Smokefree 2025 ‘National bulldust’
The Government is divided over the flagship Smokefree 2025 goal, with Winston Peters calling it ‘‘National Party bulldust’’.
The goal is being reviewed, and the Government is also taking another look at the strategy to achieve it.
But those in charge are divided over whether the aspirational Smokefree 2025 goal is achievable.
The National Party-led government adopted the goal in March 2011, in response to the recommendations of a Parliamentary inquiry by the
Ma¯ ori Affairs select committee.
However, a new Ministry of Health report, and experts, say the Government was not on target to meet the goal.
Health Minister David Clark said the country was still on track to meet the ‘‘aspirational’’ target, and intended to do so.
He added that Smokefree 2025, actually meant 95 per cent of New Zealand, or more, would be smokefree – not 100 per cent. This was always what the target meant, he said.
But Associate Health Minister Jenny Salesa, who was in charge of smoking and tobacco, said the goal was not achievable for some groups, including Ma¯ori and Pasifika.
Salesa said she was not ruling out the target date being extended, as part of the Government’s strategy going forward.
Meanwhile, Acting Prime Minister Winston Peters said the goal was never achievable, and it never would be.
‘‘It was National Party bulldust. You know it, let’s be honest with people.’’
Peters said if you had to extend a target, it meant the target had failed.
‘‘It’s like moving the goalposts and taking $2 billion-plus a year off the taxpayer for a purpose which is not got any integrity of how it was applied in the first place.’’ The Government collects $1.7 billion a year through tobacco taxes, and spends 2.5 per cent of that figure trying to make people quit. The decline in smoking was not happening, which was alarming, especially in terms of the young Ma¯ori population, Peters said. The Ministry of Health report has revealed New Zealand is likely to miss key 2018 milestones, which should see daily smoking prevalence down to 10 per cent, and the Ma¯ori and Pacific half of their 2011 levels. Smoking rates have dropped to 13.8 per cent in the wider population, but the report said New Zealand would likely miss the target for Ma¯ ori by ‘‘a wide margin’’. Peters has also taken aim at tobacco excise taxes, saying they were not reducing smoking, and the higher costs were leading to assaults and murders of dairy owners.
Meanwhile, only 3 per cent of the proceeds went towards smoking cessation initiatives, he said.