Peters’ smoking called out as policy launched
NZ First leader Winston Peters has announced the party’s antismoking policy – but not before being called out on his own smoking. A mainstay of the announcement is that it will drop the price of a packet of cigarettes.
‘‘We need to stop punishing smokers with high excise tax and help them quit by making affordable alternatives available,’’ he said on the campaign trail in Tu¯rangi yesterday.
The party’s policy would support the surge strategy of antismoking campaign Ash – by removing tax from smoking cessation tools, putting more money into smoking alternatives and increasing addiction funding, the party release said.
But Peters was left lost for words earlier in his whistlestop tour of the Taupo¯ electorate when a bystander at a lakefront press conference said he had seen the NZ First leader snapped smoking on television.
‘‘You are not smoking again, are you?’’ the bystander, a 20-something man kept persistently asking him, adding it was bad for his health.
Eventually Peters said it was a freedom of choice issue but also one the Government was working to reduce, inviting the man to the announcement in Tu¯rangi. He did not show.
At the announcement, Peters said a competent health strategy would look at subsidising alternatives to help long-term smokers quit.
‘‘The Government’s current Smokefree 2025 approach is not
working, with the added contradiction and hypocrisy of holding a referendum on legalising recreational marijuana.
‘‘NZ First will lower tobacco excise so that the average pack of cigarettes is no more than $20, remove tax from smoking cessation tools, and put a stop to the belief that what we are doing is working,’’ said Peters.
Workers and poor people were being ‘‘screwed over’’, he said, as $2 billion worth of cigarette tax was taken disproportionately from those in lower socio-economic circumstances. ‘‘Only a miniscule amount of the tax is reinvested into smoking cessation initiatives. We want to fund more addiction services and make more smoking alternatives available.
‘‘We would prefer people did
not smoke but for some Kiwis and their families it is a choice between smoking and buying groceries,’’ said Peters.
The high tobacco excise had fuelled a black market for tobacco, with sophisticated criminal operations importing cigarettes from parts of the world where tobacco excise was low.
Lowering the excise would reduce the value of stolen cigarettes to petty criminals, he said.
The announcement was part of a quick fire tour on which Peters flayed other parties and the media.
A lack of touting of his Party’s signature Provincial Growth Fund and why more questions to his liking weren’t directed to his political rivals were prime among his grievances.