When thinking about what aspect of Government policy to highlight as the lead article for this issue of Watchdog, I really was spoilt for choice. When I originally wrote an overview of the Government, my first subheading was: Big Bash. Workers, Unions, Beneficiaries, Tenants, Māori, The Treaty, The Environment & The Climate ("Full Speed Backwards", Watchdog 165, April 2024). That gives some idea of the range of abhorrent Government policies, and it has only continued to expand in the months since. My next lead article highlighted the fast-track rubber stamp approval legislation ("We're On The Fast Track To Nowhere. The Great Leap Backwards", Watchdog 166, August 2024).

It keeps on going. More recently, David Seymour has announced that he intends to amend the Overseas Investment Act (which had only just been amended by the previous Labour government). Seymour wants to "flip the burden of proof" to expedite the approval process. This is of direct and compelling interest to CAFCA but it will keep. I wanted to have a look at the ties between this Government and various industry or sector lobbyists. I can't think of any Government in my lifetime that has been so openly in the pocket of interest group lobbyists. It used to be behind closed doors but not with this bunch.

Think about any policy of this Government and the fingerprints of lobbyists and interested parties are all over it. Big business; employers; landlords; the oil and gas industry; miners; developers; the fishing industry; the road transport industry; racists; private education providers; the gun lobby; etc, etc, etc. In all of these areas, Government policies will make people worse off, substantially so in some cases. Not to mention the environment and the climate.

I wanted to look at policy changes brought about by collusion between the Government and lobby groups and interested parties which will do much more than make people worse off but will actually kill them. For example, I could have chosen the increase in speed limits on the roads; I could have chosen the easing of gun laws (which has seen the very unusual spectacle of a Rightwing government openly at odds with the cops). But the killer industry which wins hands down is the tobacco industry.

Smoking Kills Up To 5,000 Kiwis Annually

"Creating a generation of people who never smoked could prevent 1.2 million lung cancer deaths globally, a new study has shown. The simulation study using historical data from 82 countries including Australia and New Zealand, suggests that banning the purchase of tobacco products for people born between 2006 and 2010 could prevent almost half of future lung cancer deaths in men and a third in women by 2095. An estimated 11,500 deaths could be prevented across Australia and New Zealand, the study found" (Press, 3/10/24).

It's worth saying again - 1.2 million lung cancer deaths could be prevented globally. What about in New Zealand? Official sources put it at 4,500-5,000 annual premature deaths, caused by a smoking related disease. About one in five deaths are directly attributable to smoking. So, the tobacco industry (which is reinventing itself as the nicotine industry) exists to addict people to a product which is guaranteed to kill thousands of people every year in this country alone and stays in business by continually addicting new generations of smokers.

The Government's first big policy move was the much-heralded tax cuts (for the rich!) Where was the money going to come from to pay for them? Well, the Government made the cold bloodedly horrifying decision to stop in its tracks the further progress of NZ's world-leading smoke free law. Why? Because the Government needs the money it gathers as tax from tobacco sales.

This was stated quite openly (along with some nonsense about the proposed law impeding the freedom of smokers in remote areas to be able to buy tobacco once the number of outlets had been reduced nationally). There is a cynical calculation in all of this. Won't smokers cost the State money in hospital and healthcare bills? Yes, but it's statistically proven that smokers die younger than non-smokers, thus saving the State money, both in the health system and in old age pensions.

This was the policy that really united the country in anger. There had been no mention of it in the 2023 election campaign and it flies in the face of decades of consensus right across the political spectrum that smoking is a major preventable cause of death and a social evil that needs to be eliminated. In my opinion, the smoke free campaign was the most extensive, most long running and most successful campaign in my lifetime.

NZ was well on the way with that process (putting aside the ghastly mistake that was made in allowing vaping to get away as a brand-new means of addicting a whole new generation to nicotine). After all, it was the 2008-17 National government that had declared the aim of making NZ smoke free by 2025. The nationwide uproar was only further inflamed by the procession of revelations about the links between the Government and Big Tobacco. This is the Government with the most intimate ties with tobacco companies. Not only has it pissed off Māori, unions, workers, tenants, beneficiaries, environmentalists and everyone concerned about climate change, it has also pissed off the entire medical profession.

I bet there are plenty of Remuera and Fendalton oncologists who voted National in 2023 but swallowed their stethoscopes and bow ties when they learned of this policy. Hilariously, the Minister of Health is a doctor (an actual general practitioner). Cartoonists in major media outlets that support National have had a field day with a blizzard of cartoons savaging the Government about this. It is such a retrogressive step that it attracted international media coverage.

To put it into context, it's important to remember just how far we've come as a country. When I was a kid, everyone smoked, including me (it didn't attract girls, so I gave it up). Both my parents smoked - my father started when tobacco was part of his rations in the Army during WW2 (he permanently quit decades later). Mum was a chain smoker who died of cancer, aged 60, thus proving the point about saving the State money in health system and old age pension costs. Our family doctor would be smoking when I went to see him!

Cigarette advertising was everywhere, as was tobacco company sponsorship of sports and events. I worked for years in jobs where smoko really was smoko, and stopwork meetings consisted of a cloud of smoke generated by hundreds of men smoking. You could smoke pretty much anywhere in those days. That's all gone now, and good riddance, too. It's a tragedy that this bunch of clowns wants to take its foot off the neck of Big Tobacco, in order to continue raking in taxes from selling something that is the preventable cause of death of thousands of New Zealanders every year, in order to "give ordinary Kiwis some of their own money back". To do what? Build their own hospitals?

Rushing To Assist Big Tobacco

"Big Tobacco is the industry that Luxon is rushing to assist, under an urgency that conveniently bypasses the normal process of democratic scrutiny. Basically, the Government is scrapping Labour's plans to (a) slash the number of outlets selling this killer drug (b) raise the age barrier on who can buy it and (c) weaken the drug's potency, thereby reducing the incidence rates and the severity of addiction...."

"As former Health Minister Ayesha Verrall pointed out in the House, it is mystifying that while cigarettes and tobacco are the deadliest substance that are legally available, the content of cigarettes is unregulated, despite it containing addictive ingredients (e.g. nicotine), arsenic and a range of deadly tars that contribute to serious respiratory illnesses. More regulations exist, Verrall noted, on the content of sandwiches, or on the sale of mussels (which can contain unhealthy viruses) than on nicotine products".

"(Associate Minister of Health) Casey Costello spent her time (last night) in the House stonewalling questions, declining comment (for instance) on the issue of why cigarette content is exempted from regulation. Green MP Chloe Swarbrick read quotes by Christopher Luxon (from mid 2023) praising the Australians for cracking down on vaping. At the time, Luxon floated the possibility of a total vaping ban - and so far, he has not taken such a ban off the table. Why, Swarbrick then asked in vain, was Costello now touting vaping as an essential element in the Government's plan to further reduce smoking - whatever that plan is, and whenever it might emerge into daylight".

"Smoking has far worse health and life expectancy impacts on Māori, given that 17.1% of the Māori population continue to be daily smokers compared to only 6.8 % of the entire population 15+. Therefore, Labour MP Ingrid Leary asked in vain, with which iwi was Costello consulting and when, about further anti-smoking measures? Doggedly, Costello kept her head down (literally) and refused to engage. Ultimately, the Government's "rationale" for scrapping the anti-smoking legislation seemed to be... Because it can".

"Should we be surprised that National, ACT and New Zealand First are on side with the tobacco industry, to the point where they have been using the industry's own PR spin to justify gutting the smokefree legislation? The fear, for instance, that the planned sharp reduction in retail outlets would fuel the black-market trade in cigarettes (run by gangs!) is bogus".

"University of Auckland professor Chris Bullen said that since the Smokefree Aotearoa goal came in in 2011, there had been no increase in the proportion of illicit tobacco products, and the absolute size of the illicit market had declined. 'We haven't seen that in New Zealand over more than a decade of increasing the price of tobacco. In fact, all of the evidence points to a decline. That may be in part due to a reduction in demand for cigarettes, because much fewer people are smoking, and they're smoking fewer cigarettes'".

"New Zealand already has very high prices for cigarettes/tobacco, but the black-market for these products has remained relatively small, at around 8% to 12% at most, of the entire market. Moreover, the same evidence indicates that the smokefree legislation would have delivered major health gains - notably, threefold per capita gain at least in health benefits among Māori. The now scrapped reduction in retail outlets would also have sharply reduced smoking rates, thereby triggering a decline in the demand for black-market cigarettes as well".

"So much for the Luxon administration's pre-election boast that it would be making only evidence-based decisions. Instead, it is championing the cause of 'corner dairy' owners who sell cigarettes and tobacco - and whose political campaign against the smokefree legislation is known to be funded by the tobacco industry. Should we be surprised? Not really. Monkeys will dance to whoever is paying the organ grinder" (Scoop, 29/2/24, Gordon Campbell).

Developing New Products To Addict New Customers

Big Tobacco never sleeps. Seeing which way that the wind is blowing vis a vis cigarettes, it is developing new products. Not just vapes, either. "Billion-dollar tobacco companies have grown their toolbox to addict new customers, researchers warn, as heated tobacco products receive a tax cut and nicotine pouches are marketed towards kids. Vapes, nicotine pouches and heated tobacco products (HTPs) have created millions of new customers for British American Tobacco in recent years, a slideshow for investors shows".

"Now, in a first for tobacco products in New Zealand, excise tax has been halved on HTPs - devices that heat tobacco at a lower temperature than cigarettes, different to vapes that use liquid containing nicotine. Associate Health Minister Casey Costello slipped the tax cut, effective from July 1 (2024), past the public. Confronted by a reporter at a press conference, she said it was a 'trial. It's part of the strategy around targeting those who are addicted smokers and to provide alternate products ... it's a less harmful solution.'"

""...British American Tobacco generated 2.5 times more revenue internationally from people who solely used HTPs, compared to those who only used vapes, five researchers found in 2020. Further investor information suggested tobacco companies wanted customers to use multiple products, and would try attract new users. Costello told the Press, 'of course', she was aware tobacco companies were trying to attract new customers with new products...."

"University of Otago Co-Head of Public Health, Janet Hoek, one of the researchers, reiterated HTPs were not proven stop smoking tools. 'The only group that will benefit from this poorly thought through decision are tobacco companies'. They were already benefiting from nicotine pouches that were aggressively marketed towards youth, she said.... Hoek, who was a marketing professor for over a decade, said this was 'an egregious example of youth-oriented marketing' that wouldn't reach older people who already smoked".

Health Coalition Aotearoa's Smokefree Expert Advisory Group Co-Chairperson, Aporina Chapman, "said tobacco companies designed and advertised their products to 'deliberately target our kids while they're young and keep them addicted till the day they die. What's it going to take before the Government to realise what they're doing?'" (Press, 19/7/24).

I have personally witnessed the effect these nicotine-addiction delivery devices have on kids. We live a couple of blocks away from what used to be, until very recently, the country's most notorious vape-sale dairy. Run by a Chinese guy, it did a roaring trade selling vapes to teenagers (and younger kids) seven days a week. In the course of my regular neighbourhood walks, I'd see groups of kids, very often in school uniform, coming and going from there, for the sole purpose of buying vapes. Adults used to arrive in a constant procession of cars.

"The shopkeeper was unapologetic. His sales of vapes to children prompted a raft of negative reviews online to which he responded: 'yes we are the best place for everyone's drug habits needs' and 'we don't care'" (Press, 28/8/24) He left that dairy (which burned down not long after and is now the site of a complex of new town houses) and operated from a dairy in another suburb, still selling vapes to kids. That is actually illegal and he became the first person in New Zealand to be convicted of that crime and was fined tens of thousands of dollars. His response was to flee to China.

And how much is the Government's halving of excise tax on HTPs going to cost the taxpayer? "The Government has agreed to set aside $216 million it may need to pay for tax cuts for heated tobacco products ... Costello's office had not publicly disclosed how much that would cost the Government but a Cabinet paper, released without fanfare on the Health Ministry's Website, shows Cabinet agreed in May (2024) to set aside $216 million as a contingency fund to cover the estimated lost revenue. The excise tax cut is something tobacco giant Philip Morris has lobbied for in the past. Its IQOS product is a dominant player in the New Zealand HTP market".

"The Cabinet paper, signed off by New Zealand First MP Costello, showed it was not even clear whether the tax break would be passed on to consumers. 'Because this product currently has a monopoly market in New Zealand, the extent to which a reduction in excise duty on HTPs would be passed on to consumers via lower retail prices is unclear', the paper noted".

New Zealand First's Links With Big Tobacco

"... Philip Morris did not respond to RNZ's questions. Links between the company and New Zealand First have been highlighted by media and tobacco researchers since the Party gained concessions in its coalition agreement with National to repeal recent changes to tobacco laws. Two senior corporate communication positions at Philip Morris are held by people who previously held senior roles in the New Zealand First Party".

"David Broome, Chief of Staff for NZ First between 2014 and 2017, is External Relations Manager at Philip Morris. Apirana Dawson - who was Director of Operations and Research in the office of Winston Peters between 2013 and 2017 and led the election campaigns for the Party in 2014 and 2017 - has been Director of External Affairs and Communications at Philip Morris since January 2021".

"Dawson was a guest of New Zealand First Cabinet Minister Shane Jones at the swearing-in ceremony for Government ministers (in 2023) and Jones told Stuff he had taken 'soundings' from Dawson on the Party's tobacco policies. Neither Broome nor Dawson has responded to numerous requests by RNZ for comment. Costello has said she has no links to the industry and had not spoken to tobacco lobbyists about the formulation of policy" (RNZ, 30/7/24).

Costello has also faced scrutiny for "giving health officials a document that claimed that 'nicotine is as harmful as caffeine' and argued Labour's smokefree generation policy was 'nanny state nonsense'" (RNZ, 24/9/24).

"'New Zealanders need to know what influence Philip Morris NZ (PMNZ) has had on NZ First and their tobacco policies including any conversations and deals they have struck with them, and any financial or in-kind donations received', Health Coalition Aotearoa (HCA) board member Dr David Galler said. A leaked PMNZ corporate affairs document from 2017 reveals the company's plan to lobby NZ First and Te Pati Māori to gain favourable regulation for its HTPs".

"'This international tobacco industry giant has been spectacularly successful getting the National-led coalition Government to do exactly what it wants - keeping New Zealanders hooked for life on their addictive, harmful tobacco products', HCA Co-Chair Professor Lisa Te Morenga said. The leaked PMNZ document is further proof of the urgent need for an overhaul of New Zealand's policy making processes to provide transparency about the influence of commercial entities over public health policy".

This Government is fully in the pocket of Big Tobacco and its lobbyists, an industry that could literally be described as merchants of addiction, misery, disease and death. Legalised drug dealers, in fact. Nice friends you've got there. All part of the Government's pig-headed determination to turn back the clock in so many aspects of New Zealand life. But, in this case, it has made a whole lot of new enemies, who feel both outraged and betrayed and who won't take it lying down.

Watchdog - 167 December 2024