Post-Cabinet Press Conference: Tuesday, 6 June 2023

Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the shorter parliamentary week. I hope everybody had the opportunity to celebrate the first public holiday marking King Charles. I have Dr Verrall with me today because we’re going to talk about vaping.

Now, over the past couple of weeks, I’ve indicated that the Government’s been taking a close look at issues around vaping. While vaping can be a useful tool as part of our smoking cessation efforts, we have also clearly heard concerns about the growing uptake of vaping amongst younger New Zealanders. We’ve heard from parents, from other family members, and from teachers and principals, all of whom are concerned at the prospect that a lifelong bad habit is becoming established for many at a young age.

Today, we are responding to those concerns with changes in four key areas. All of them are practical, sensible, and achievable. The first is a crackdown on disposable vapes, also known as single-use vapes. From August this year, all vaping devices sold in New Zealand will need to have removable batteries, so as to improve their safety. The upshot of that is that it will effectively curtail the availability of much cheaper single-use vapes that are popular amongst young people, and it will make it more difficult for them to start and a real hassle for them to continue.

The second step is to stop new vape shops setting up near schools and marae. We want vapes as far away from the minds and reach of young people as possible, so any locations within 300 metres of schools and marae will be off limits. The third is to tighten up on product descriptions. Words that appear to be designed to appeal to young people—like candy floss—won’t be allowed, and they’ll need to be replaced with more generic and bland terminology. Finally, reusable vapes must have child safety mechanisms that would, for example, require a number of steps to activate them, something that a young person would have more difficulty doing.

These changes will be phased in over the next six months to give the industry time to adjust to the new law. The new regulations build on protections that the Government introduced back in 2020 that included banning sales to under-18s and prohibiting vape advertising and sponsorship. There is a balance to be struck here when it comes to vaping. It’s one thing to make it expensive and difficult for young people to start and carry on vaping, which is what these actions are designed to do. It’s another that would—would be to do something that gets in the way of adults who are using vaping as an alternative to smoking, something that we support.

These changes draw a clear distinction between the two. Vaping has played an important role in the record reduction of New Zealanders smoking over the last few years. Our smoking rate is half of what it was 10 years ago, with the number of people smoking falling by 56,000 people in the last year alone. We’re making good progress when it comes to tackling smoking. What we don’t want that to be replaced with is a problem around young people vaping.

So, to the week ahead. Tomorrow I will be back here in Wellington. I’m looking forward to welcoming the Fiji Prime Minister, Rabuka, to Wellington for a bilateral, followed by a joint media conference. On Thursday and Friday, I’ll be in Tairāwhiti for a two-day regional visit. Now, we’ll take vaping questions first, if that’s all right, and then Dr Verrall can go and we can get into all the other topics.

That’s right. It applies to new shops from now on. Those other shops that existed did so under the law as it was at the time.

This applies to all of the vape shops.

That came through in consultation—that Māori asked for that ability to not have vape shops near marae—and so we responded to that feedback.

Those were the areas that came through from consultation, and just remember these are particularly targeted. The school one is particularly to address issues around young people.

It could be with “sweets” or, for example, a “strawberry doughnut” might be replaced with “berry”. So more generic names like that that restrict the ability to develop a brand that is particularly appealing to young people.

I think with this one you’ll see it is yet another way in which we are stopping vape companies from developing particular brands that target young people, and the packaging will have to be quite reduced from what it is now in terms of its appeal to young people.

That was, I believe, explored at an early stage, but this proposal was the one developed and consulted on.

Yeah, I’m aware that that has recently been proposed in Australia—I think because there is an acceptance that a range a flavours is more legitimate with vape juice that it is with tobacco.

Just to be clear, vaping is banned in schools, and sales of vapes to under-18s has been illegal for some time now; this is an extra measure we are doing in support of that.

Yeah, so those shops were set up under the law as it was at the time, and we feel it’s legitimate that they continue. However, the most impactful thing, in terms of restricting sales to younger people, in this suite of measures, will be the other two proposals around the changes to disposable vapes, and changes to the flavours.

No. It’s because of the things that are trying to strike that balance around appeal to young people. Those are the proposals that had the strongest evidence that came through in the advice we received.

I’m aware that that’s a proposal being explored in Australia. We received feedback against that from some doctors in New Zealand, but there’s also—our laws have to be right for New Zealand. New Zealand has some of the most ambitious tobacco control goals in the world. If we were to put vapes—that have a legitimate role for adults quitting—behind a barrier, then those people who face the greatest barrier accessing their GP would have the greatest barrier to quitting smoking.

That’s right, and we know many people face barriers getting to the general practitioner, and so we’ve had that—in terms of providing a quit tool for people, we’ve chosen not to put an obstacle in the way.

Yeah, I believe the chair—Bryan Betty, for example, who is the immediate past medical director of the college of general practitioners—said that recently: that putting a prescription requirement would be a step too far in terms of vape control.

The Smokefree 2025 goal is a tobacco control goal, and let’s just remember that 5,000 people a year in New Zealand die from smoking because tobacco is one of the most deadly substances we have; it contains tar and that’s what causes lung cancer. Now, I’m not saying vapes are good for you, but they are far, far less harmful than tobacco.

The health impacts would be markedly less. There is no credible scientist out there saying vaping is anywhere near as bad as tobacco. However, it is addictive, it distracts our young people from their education and so on, and so that’s why we are markedly restricting them.

I think there is a need for Government to constantly be reviewing its regulations in this area of young people and trends. Because as we’ve seen with vaping, where this change came up really across a period of 18 months, things do change quickly. So I can reassure you that the Smokefree goal was set entirely around tobacco because of the particular health impacts of tobacco, and while we do want to make progress on vaping, tobacco is far and away more harmful.

I think these are incredibly impactful measures, particularly the change on disposable vapes. And you’ll notice that we’ve developed these changes in parallel to many of the changes that we’ve done with Smokefree, because we are capable of developing regulations on two issues—

Well, the tobacco industry is incredibly litigious, so we did have to go through a process of developing proposals, consulting on them, and then bringing them out after proper consideration. It is very hard to stay closely aligned with trends in young people’s substance use, but we also have to go through a proper process to make sure that our regulations will stick.

Well, we certainly hope it will stop and reverse the increase in young people vaping. I don’t believe that ASH survey includes adults, but that rate of 10 percent daily vaping is too high.

That’s right.

Yeah, if people are trying to quit smoking they can contact Quitline and other quit-support services, to get that support that they need.

Just in the same way that packaging on vapes is already regulated, under regulation, and then the public health offices are able to check what’s on the shelves, and where it’s found to be non-compliant, they’re able to make orders against those sales; those retail outlets.

So all people who are addicted to nicotine—whether that’s in tobacco or in vapes—are able to access help. That includes through calling the Quitline, which is free.

Well, I talked to a lot of parents who are able to access that support in that way. Look, there are also face-to-face quit services available.

I think the most important thing we can do is get rid of a product that kills half the people who use it; that kills 5,000 New Zealanders a year. Vaping does have harms—we’ve talked about how it is addictive—but it is nowhere near the harms that smoke can cause. So, as a doctor, I am extremely comfortable with that.

We’ll do the last couple of questions on vaping, and then we’ll move on.

There is always—in health policy like this—uncertainty, and I suppose I’d say that in all areas we have to work with that uncertainty. But I don’t think anyone serious is saying that a product that lacks tar—like vapes lack—could cause anywhere near the harm that tobacco causes. So I don’t think the comparison is equivalent at all. However, we acknowledge it is a problem, particularly for young people, and that’s why we’re acting on it.

Yes, and that’s what we are trying to prevent with these measures.

So the government continues to fund the ASH survey, which surveys year 10 students each year on the use of vapes. And we also address vaping and cigarettes through the national health survey, which is an annual survey.

Oh, well we certainly want to see it come down substantially, but no we haven’t set a formal target.

No.

It didn’t play into the policy-making decision.

The tobacco industry has a history of taking countries that are at the forefront of tobacco regulation to court. New Zealand is now in the forefront of global tobacco regulation.

Obviously we’re just announcing it today, so we’ll have to wait to see if there is any response.

Not legal threats, no, but I think that they’ve been in touch with the office.

No.

OK. I might say thank you to Dr Verrall.

The Cabinet Office interview process—and it is an interview process—is a relatively thorough one. The Cabinet Office will sit down with each Minister regularly—and new Ministers, obviously, relatively soon after they’ve been identified that they’re going to be Ministers—and they’ll interview them. They’ve got a series of questions that they’ll ask them about. What are their assets—their things that they own—but they also go through other things around relationships and any potential conflicts that are there, and they put together a relatively comprehensive list. There will always be conflicts in a small country like New Zealand; it’s a question of how well-managed those conflicts are. So the fact that a family member, for example, works in the Public Service. Yes, that can give rise to a conflict; doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily a show-stopper, as long as there are appropriate mitigations in place and appropriate management in place. Similarly, peoples’ assets. People will own a variety of different assets, potentially. As long as there’s transparency around that and good management around that, it doesn’t necessarily need to be a problem.

No.

Because I think transparency around this is important. And I’d note that, actually, since that, there’s been a significant increase in transparency. One of the things that I think is frustrating about the events of the last couple of days is that I think a lot of this would have been avoided through better transparency. So clearly that’s something that Michael Wood will take some time to work through.

I did that, actually, earlier in the year when this issue arose the first time. I’m disappointed that that clearly has not been actioned at the time.

I’m already on record as saying that I have reminded everybody of that at the time.

I am disappointed.

I am disappointed, and I’ve certainly expressed my disappointment to Michael Wood.

So to be honest, I’m not really sure of the explanation there. I’m not sure that Michael himself even has a really good explanation for that. It would simply be one of those life admin tasks that he doesn’t seem to have gotten around to. I don’t think that that’s acceptable. Having indicated back in 2020 that he was intending to dispose of them, he should have done that.

That’s correct.

That’s a question for him.

He went through the conversations that he’d had with the person who sells the shares—or, you know, manages the trust or manages those assets on his behalf—and indicated that the shares had not been sold.

Well clearly he needs to sell the shares, but also needs to make sure that issues around his pecuniary interests have been dealt with. So I understand he’s having a conversation with the registrar of pecuniary interests around that and what may need to happen there. And if anything further arises from those conversations, then clearly that will need to be addressed as well.

If nothing further arises in that area during the process of doing that, then, yes.

Obviously we’ll double-check that as well. But based on the sort of rapid check that’s been done so far, yes. But we’ll always make sure that we do that thoroughly too.

Yes, I do. Having said that, it’s one of those things where I’m not sure that there really is an adequate explanation for something like this. It’s clearly been on his to-do list and he hasn’t done it, and that’s not OK. He should have done it.

No, sorry; I probably should’ve been clearer there. Michael should have declared these shares on his register of pecuniary interests, right the way through his time as a member of Parliament, regardless of whether they’re held in trust or not. There is one exception to that, which is if they’re held in a managed fund where you don’t have any control over what the fund is investing in, then it doesn’t have to be declared. KiwiSaver, for example, is a form of managed fund. We don’t know what, necessarily—on a day-to-day basis—our KiwiSaver funds may own. It wouldn’t be reasonable to expect every one of those to be declared, but where you know and where you have a control over what is and isn’t sold—and bought and sold—then it should be declared, and I think the rules around that are clear and he should have declared that. So that is now a matter that he’s working through with the registrar.

Yes, I am. Obviously I would’ve preferred that they told me on Friday. They told me last night, and I would’ve preferred—but, look, at the end of the day they work for me and it’s my responsibility, so I accept the responsibility for it.

No, I don’t. I get the sense that this is just one that got away on him, and it shouldn’t have.

My understanding is it’s a family trust, yes.

That’s not something that he’s indicated to me.

I think all political parties, as they head towards an election, will form their views on what changes they would and wouldn’t support—it’s a legitimate part of democracy. When you get an independent review done, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the Government or that the party who’s in Government is necessarily going to agree with every recommendation that comes out of that, either. There are proposals out there for public consultation at the moment. The public have an opportunity to have say on those. There are clearly some where we’ve already indicated, you know, we think it would be difficult to progress them—the voting age, for example. There isn’t a supermajority in the Parliament for that change. I think it’s unlikely there’ll be a supermajority in the Parliament for that in the foreseeable future. So I’m not sure there’s much more point in progressing that or talking further about that. Issues around whether or not there should be a longer term—that ultimately is a matter for New Zealanders, not for the Parliament, in my view. Whether or not there’s a majority to have a referendum on that within the Parliament—that, I guess, will depend on what policies the parties take into the election campaign on that.

We are pressing on to work with the farming community on a price on greenhouse gas emissions that arises from agriculture. We continue to have good, robust conversations about that. That’s always been a very challenging area. Anyone who reads the news coverage of it will know that this is not an uncontroversial area. The position of the Government continues to be that we want to work with the sector to find a solution.

Well, we’re not proposing to change the backstop, which would be from the beginning of 2025. We’re not proposing to change the backstop provisions that exist in the law at the moment, but, of course, there’s still plenty of time to run after the election. But we’ll continue to work with the industry, with the sector, to find a solution.

I think, to some extent, it just reflects the fact that the border was relatively constrained for a 2½-year - period, and so there’s been quite a lot of people movement both ways. We’ve seen quite a significant population growth—a net gain—in terms of people travelling across the border into New Zealand. So I think we have to recognise that in the post-COVID environment with all those border restrictions removed, there’s been a bit of adjustment as a result of that.

I think it’s likely to take him a little bit of time to work through that.

No, we’re going to keep cracking with the stuff that we’ve got on the go.

Yeah, it’ll be a significant meeting in the sense that it’ll be the first time a Fijian Prime Minister has visited New Zealand for quite some time, so I’m looking forward to meeting with president Rabuka. We met during my recent visit to Port Moresby and we’ve exchanged correspondence previously as well, so I’m looking forward to having another in-person conversation with him. He’s also been in regular contact with both the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who have also had really good, constructive conversations with him. Obviously, the relationship between New Zealand and Fiji is an important one. There’s a lot of Fijians living in New Zealand, but there’s also a lot of Kiwis who travel regularly to Fiji. We’ve got an important trading relationship, so it’s always a good opportunity to talk about that. It’s also an opportunity for us to talk about issues relevant to the Pacific: issues of climate change have been raised with me in almost every conversation I’ve had with Pacific leaders in the time that I’ve been in the job—I’m sure that will come up as well.

I’d have to look at that.

Look, with all of these things, I want to verify facts before providing an opinion, which I will do.

I’m not going to go through every decision, but if there’s any issues that arise where there may have been a conflict, then, yes, I’m happy to look at those.

I think context means a lot in these situations. Michael is the Minister of Transport, and so the perception, and the potential for a perception, of conflict certainly exists there— that was the view of the Cabinet Office—and therefore he should have dealt with that better.

In the fullness of time at the appropriate moment. No, I don’t have a particular time frame for you right now.

No, it’s certainly not been raised with me. The feedback that I’ve had has mostly been around New Zealand’s support to the Pacific in terms of the mitigations that they are putting in place, rather than any specific discussions around New Zealand’s mitigations.

I mean, look, I’d much prefer Kiwis stayed home and continued to live, work, contribute to New Zealand. For a variety of reasons, people will make decisions about relocating across the Tasman, including, in many cases, family reunification. Some of those families were separated for a prolonged period of time as a result of COVID-19 restrictions.

It’s not just local young people; smaller Kiwi businesses, for example, will often, in some cases, use Australia as a scaling-up destination—so the recent changes that the Australian Prime Minister announced, for example, were very welcomed by the New Zealand business community because it will make it easier for them to do business in Australia. And so that doesn’t mean that they necessarily lose their connection with New Zealand, though.

There are regular—probably somewhere around about half a dozen.

I’d have to go back and count them, but it would be in that kind of range. Yeah.

Look, as I’ve indicated, Michael hasn’t really got an explanation for why he hadn’t disposed of the shares.

That’s actually a different issue. So the issue around Air New Zealand’s loan, I wouldn’t think, would be in any way influenced by his shares in an airport company.

I think that’s a bit of a long bow to draw.

Yeah.

Since 2020.

Look, as I’ve indicated, I’m frustrated. I think he should have dealt with it long before now.

What was that?

Hypothetical question.

There’s absolutely no suggestion that his minor shareholding in Auckland Airport played any bearing on any decisions, which, of course, were Cabinet decisions around Air New Zealand.

I’d have to go back and check whether he did or not?

Yes.

I haven’t ruled it out, but what I have said is that, logistically, it’s quite challenging, because the travel in and out of Ukraine is quite a long—it’s quite a long journey at the moment, and whether or not that’s going to be possible just logistically within the time that I’m going to be out of New Zealand—it’s looking pretty challenging. I am trying to keep that a relatively short trip. Obviously, I’m hoping to have the opportunity to meet in person with President Zelenskyy at the NATO summit, where no doubt I can reiterate New Zealand’s ongoing commitment to supporting Ukraine. But whether or not I can actually go and visit Ukraine or not—I think the logistics are looking to be quite challenging.

Well, we’ve already made changes to make donations more transparent, including by lowering the threshold in which donations have to be declared. There are issues around whether, for example, there should be a cap on donations—you know, whether there should be a maximum amount that any individual can donate or not. They’ve been debated in the past. There are a range of views on them. We’ll set out a position on that before the election.

As I’ve indicated, we’ll set out a position on that before the election. We haven’t had a discussion about that as a team.

I think one of the challenges around electoral law is that we do try and approach most electoral law issues on a more bipartisan approach. That does tend to, kind of, lean towards more of an enhanced status quo, rather than significant change. The risk of doing the alternative, of course, is that you end up with a situation where the incumbent Government of the day can change electoral laws to its own advantage, and we’ve generally tried to steer away from that in New Zealand.

Yes.

Because he’s hard-working and conscientious.

I’ve already indicated that I don’t think that that was acceptable.

I think it’s due within the next week or two. I’m happy to get the time frame for you.

No.

Thank you for keeping count. Look, Ministers are aware of my expectations. Michael clearly has not met them on this occasion.

Look, as I’ve indicated, I’m not going to deal on hypotheticals. Right, thanks everybody.