MP having a bad week

Dail Jones

New Zealand First MP Dail Jones could be said to be having a bad week politically.

He opposed the legislation banning smoking in bars and he opposes the Civil Union Bill.

The smoking ban comes into effect tomorrow and the Civil Union Bill looks set to pass today.

"You might say I'm having a bad week politically but the big test for a politician is the election day and what effect these autocratic decisions of Helen Clark will have on the voters of New Zealand."

Mr Jones will not be lighting up his last fag in Bellamy's bar tonight because he does not smoke.

The MP told NZPA he was an asthmatic who had to take medicine every day to control the condition.

Within half an hour of being exposed to cigarette smoke he would have an asthmatic attack.

But he opposed the bill because it restricted a person's freedom of choice, he said today.

"I'm free to decide not to go into a hotel or a bar or a restaurant where there is smoking. I can go to another one where there are non-smoking areas. That's the choice I can make. I'm a grown up and I'm an asthmatic so for me going to a non-smoking place is very, very important."

"It's a freedom of choice issue. Especially in the RSAs and such like, if the old diggers want to have a fag and a beer, well, I wholeheartedly support it. They were given the fags during the war and some of them haven't been able to give up."

Mr Jones also said the Government had promoted the ban, saying research showed smoking was bad for a person's health but he had seen no evidence to support this.

"When you look at the Japanese situation, they smoke the most and they live the longest. It's as much a question of diet as what you smoke and what you drink."

Mr Jones, who says the Civil Union Bill amounts to gay marriage, says the freedom of choice issue also applies to this legislation.

Currently "you are free to marry or not to marry as a man and a woman and... 350,000 New Zealanders have exercised their freedom of choice to live in a de facto relationship," he said.

The companion piece of legislation, the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill, would "remove that freedom of choice because whether you are married, whether you are de facto or whether you are a homosexual or lesbian marriage your freedom of choice will be removed because one rule will apply to everybody".

New Zealand First tried to get a referendum at the election on civil unions but that proposal was defeated by Parliament last night.

The legislation gives legal recognition to same-sex and heterosexual partnerships and has been supported by a majority of about 65 MPs in the 120-member Parliament. That is expected to at least hold for the third reading today.

- NZPA