Costello ignored Treaty breach warning
Associate Health Minister Casey Costello was warned that scrapping the smokefree law would be viewed as a breach of the Treaty of Waitangi.
RNZ has obtained Ministry of Health documents sent to Costello, in which health officials say the law she is repealing would have generated health gains for Ma¯ ori which were five times that of the general population.
Health officials also warned the minister that overturning the smokefree law could inflict serious reputational damage on New Zealand.
The documents say that under the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act the minister and health agencies must be guided by health sector principles, which include improving health outcomes for Ma¯ ori.
Article 2 of the Treaty guarantees “active protection of taonga, including wellbeing,” health officials told Costello.
“The right to be smoke free is entrenched in Te Tiriti o Waitangi,” the advice to Costello said. “Removing measures that were modelled to reverse inequity and improve health and wellbeing by changing the broader environment to support people to quit, to stay quit, and to never start to smoke is likely to be viewed as a breach of Te Tiriti.”
The warning, sent in early December, proved prescient as a group of Ma¯ ori health experts and advocates filed an application with the Waitangi Tribunal in late January, asking for an urgent hearing of their complaint about the government’s plans to repeal the law.
The government is pushing on with the repeal anyway, introducing legislation under urgency on Tuesday.
It will not be subject to select committee scrutiny, which normally includes hearing submissions from those affected by the law.
Overturning the law scraps moves to reduce tobacco retailers from 6000 to 600, remove 95 per cent of the nicotine from cigarettes and create a smokefree generation by banning sales to those born after 2009.