister of Health Tariana Turia. She just concluded her statements in what I know was a genuine contribution. She has had real drive for this issue. Minister Turia said at the outset of this debate that it was not often that the House gets to debate what is literally a life-or-death measure. For us to have the opportunity to improve someone else’s health, in part, is a huge responsibility, and I am so proud to be part of the movement that will progress so many people’s health in our nation. This is a significant health-promotion measure. It is fantastic that the New Zealand Parliament has got to the point where we have almost unanimous agreement on the promotion of this measure.

I could not understand Roger Douglas’ contribution earlier this evening. That is not unusual. For probably 30 years it is quite consistent that I have been unable to understand his contributions, even though I know that he makes his contributions genuinely. I chuckled, given how much debate we are having at the moment about the impact of the increase in GST, at Roger’s passion—his outrage—that we were introducing a regressive excise tax. He is the man who designed and introduced GST, so his contribution was extraordinary. Nevertheless, I am sure that his contribution was genuine.

We know that increasing the cost of tobacco has a more negative impact on low-income people because we have more low-income people who smoke. It is not a good enough reason to say: “Therefore, we shouldn’t help reduce the amount of tobacco consumption.” It is disproportionately borne by people who are on low incomes, people who are on benefits, and, as I said earlier in this debate, people who have a mental illness. Those people deserve our support as a Parliament to stop smoking, or even better, as my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway said, to not even start. It is a big step. We have had a lot of confessions from members of Parliament about their journeys through tobacco smoking to being smoke-free. A lot of people find it really, really difficult. The more support we can give people through a variety of ways, the easier it is for them to be smoke-free. We want to make that passage as easy as possible. We need measures like this legislation, which will be one of the biggest contributors to a reduction in tobacco consumption. If we put the price of tobacco up by 2 percent, it reduces tobacco consumption by 1 percent. The figures are on the public record and are easy to see. As soon as we put the price up, we see a dramatic decrease in tobacco consumption, but we have to keep putting the pressure on because the reduction flattens out after a while and slowly starts to increase again.

This measure cannot happen in isolation. We need to make sure that nicotine replacements and advice through Quitline are all accessible and affordable for people. That is part of the package. Of course, there is the health-promotion message of making sure that people understand that if used as prescribed and as intended, cigarettes kill half the people who use them. I invite members to imagine if a breakfast cereal was developed and the inventors of this fabulous new breakfast cereal said: “Here is the breakfast cereal for you. If you eat it”—

Hon TAU HENARE (National) Link to this

As most probably one of the only real smokers in this House—

JOHN BOSCAWEN (ACT) Link to this

I was not expecting to take a call at this time but it looked as though the debate on the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill might have been coming to a premature close. I will start by saying that unlike many people who have spoken this evening who have acknowledged that they are smokers, who are reformed smokers, who have outlined the extent to which they have gone to give up smoking, or who have spoken about the loss of family members, I have never smoked, I hope I never smoke, and I have never lost family members to tobacco. However, this is a subject on which I have had very strong views for a very long period of time. Roger Douglas said in the first reading debate that there will be some ACT members opposing this bill. I am the ACT member supporting this bill, and I say this very proudly. It makes me sad because I wish I could have convinced some more of my colleagues to support this bill, but before I explain why I am supporting this bill, I will make a few introductory remarks.

It is an absolute privilege to be a member of Parliament. Every day I come into this Chamber I remind myself of how privileged I am to be here, and of the people who have elected me here. The speech I give tonight is a speech that I knew I would be making at one stage during my career in Parliament, and I do it with a great deal of pride and a great deal of thought. I would also like to acknowledge two of my colleagues. I consider David Garrett and myself to be very lucky. We have come into Parliament and we represent a very small party, but it is a party that does not whip its members. We have a confidence and supply agreement with the National Party, and under the terms of that agreement we are committed to supporting the National Party in various matters. Beyond that, however, we are entitled to have a free vote. We have often had a split vote, as we did this evening. I would like to acknowledge the leader of the ACT Party, Rodney Hide, who has voted against this bill. Rodney Hide is a very astute politician. Rodney Hide opposes tax increases, and if there has been any disappointment about this debate so far it has been those seeking to score political points through members, such as Bill English, changing their position. I am very grateful for Rodney, because he has to go to the media and explain why the ACT Party has a vote. He is prepared to do that so that I have the ability and the right to stand up and state the comments I am making this evening.

The second colleague I would like to acknowledge is Sir Roger Douglas. Many people forget that Sir Roger Douglas was a former Labour MP. His grandfather, father, and his brother were Labour MPs. He was the MP for Ōtara for many years. When I joined the ACT Party in 1995 I was attracted to the philosophy of Roger Douglas and his vision for the party, which he recently restated in his book, No Second Class Citizens. I can assure members of the public and parliamentarians that even though it may well be the public perception that the ACT Party is not overly concerned with poor people, that is what motivates Roger, that is what motivates me, and that is why I am in this Parliament. Roger has a very sincere conviction that increasing the tobacco tax is a tax on the poor. It is interesting that Tariana acknowledged that and acknowledged some of the alternative arguments we put up.

Let us go back through some of the issues we have heard tonight. We have heard that approximately 5,000 people die each year as a result of tobacco or tobacco-related causes such as lung cancer and many other diseases. That is 14 people per day. We have heard that people who smoke regularly throughout their life have a one in two chance that they will die prematurely—one chance in two. On average, smoking cuts the life expectancy of an individual by 15 years; rather than a woman living to the average age of 80, she might die prematurely at 65, and, sadly, for Māori it is a lot younger. We have also heard that smoking disproportionately affects large numbers of low-income people, large numbers of Māori, particularly large numbers of Māori women, and, worse still, large numbers of young Māori women. I had a friend for dinner last night and he explained that his stepdaughter goes to a high school in Rotorua where she is one of just three people in her secondary school class who do not smoke. I do not know how many are in her secondary school class; I would imaging there are 15, 20, or maybe 25 people. She is just one of three 14-year-olds who do not smoke.

Why are we discussing this issue? The blunt reality is that tobacco companies kill their customers. It is simple as that. Tobacco companies kill their customers. The only way they can survive is if they get new, young, fresh customers coming in the front door. I believe that this Parliament, this Government, needs to take every step it can take to reduce the number of new young people coming in the door. I see Mr Lees-Galloway nodding this evening. He made the point that this is just one of many things that this Government could be doing. For example, this Government could have adopted Mr Lees-Galloway’s member’s bill to put restrictions on the retail display of tobacco. Every day that we have a ballot, I look with interest to see if Mr Lees-Galloway’s bill has been drawn. Sadly, it has not. I hope that Tariana Turia, who I understand is also looking at this area, will soon have a bill before Parliament that will significantly restrict the retail display of tobacco, the packaging, or the way the product is put.

I focus on young people because the reality is that the new customers who come in, as the old ones die, are not people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, or 60s; they are young people. Yes, it is illegal to sell tobacco to children under the age of 18, but does that stop them from smoking? Does that stop that class of 14-year-olds in Rotorua, where all but three of them are smoking? No, it does not. To my mind, smoking is an absolute tragedy. It is a waste. It is an absolute waste of human life. Tariana Turia has put the arguments eloquently this evening and I can not possibly repeat them in the way that she has. Luckily, I have not had someone in my immediate family die from tobacco. However, I did have to help my mother nurse my late grandmother, Mona Wheeler, in January and February of 1985. Luckily for my grandmother, her bad turn of health was very severe, very sudden, and it lasted only about 6 weeks. I cannot imagine anything worse than having to look after and nurse a child or parent, month after month, and see the decline in their health. I acknowledge Tariana Turia talking about how she had to nurse her mother. She had to nurse her mother, she saw her decline, and she was brought up by her grandmother. Today, she is the last alive of all of her cousins; all of the others have been taken by tobacco.

I would like to devote the last part of my speech to acknowledging the efforts of the Labour Party and Helen Clark. I stood up at an ACT conference in 2001 to challenge ACT members who were opposing at that time the previous Labour Government’s Smoke-free Environments Act, and I asked them to justify their decision. One by one, those ACT members got up and justified their decision. To be fair to them, I thought that Muriel Newman had a very valid point when she talked about RSAs and people who had gone off to war, and the ability for them to smoke in their RSA rooms. I thought she had a very valid point, and so, arguably, with cigarette bars. But I will never forget the first time I met the Rt Hon Helen Clark. It was in 1990. She was a young Minister of Health and she was asked to justify her decision to make it illegal for cigarette and tobacco companies to sponsor sport when she was not prepared to do the same for liquor companies. The point she made 20 years ago sticks with me today. I say to Mr Anderton that the reality is that he can have a glass of wine every night for the rest of his life, and the odds are that it will not kill him. But if he tried to smoke a packet of cigarettes every day for the rest of his life, the odds are that there is a one in two chance of it killing him.

I vote for this bill with a great deal of pride. I realise that there are many ACT supporters who voted for me and gave me this privilege, and I apologise to those who do not understand my actions. But I am doing this because I believe that it is right and the best thing to do. Thank you.

KEVIN HAGUE (Green) Link to this

I say to the previous speaker, John Boscawen, that the membership form is in the mail. I want to start my contribution by thinking about the groups in our society that have higher than average rates of smoking. We have heard a little bit about some of those groups tonight. For example, we know that Māori have much higher rates of smoking than the population average. We know that Pasifika people have higher rates of smoking. We know that in general the poor have higher rates of smoking. We know that people with mental illnesses, as Ruth Dyson pointed out, have higher rates of smoking. In my own community, the gay community, there is a higher rate of smoking than there is in the population as a whole. What on earth could explain that pattern? What on earth could explain the distribution of smoking behaviour? Could it be that information about what is unhealthy about smoking only reaches other groups? Is it somehow not getting to these groups? That explanation does not hold water.

Over the last 24 years, since 1986, we have increasingly come to understand that a model to explain the patterns that we see of health and illness that is based on information simply fails. It is not an adequate explanation of what we see. Instead, we have to look at the marginalisation of communities and adopt a socio-environmental model of health that says there are risk environments that surround particular communities. Those risk environments are things like poverty, racism, prejudice, and violence. Those risk environments themselves create the psychosocial risk factors that predispose people towards particular patterns of illness.

In the health promotion model, which is the model we use to explain how to counter that pattern of ill health, we talk about five action guidelines in what is called the Ottawa Charter. Those are: to promote healthy public policy; to create supportive environments, and by that we mean not only physical environments but social environments also; to strengthen community action; to develop personal skills; and to re-orient health services towards prevention. That means that when we look at the pattern of health and disease in relation to smoking, we see that that is also the pattern for pretty well every other disease we can think of. When we look at those Ottawa Charter guidelines we see that it is not adequate to do just one of those things. We have to do all of those things. That is the kind of holistic thinking that the Green Party typically brings to this kind of debate.

In relation to tobacco control, we are talking tonight about price control, because we know that that works. But we also need a comprehensive suite of controls. We need to look at how tobacco is displayed, where it can be bought from, what is in the product, and where tobacco can be smoked, but we also need to look to community empowerment. By that, I mean providing communities with resources in the form of expertise and also the dollars that they need to develop their own solutions to this problem. It also means tackling racism, and tackling prejudice wherever it exists. It means taking measures to address inequalities in our society, measures to create a fair society where all New Zealanders have a fair go. Those are the things that will make the big difference in dealing with the pattern of disease that we see in this country.

One of the measures to tackle inequality is tax. As Iain Lees-Galloway has said already in tonight’s debate, tax is one of the areas where we are able to take some initiatives that address the inequalities in society. This Government has a policy in relation to tax that will widen those inequalities. The truth is that that pattern of widened inequalities will drive increased disease, and it will drive increased smoking rates. So we need that comprehensive pattern of interventions. Yes, we will vote for these price increases tonight because we know that that will be helpful, but we also need to address those wider psychosocial risk factors, those wider socio-environmental risk factors, that create disease in the first place.

As Ruth Dyson has commented, a number of members have spoken about their personal smoking history. I have never been a smoker. I did try it once, but I could not get it close enough to my face, so that never happened. But I did have a particularly powerful experience in Los Angeles a couple of years ago when I went to the Body Worlds exhibition put on by the German anatomist Gunther von Hagen. Very much as Paul Hutchison has described tonight, one of the things von Hagen does in that exhibition is provide actual lungs that have been preserved and plasticised. It was a very creepy experience. The contrast between the lungs of a lifelong non-smoker and the lungs of a person who has smoked is such a stunning example that nobody could go to that exhibition and come away still a committed smoker. Next door to the exhibition of the lungs was a big rubbish bin. The idea was that smokers would put their packets of cigarettes in that rubbish bin. When I went through the exhibition, I saw it was pretty well full.

Although we will vote for this measure tonight, the Green Party seeks a comprehensive suite of measures that are focused not only on tobacco control but are ones that address those risk environments: racism, poverty, and marginalisation of every sort. As Michael Joseph Savage put it: “What is there more important in Christianity than to be our brothers’ keepers in reality?”. What is there more important to us in our society than to take collective responsibility for the welfare of all? I again congratulate the Hon Tariana Turia and the Māori Party. This is a fantastic victory, and I wish her well.

HONE HARAWIRA (Māori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) Link to this

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tātou katoa. When Minister Turia began this debate under extraordinary urgency, she said there are only a few matters before this House on which one could stand with one’s hand on one’s heart and declare that this was a life and death debate. This bill, the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill, she added, is purely and simply about saving lives. Today we celebrate another step in saving the lives of New Zealanders addicted to tobacco—in reducing the number of our citizens who die in their thousands every year from smoking. For the benefit of those who want to know exactly what we are talking about, I say it is about trying to put a dent into wiping out the equivalent of the whole population of Kaitāia every single year.

For us as the Māori Party, the cause is made even more dramatic because every year Māori gather to commemorate the lives of the 600 sons of the Māori Battalion lost in the 5 years of the Second World War, and yet we mourn alone the 600 lives of Māori people stolen every year by the decisions of British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco Group, Philip Morris, and others to maximise their profits from a product that addicts and kills people.

Today is a big day and an important day, not just for Māori but for the whole country, as we take another step on the march to save the lives of 5,000 Kiwis lost every year to tobacco. It is a march begun by smoke-free activists like Dr Papaarangi Reid, Shane Bradbrook, Dr Mārewa Glover, Ben Youdan, Moana Maniapoto, Mere Wilson, and many, many others. It was aided by organisations like the Health Sponsorship Council, Te Hotu Manawa Māori, the Quit Group, Te Reo Mārama, Aukati Kai Paipa, Auahi Kore, the Global Smokefree Partnership, Smokefree Northland, Hapai Te Hauora Tapui, Action on Smoking and Health, Tala Pasifika, and all of the others that have been working for years to bring down our smoking rates.

Today’s step is one of the hardest that we will ever take, because today we take the tough decision to increase taxes: 14 percent goes on to the tax on roll-your-owns, followed by another 33.3 percent on all tobacco products in the years ahead. We do that not just because we think that it might help to reduce smoking and improve health outcomes; we do it because the World Health Organization’s Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic 2008 stated that increasing the price of tobacco through higher taxes is the single most effective way to decrease consumption and encourage tobacco users to quit.

When people tell us that tax increases will not win us votes, we tell them that some things we do not do just for votes; we do them because they are the right thing to do—some things are more important than winning votes. When people say that smokers will not be happy, we can tell them that in fact 80 percent of smokers want to stop, and that they tell us that anything we can do to help them to stop is a bonus for them. We know that putting up the price will also force people to cut back on their smoking, but, more important, it will also provide a strong incentive for smokers to quit. If it helps to convince young people not to even start, then that is great as well. We can tell the other ones that even though smokers might not be happy, they can be sure that most of their whānau will be happy if this tax increase helps smokers to stop smoking. Yes, it is true that increasing the price of tobacco is a tough measure for those who do not have a lot of money anyway, but the truth is that we are dealing with one of the most addictive substances in the world. It is a substance described by medical researchers as being even more addictive than heroin.

Tobacco is the largest cause of preventable death and disease for Māori. It is a cost that no nation can sustain, and it is a cost that no family should have to bear. But we have to and we do, and I constantly ask myself why that is the case. If a faulty part in a car was responsible for even two deaths, that car’s manufacturer would be sued for millions of dollars. If another country was responsible for the deaths of just a couple of hundred of our citizens, we would go to war. But here we are, losing 5,000 of our country’s family to the tobacco industry every year, and we do very little to stop that. The industry is driven by multibillion-dollar tobacco giants that are directly responsible for the huge social and economic cost to our country. There is the insurance cost for fire, property, health, and for life itself. There is the cost to our health sector of chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgery. There is the stench that cannot be washed out of clothes, the lingering stink in homes, offices, cars, and workplaces, the damage to the unborn child, the suffering of children who are trapped in a smoker’s car, the loss of earnings of those who are in care, the loss of years for those who smoke, and the loss of life that every family is forced to bear.

I take this opportunity to thank all of my colleagues on the Māori Affairs Committee—our chairperson the Hon Tau Henare, Simon Bridges, Paul Quinn, the Hon Parekura Horomia, Mita Ririnui, and Kelvin Davis—for the work being done by the committee as part of the inquiry into the tobacco industry and the impact of tobacco on Māori. I also extend my thanks to Metiria Turei, Carmel Sepuloni, and Su’a William Sio for their attendance and their support. I also thank Iain Lees-Galloway for his attendance the other day. I would like to remind all members of this House that although our inquiry is specifically targeted at Māori, we knew, going into the inquiry, that if we were successful in bringing forward legislation to slow and, hopefully, to stop the tobacco industry in its tracks, the benefits that would flow from that decision would enhance the lives of all citizens of Aotearoa—Māori, Pasifika, Pākehā, Asian, and all other peoples who have come to call this land home. The fact was that we simply could not see how Parliament would allow us to mount an investigation into the tobacco industry until, one night, Shane Bradbrook of Te Reo Mārama, who has been a critical part of our inquiry and a dedicated and committed anti-tobacco activist, came up with the bright idea of using the Māori angle in order to get the inquiry going.

We have been to different parts of the country to hear submissions from victims, from families, from doctors, from nurses, from health agencies, and even from British American Tobacco itself to build a case for our final report to Parliament, which I understand will come before the House in July this year. I have seen my colleagues grow in their commitment to our task, and I have heard some excellent speeches from them in tonight’s debate. That encourages me in the last couple of months ahead of us. So on behalf of our committee, I wish to thank the Minister for the inspiration that this bill gives us in the work that we have yet to do and in the challenge of preparing and providing a report that truly reflects the feelings that we have been witness to, the damage that we have heard evidence of, and the recommendations that are needed if this country’s children and grandchildren may one day enjoy a world that is tobacco-free.

When I knew that I would be speaking in this debate tonight I actually prepared an attack speech, because I thought we might be really up against it on this one. But I was wrong—deeply wrong. So I express my sincere thanks to all speakers tonight—speakers from all parties—for their forbearance in this bill being brought to the House under extraordinary urgency, for the depth of their contributions, and for their support for this initiative.

Four years ago I attended a hui where I shared the goal of getting tobacco out of Aotearoa by 10 December 2010. My timing might be just a wee bit out, but we take another step on the road to a smoke-free Aotearoa with this landmark bill tonight. Speaking of smoke-free initiatives and smoke-free bars and restaurants, let me take this opportunity also to add, for the second night in a row, my special thanks to Mr Tukoroirangi Morgan. I did so last night for his work in bringing the Waikato-Tainui Raupatu Claims (Waikato River) Settlement Bill through to its second reading, and tonight I do so for his work in preparing the smoke-free bars and restaurants legislation, which he, unfortunately, was not in the House to see pass, but which I know he was happy to see become part of the fabric of this nation.

The Māori Party is proud to stand tonight to honour our co-leader the Hon Tariana Turia, the Minister who is responsible for tobacco control, for her persistence with this bill, for her courage, and for her commitment to help to save lives, to reduce—

JO GOODHEW (National—Rangitata) Link to this

I rise to speak in the second reading of the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill. I do so knowing that 4 years ago, almost to this day, our family had a call from Perth to say that my father-in-law was going to die, quite quickly, of lung cancer. Our reaction was dismay but not disbelief. You see, he was a very heavy smoker, with that horrible distinctive cough, which, when we stayed with him, woke us up each morning and made me feel quite sick. We always wondered whether it would be just a matter of time. He was 63 years old when he died—far, far too young.

I am a former nurse, and, yes, nurses also fall into a group with high rates of smoking. We heard the member Kevin Hague speak of various groups, and nurses are also amongst those. I have nursed many people whose health had been disastrously affected by smoking. Watching that happen does not stop nurses from smoking. But nursing a family member, as I had the privilege of doing in his last days of life, only 9 months after we heard of his illness, left a lasting impression on me. It left me with a resolve to listen carefully and seek ways to change the incidence of smoking and reduce the number of new smokers.

I pause now to congratulate the Hon Tariana Turia, because I feel sure that these measures will save lives. Not every Minister can steward a bill through the House knowing that that is likely to be the case. Smoking is the leading cause of preventable deaths, so I am proud to be standing here tonight in the knowledge that some people are less likely to start smoking because of these planned changes in excise.

I will briefly comment on the regulatory impact statement, which makes a couple of pertinent points in relation to the decision to bring this bill to pass. Tax on the two types of tobacco—loose tobacco and cigarettes—was last equalised in 1995, so we are looking at quite a passage of time since then. In addition, the decline in tobacco consumption has stalled, and smoking prevalence is declining, but slowly. The current tobacco control programme of regulation, health education, cessation, and taxation is holding rates steady but is not achieving the rate of decline necessary for sustainable health gains and reductions in tobacco-related costs to society and the economy. This is what we see, and this is the reason we must take this action here tonight.

This morning a newsletter arrived in my inbox. It was the Tobacco Control Update. I studied the newsletter more closely later in the day, knowing what was ahead of us tonight and it pointed out—of course, not knowing what was happening tonight—that the Budget would provide an opportunity for the Government to put up tobacco excise tax. There have been many calls for that to happen, and I feel sure that those who read and subscribe to that newsletter will be smiling this evening. There were calls from both the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners and the Public Health Association of New Zealand printed in that newsletter.

Also buried in the newsletter was a link to some research that had been carried out in Thailand by the Department of Health Education and Behavioural Sciences. It looked at 504 regular smokers and looked at what changes in their behaviour would happen if there was a tobacco tax increase. The results were statistically quite significant, with 9.7 percent of the smokers quitting, and a 48 percent reduction in the numbers of cigarettes smoked per day by other members of that group. The researchers concluded, unsurprisingly, that a tax increase was beneficial for Government revenue—I will get to that issue a little later—and that it also affected the behaviour of daily smokers. They also said that the tax had to go up continually, and that sufficient cessation services had to be provided to respond to people wanting to quit smoking. In other words, those who suddenly “got it” needed some help.

We have heard some debate in this House that if we truly believe in reducing the amount of health-related harm from smoking, we should, as the Hon Sir Roger Douglas suggested, put the price up by 600 percent. He expressed concern that we were seeking to control the personal habits of citizens when their personal responsibility should prevail. I can understand the genesis of that argument, but it is not as black and white as that, as anyone who has tried to quit smoking understands. When a person decides to make that life-changing move to stop smoking, all of the ducks need to be in a row, all of the planets need to be in alignment, and all of the excuses need to be philosophically exhausted. This not insignificant change in the excise might be the final duck, the last planet in the line, and it might also exhaust that last excuse. I certainly hope it is that for many smokers.

For many young people, I hope they look at the costs associated with smoking and decide not to start. I hope they plan, instead, a holiday, the purchase of a car, putting money away for a house, or perhaps paying off their mortgage. I hope they recognise that they should enhance their future rather than seriously shorten it. But when the decision time arrives, and when that smoker’s mind is open—the ducks are in a row, the planets are in alignment, or whatever—the challenge for us is to support that person to quit.

I am really proud that since the National Government came into power there has been an enormous increase in the subsidisation of nicotine replacement and the use of the same. It is all very well to do that—

IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) Link to this

It is again a pleasure to speak in support of the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill. I again congratulate the Hon Tariana Turia on introducing and progressing this very important legislation. She must be immensely pleased with the vote on the first reading of 118 votes to 4, which, as I suppose we have gently canvassed this evening, is a slightly different vote result from that when legislation like this last passed through the House.

My colleague on the Health Committee Michael Woodhouse put his finger on the button when he said that there has been a path of enlightenment since the last time legislation like this passed through the House. I remind Michael Woodhouse that that path, for the most part, occurred under a Labour Government, because it happened during the last 10 years.

It is pleasing to see that this issue has not been quite as contentious tonight as it has been in the past. The reasons for so much support for this legislation have been thoroughly canvassed this evening. Parliament has a deep understanding of the effect that tobacco is having on our society. No doubt I will cover some of those issues again, but first I would like to discuss some of the arguments that have been put up against the legislation. Those arguments came from the Hon Sir Roger Douglas and other members of the ACT Party.

Essentially, they seemed to cover a couple of areas. One argument related to the fact that ACT members are opposed to tax increases. That is their ideological position, this is a tax increase, and therefore they cannot support it, which is understandable. The ACT Party also argued that it is people’s personal responsibility to decide whether they take up smoking and how they try to quit smoking; that decision is over to them as individuals and is not a public issue or even a public health issue. Obviously, I disagree with both of those points. Firstly, it seems to be a shame to put ideology in front of a measure that clearly works. All the evidence indicates that this measure will have an impact on smoking prevalence. Every time it has occurred in New Zealand in the past it has had an impact, and every time it has been done overseas it has had an impact. That impact is measurable, and the research tells us that it is the right thing to do. So, to put ideology in front of that evidence, although understandable, I think is unfortunate and a bit of a shame.

Jo Goodhew touched lightly on another area of personal responsibility. It relates to nicotine, which is the addictive substance in cigarettes and tobacco. As soon as people become hooked on an addictive substance of any kind, their ability to demonstrate personal responsibility and to make logical, rational choices is utterly diminished. I again acknowledge Jo Goodhew for touching on this point. When I sat in on the Māori Affairs Committee, I heard representatives of the Nurses Organisation make their representation. They pointed out exactly the point that Jo Goodhew made: that nurses are one of those groups that have a higher prevalence of smoking than the rest of the general population. It was discussed at length. We discussed the fact that people who—I think the phrase was—“should know better” have a higher smoking prevalence, for all manner of reasons. Let us not go into why nurses might have a higher smoking rate than the rest of the population, but, absolutely, health professionals should know better. They have all the evidence in front of them, they see the effects on a day-to-day basis, and they have to nurse people who are in their last days and going through the painful effects of smoking-related disease, yet nurses continue to smoke. To me it is an indication of just how strong this addiction is. With all of that evidence in front of them, that group of people still find it very difficult to give up this terrible affliction. I think we have to bear that in mind when we are thinking about personal responsibility.

Where does that personal responsibility lie? Indeed, where does our responsibility as a nation lie in trying to assist people who want to make this decision? Hone Harawira said that 80 percent of smokers want to quit, so it is important that we in Parliament and we as a nation support those people to make the right choices and to make that decision, and that we give them the opportunities to follow through on that decision and quit smoking for ever.

I have discussed ACT’s position, and I acknowledge John Boscawen. I think it is absolutely fantastic that Mr Boscawen has voted in favour of this bill, and I thank him for his kind words about my member’s bill. I hope that if my bill is drawn from the ballot—or if, indeed, the Government proposes a similar bill that would achieve the same ends—more members of ACT might get behind it, because it does not lie in the same ideological position as a tax increase. I have a lot of hope, from what Mr Boscawen said, that the next logical move—the banning of tobacco displays, however that comes about—might actually have a little more support. There is so much support from Parliament for this measure, which is absolutely being done in the right way: we are seeing increases year on year, and we are seeing greater increases to the excise tax on loose tobacco to bring it in line with that on tailor-made cigarettes. I think this is absolutely the correct way to go about it, and that is why it has achieved so much support.

So what do we do next? This bill has something of a whakapapa. There have been a number of incremental steps over a number of years: other increases to excise tax; the amendments to the Smoke-free Environments Act, which have seen smoking removed from pubs, restaurants, and the workplace; and, going right back to where it started, the ban on smoking on airlines. These days we take it for granted that one would never light up on an aircraft, but, of course, there once was a time when one could. There were smoking sections on aircraft, just like there were smoking sections in restaurants. I am sure Mr Bridges and I remember those days; we are not quite so young that we do not.

We have had an incremental, step-by-step path, and this legislation is another step along the way. So where do we go from here? Well, a number of anti-smoking advocates have made presentations—particularly at the Māori Affairs Committee—and have said that they would like to see the end of tobacco smoking in New Zealand by 2020. That is a bold and audacious goal, and it will require something a little bolder than the incremental steps that have occurred over the last few years. There are a lot of different ideas about how we might achieve that goal, and the most obvious one, when we are thinking about trying to remove something altogether from a culture, is prohibition. I do not think there is an awful lot of support out there for prohibition. We have seen prohibition used in respect of other substances in the past, particularly alcohol, and it did not have very much effect. But we do not have to go as far as prohibition to achieve this goal.

When the Health Sponsorship Council, which was actually set up as part of the Smoke-free Environments Act, made its presentation to the select committee it talked about a suite of proposals, a package that would achieve a step change. I alluded to that presentation a little in the first reading, but I will go over it again. It said that in addition to increasing taxation on tobacco products, rather than the incremental changes, we need “further restrictions, or bans, on point-of-sale tobacco displays; introducing requirements for plain packaging on all tobacco products; increasing support for cessation attempts; licensing of retail outlets that sell tobacco products” and “developing end game strategies, such as a Tobacco Control Authority.” All of those ideas, I think, are open for debate. Let us not try to position anybody at the moment, but let us start the debate on all of those measures and start really talking about a step change and trying to achieve some of those audacious goals. It is worth it. It is absolutely worth it.

Tobacco smoking costs this country $1.7 billion a year, and it is increasing. It is far more than the taxation that is already taken. It costs immeasurable amounts in terms of lives, lost health, lost productivity, and the social impact on families of nursing ill relatives and having family members die at an early age. This is a great bill. It is a step in the right direction, but I hope that in the near future we will see a considerable step-up of action so that we can really tackle this problem. I commend this bill to the House.

SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga) Link to this

There are some very simple reasons for the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill. First and foremost is that smoking is the single biggest preventable killer of people in this country. As Hone Harawira vividly put it, the population of Kaitāia, or thereabouts, dies prematurely every year in this country from smoking—around 5,000 people. We know, and all the experts will tell us—they certainly told the Māori Affairs Committee—that the single most effective way to reduce the death toll and to reduce smoking is to put taxes up, to increase the excise tax. So I am strongly, and I speak as strongly as I am able to, in favour of this bill.

Before I came to the House this evening, I was in a select committee meeting and then at a function, so I did not know what the various parties’ positions were. I thought the most likely scenario was a House in unity, a unanimous vote in favour of this bill, and I think that would have sent a very strong signal and message to the people of New Zealand about smoking and this Parliament’s view on it. I was disappointed indeed to hear that a very small number of members are not supporting this bill, but I explicitly commend John Boscawen for going against his party and following his conscience on this topic, and giving a very good and thoughtful speech.

If someone had asked me a year or two ago about my position on something like this excise tax, I may well have said that I did not support it. I would have glibly said that people are free to choose, and are free to do stupid things, if that is what they choose to do. What changed things for me was a select committee inquiry by the Māori Affairs Committee that Hone Harawira pushed for and that, as Tau Henare said, National agreed to, to its credit. We heard from hundreds of people—all sorts of people. There were academics, experts, and health personnel on the one hand, and ordinary men and women, young and old, on the other.

I will come to what they said very soon, but I think before we do that it is worth talking about the problem we have with smoking in this country. I have already said to members that it is the single biggest preventable cause of death in New Zealand. It is a major contributor—this came through clear as crystal at the Māori Affairs Committee—to health inequalities for Māori. The figures that came from Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) say it all, really. According to ASH, non-Māori male life expectancy is 79 years and for Māori males it is 70.4 years—a difference of 8.6 years. Non-Māori female life expectancy is 83 years and Māori female life expectancy is 75.1 years—a difference of 7.9 years. ASH’s view, and I agree with it, is that eliminating smoking is the single most achievable way to go some way to closing the mortality gap between Māori and non-Māori.

Why is that? I forget the exact figure, but about 20, 21, or 22 percent of New Zealanders smoke, but for Māori the number is disturbingly high—42 percent of Māori men, and 49 percent of Māori women. That is also the case for Pasifika people. It is disproportionately high, although not as high as for Māori. In those figures we get a sense of the extent of the problem and of the evil of smoking. Yes, it is an evil health-wise, but we asked the experts who came to the select committee—we heard from dozens of them—what the common factor was and what the psychosocial reason behind smoking was, and they said that it was, disproportionately, the lower socio-economic factor. It is about people coming from a certain background. We are dealing with a real evil.

I have one other thing to say on the background to the problem. This bill is raising the tax on loose tobacco. That is a first step, and then it will incrementally raise taxes across the board. According to ASH, Māori smokers are most likely to smoke low-cost cigarette brands or roll-your-owns. Young Māori predominantly use roll-your-owns. Why is that? It is because of price, and we are doing something about that as a House this evening.

We know the problem; it is a serious one for this country. But what was the solution the select committee found? We heard from nearly 2,000 submitters—no, I tell a lie; some of those were form submissions. But all in all there were nearly 2,000 submissions to the select committee. I have told the House often that we heard from academics and the like, but we also heard from ordinary men and women. My recollection of the select committee process is that not a single submitter was against the excise tax going up. I tell a lie; probably implicitly British American Tobacco was, implicitly. But in essence no one was against it, and most were explicitly in favour. I remember a young Māori woman begging us to put taxes up. She had lost her father to smoking and tobacco.

I came to this issue thinking that it was not the right thing, necessarily, to put up taxes. I had my own mantra, if you like, that I tested everything by in the select committee. It was “We have to do what works”, and I wrote it down. I had a question for submitters that I put at the top of my paper every morning, and my question to submitters was: “Let’s say that you can do only one thing to curb tobacco use. What would be the single most effective measure to undertake?” Nearly all submitters said to raise the tax—raise the tax, raise the price. There were those who suggested absolute prohibition, but I agree with Iain Lees-Galloway that that is probably not realistic. But nearly all submitters said to raise the tax, and the academics were very clear that that works. In fact, again, when we asked them about the effect on lower socio-economic groups, they said that lower socio-economic groups are the most price-sensitive and the most likely to change. They said, as I think we have heard from Tariana Turia, those are the groups that can potentially benefit the most from this measure.

I think that the members of this House, almost without exception, can stand proud tonight. We are doing the right thing. Tobacco is the single biggest killer—preventable killer—of New Zealanders, and raising the tax as we are doing will be the single most effective way to reduce smoking in this country. I am proud to be speaking for this bill.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) Link to this

I will make a brief contribution to the debate, and I will start off on a line that a number of members have taken—that is, to congratulate the Minister in charge of the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill, Tariana Turia. It is not a secret that we disagree on a number of things pretty strongly, but we are seeing in the House a degree of unanimity about the dangers of tobacco. I think that this Minister has pushed this Government as far as it can go on price. At this time I congratulate her on that.

I am not someone who believes in a single-faceted approach. I think we have to keep on trying different ways to reduce smoking in New Zealand. Now that we have made some progress with this approach, we have to look at other ways, as well. I hope that when we get the recommendations back from the Māori Affairs Committee, the committee will have some other suggestions that can be picked up in the House and developed.

I am going to sound a bit like an old fart, but I have to say that things have changed around here a bit. When I was first a member of Parliament—

HEKIA PARATA (National) Link to this

Tēnā koe e te Mana Whakawā, huri noa i tō tātou Whare, tēnā tātou katoa. I am very proud to be standing, if not in unanimity, as the previous speaker indicated, then in near unity and definite consensus on the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill. We have heard tonight from a wide range of speakers across the House. Many have shared personal and family stories that help affirm that the decision we are making in respect of this bill tonight is correct. Many people have been very honest in sharing their personal experiences in respect of tobacco and smoking, and I think that the House is both honoured and humbled by those genuine and personal experiences.

We have also heard a raft of statistics that tells us what the collective experience has been. We have heard about what the research and evidence supports in respect of the curse and scourge that is tobacco. We know that it is the single biggest cause of preventable deaths amongst New Zealanders. It takes a very high toll in Māori and Pacific communities. One in two Māori smoke, and almost one-third of Pacific Islanders smoke. We know that those deaths are preventable, and that Māori experience a 10 percent greater mortality rate from smoking-related deaths than non-Māori. We know that Māori are three times more likely than non-Māori to die of lung cancer. In Pacific communities 8 percent of deaths in females and 19 percent of deaths in males could be avoided if smoking was eliminated.

We have heard tonight about the high economic and fiscal costs that smoking subjects our community to, but we have also touched on the high social costs it incurs. We have heard stories of families who have suffered not just in the present but through generations. So the stand we are taking tonight as a Parliament, which comes after several years of incremental progress, is a very important step towards stopping lives being lost to this curse.

As has been noted, the bill provides for incremental increases in costs. We are very conscious that there is a very high incidence of smoking in low socio-economic communities and families and that the impact will hit them hardest. We need to be as supportive as possible in recognising that smoking is an addiction. Almost all the smokers I know wish they did not smoke and that they could stop. We need to be aware that the decision we make tonight will have a significant impact but that there is a lot of support available for people. This change will help not only personal health but the health of whānau and communities, the health of our nation and society, and the health of our future.

I am particularly supportive of this bill, because I have spent a good deal of my life trying to persuade friends and whānau to stop smoking. I have spent a good deal of my life telling women whom I consider otherwise intelligent to stop smoking.

HEKIA PARATA Link to this

—Quinn, Davis, Bridges—to my tuakana Parekura Horomia, and to all of them, e waha nei i tēnei kaupapa, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa [ who are responsible for this policy, greetings to you all].

I pay tribute to the National-led Government, which has had the confidence, the strength, and the courage to support this issue alongside the Māori Party. I pay tribute to us and to this Parliament. To the members of this House who have shared their views tonight and who will give their vote to this bill, I say that I thank them all very much. We can look forward to a stronger and healthier future for all New Zealanders. I proudly commend this bill to the House. Tēna tātou katoa.