Excise and Excise-Equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill
Hon Tariana Turia; Associate Minister of Health
Wednesday 28 April 2010; 4.30pm

Mr Speaker, I move, that the Excise and Excise-Equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Mr Speaker, there are only a few matters before this House that one could stand, with hand on heart, and declare this was a life and death debate.

The rationale for rising the tobacco excise is very much in this arena. It is, purely and simply, about saving lives.

I come to this Bill with many mixed emotions.

As Associate Minister of Health it worries me greatly that about 21 percent of all New Zealanders over the age of fifteen years old are smokers. Many are younger.

In basic terms, one in five New Zealanders are regular smokers.

It is irresponsible to dismiss this as a recreational past-time; to minimise the impact of harm caused by justifying tobacco use as a private pleasure that one should be free to indulge on in the privacy of one’s home and not acknowledge the addictive nature of this tobacco use.

Exposure to smoking in the home and tobacco use itself, results in a staggering figure of around 5000 deaths a year.

In graphic terms, I can put names to these numbers simply by walking alongside the grave sides of our family urupa.

The focus of this legislation – tobacco use – is the single largest cause of preventable death and chronic illness in this country.

It would be a foolish Government to ignore the economic and social repercussions of this relentless killer – and yet for too many years it appears that we have been prepared to turn a blind eye to the crisis that afflicts our communities right throughout this land.

Actions have been infrequent and erratic.

Years have elapsed while debating minor changes.

In all that time, the death toll has kept on rising – New Zealanders dying prematurely from smoking related illnesses that show no mercy.

We can not stand by, oblivious to the pain that strikes too many families. Early deaths which are completely preventable.

The science tells us that on an average, a smoker loses fifteen years of life.

And it is no news to anyone in this House that tobacco is the leading cause of the life expectancy gap between Maori and non-Maori.

It is soul-destroying to know that one in two Maori women smoke.

The disproportionate impacts of heavy use of tobacco on Maori are etched into the lives many whanau.

During the period 2000 to 2004, lung cancer was responsible for over 31 percent of Maori cancer deaths.

During this same period cardiovascular disease – including heart disease and stroke – resulted in Maori death rates which were two times higher than those for non-Maori.

And deaths due to respiratory disease were three times more frequent in Maori than non-Maori.

It is impossible, in that context, to come to this debate restricted to views about the nature of the product per se.

Day on day, approximately thirteen New Zealanders die from smoking. They die from lung cancer, from heart disease, from stroke; from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, from emphysema, from chronic bronchitis, from cancer of the mouth, pharynx and oesophagus.

They are dying from a habit that we can do something about.

So today we are taking this action to save lives.

Mr Speaker, I was by my mother’s side when we got the diagnosis that her cancer had progressed to such a stage that she might have six months to live.

My mother had been a heavy smoker for some forty years but even though we all understood the risk that comes with smoking related illness, there is nothing quite so traumatic as having to sit and watch the life of your loved one, slowly drained.

My cousins and I were raised by our grandmother. Every single one of my cousins has died from smoking related illness. I am the only one alive of those who were raised by my grandmother.

This story, my story, is not an isolated individual case.

For the sake of our future, we must act.

This Bill is part of a co-ordinated range of measures which target tobacco use as a leading cause of preventable death in New Zealand.

Independent research studies have established the impact of price rises on smoking prevalence and tobacco consumption.

Raising the price of tobacco is probably the most powerful tool to reduce smoking.

International organisations from the World Health Organisation to the World Bank, recommend that countries use tobacco taxes to increase the price of cigarettes and counter the global smoking epidemic.

It’s very simple. All smokers who buy tobacco will face the price rises. The more someone smokes, the more they pay, and the bigger the incentive for them to quit.

The Government is concerned that cigarette prices have plateaued in recent years and that cigarette consumption has also stalled.

That is why we are putting the tobacco excise up in three steps of ten percent over the next two years.

The Government is also concerned that roll your own tobacco is increasingly seen as a cheap alternative.

That is why we are putting the excise on loose tobacco up by an additional fourteen percent to equalize the excise weight-for-weight with manufactured cigarettes.

Roll your owns are no safer than tailor-made cigarettes – and may indeed be more harmful because roll your own smokers will often inhale deeper to make the cigarettes go further or so I am told.

Mr Speaker, this issue is of such severity that we must accord it urgency. And I personally regret that given the circumstances that I have been unable to give other parties sufficient time to consider this Bill prior to its introduction.

But I do feel assured, that from previous statements made from the parties around this House throughout the years, that all of us understand the perilous situation we face.

The stakes are too high. We must act decisively, and this bill is an important step in that pathway forward.

I commend this Bill to the House.

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