To consider a 'ban' is to close your eyes to what you dont like or want, and hope becuase you cannot see it that it is not there and no longer exists.

Fine, ban smoking indoors, but outdoors, pull your head in !

I dont smoke, but im not bothered by it and all this blah blah its bad for you, well so is junk food and sitting round watching shortland street on the telly !

If everyone is so bothered about their health, maybe they should use the outdoors for walking and not complaining about "evil" smokers !!

Marion I hope you're joking??

While we're dishing them out willy-nilly, Who else should we then bestow with 'cop like powers'? Doormen? School teachers?

Surely there's enough problems with actual police abusing these 'powers'. Maybe you could start making citizen's arrests?

Good grief...

pointless idea, waste of money trying to enforce something like this when we obviously have bigger problems. sounds like most people have an issue with cigarette butts, not people actually smoking, perhaps more of an emphasis should be placed on people cleaning up after themselves and not littering. I smoke at the beach, but I put my butts in an empty drink can. nothing worse that people making a mess of the beach, that goes for everything, not just ciggy butts. tidy kiwis anyone....

Very simple solution: give the lifeguards semi-cop powers / get cops to patrol the beaches, and have *HUGE* penalties for those who litter... double for those who pollute the air *and* the sand. Easy as!

There is an easy fix here, legalise Pot and then we everyone can just chill out...

The beach and other areas are sports grounds for some so should it not be treated like all other sports grounds and also become smokefree?

Talk about inhaling - I wonder if we are all being sucked in. The nanny state comment is such an obvious feel good statement. I'm predicting that tommorow he is going to rule out taking all children off their parents and raising them by the state just to ensure he keep up his media domanance.

And banning using a cellphone while driving isn't? They're both dangerous, I would say smoking kills more people than talking while driving. Wouldn't surprise me one bit if the National party gets money from tobacco companies. Hypocrite.

"But banning smoking would not work any better than prohibition had stopped people drinking alcohol."

By that argument, why ban anything anywhere? It is not a total ban on smoking - just in areas where large numbers of people are expected to congregate.

Banning alcohol doesn't make sense as small amounts of alcohol are (arguably) good for you. There is no amount of cigarette smoke that can be considered beneficial. Similarly sun-exposure. Some is good.

Before people dismiss the idea, how about thinking about it first. A number of "outside" areas where people smoke outside bars is already in contravention of the laws. The "closeable openings" reference means that those places that have an outside area with zip-up plastic walls are no-smoking zones.

And once again - to all those idiots out there who harp on about "nanny state" and being told what you can and cannot do - you live as part of a society. It has laws and rules. Part of the very fabric of society is to tell you what you can and cannot do. Without it you have anarchy. Your argument about being told what to do fails, because you always have been told what you can and cannot do.

You can choose to break the rules, but you better damned well be prepared to pay the price.