NZ’s next generation to be smoke-free
Children alive today will be legally banned from ever buying cigarettes as the government unveils tough new rules to eventually eliminate tobacco completely
Mōrena and welcome to The Bulletin for Friday, December 10, by Justin Giovannetti. Presented in partnership with Z Energy.
In today’s edition: Businesses pull support for work changes; police investigate vaccine certificate doctor; parliament passes self-ID bill; but first, NZ to lead the world with tobacco ban.
Increasing taxes alone will not be enough to end smoking. (Getty Images)
There will be no future for tobacco. New Zealand will be the first country in the world to ban the legal purchase of cigarettes by younger generations, with the government preparing a bill that will likely impact every child alive today. As RNZ reports, it’s an admission from the Beehive that hiking taxes on tobacco can only go so far in the pursuit of the country’s Smokefree 2025 goal. Associate health minister Ayesha Verrall said that people aged 14 when the law comes into effect, likely in 2023, will never be able to buy cigarettes, with the age of those covered by the ban rising annually after that.
Along with the ban, there are tough new restrictions. For older consumers still allowed to purchase cigarettes, the situation will also be changing—although it probably won’t happen for several more years. Only tobacco products containing very low levels of nicotine will be allowed on the shelves at dairies. While the number of retailers carrying tobacco, now over 8,000, will be cut to about 500. Smoking is this country’s leading cause of preventable death and accounts for a quarter of all cancers. According to The Guardian, the goal of the legislation is to get smoking rates below 5% by the midpoint of this decade. Pākehā are on track for that target, according to Verrall, as smoking rates have plummeted over the past decade overall. However, for Māori and Pacific peoples, those rates are still far higher, at 29% and 18% respectively.
Expect fierce pushback from tobacco and business owners. Dairy owners, as can be expected, are not happy with the proposed bill. They told Stuff that it will destroy their businesses and livelihoods, because many of them still depend on cigarette sales. Getting rid of smoking through the plan is “100% theory and zero substance,” one said. There will be a new offence created for supplying tobacco to someone covered by the ban. Dairy owners have instead called on the government to set 2025 as a check-in point to review how smoking rates are going, instead of that year being the end goal of the plan.
The political reaction at parliament has been divided. According to One News, Act has warned that the government’s proposal is a new form of prohibition that will create a black market. Instead, it wants more innovation and vaping. The Greens have warned about criminalising another substance. National leader Christopher Luxon said the official opposition is in favour of any programme that stops New Zealanders from smoking, but wants more details on how the government intends to tackle the black market. A number of health experts told the Science Media Centre that they are quite happy with the plan:
“All I wanted for Christmas this year was evidence of a serious commitment from government to tackle our tobacco smoking problem,” said Chris Bullen, a professor of public health at the University of Auckland. “All my wishes have come true.”
Massive overhaul of employment law at risk as business group pulls support. Fair pay agreements are one of Labour’s flagship policies, a defining idea that would impact the lives of millions. They would create an economy-wide system where employer representatives and unions would bargain the terms and conditions for entire industries. BusinessNZ, which was central to executing the plan, has now attempted to torpedo it. As the NZ Herald reports (paywalled), the business group had been expected to be part of the bargaining process, but has instead called the proposal “unlawful” and out of step with the modern world. It’s unclear how the government can proceed, but a retreat seems unlikely.
The Covid numbers: There are 70 cases in hospital and 5 in ICU/HDU. There are now 9,457 cases in the delta outbreak. 88 new community cases were reported in Auckland yesterday, 9 in Waikato, 5 in Tauranga and 1 in Rotorua. 22,859 people were vaccinated on Wednesday.
The Spinoff’s Covid data tracker has the latest figures.
Police investigating Canterbury doctor filmed giving out vaccine exemptions. Following an investigation by Patrick Gower that was in yesterday’s newsletter, Dr. Jonie Girouard is now at the centre of a police investigation, Newshub reports. The New Zealand Medical Association says it appears she might have committed fraud and has made a formal complaint to police. She could face prison time under the crimes act and Covid-19 health act. Gower reports that other doctors have also written bogus vaccine exemptions and authorities are looking into them as well.
Parliament has unanimously passed a self-identification bill. It’ll soon be much easier for New Zealanders to change their birth certificates to reflect who they are, according to RNZ. It should just be a simple administrative process, without the need for a court’s intervention. What was initially a much narrowed bill, has been working its way through the house since 2017. “This bill upholds the mana, the wairua, the mauri of our takatāpui, trans, intersex and non-binary whānau. It will be the first of many,” said Green MP Elizabeth Kerekere.
A note on Christmas lunch from our partner Lightforce: Whether you’re doing bombs, drinking beers or drilling putts, we rely on the sun to make it feel like summer. But there’s so much more this giant burning ball of hydrogen and helium could be doing for you and the environment. It’s time to go solar.
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Christchurch joins council group pushing for an alternative to the three waters plan. The government’s programme to overhaul the country’s water system is slowly coming together, but a group of 21 councils wants to propose a different approach. As The Press writes, the councils don’t want to lose control of their water systems but are willing to consider different ways of working together to lower future cost. Christchurch’s council has been a vocal opponent of three waters, along with fears of losing control, it wasn’t pleased to be offered $122 million from the central government for a system worth almost $7 billion.
To contain omicron, England imposes ‘Plan B’ Covid restrictions. Over 550 cases of the highly infectious variant have been detected in the UK—although health officials warn the real number is probably around 10,000—and prime minister Boris Johnson is adopting the country’s toughest restrictions in a year, Reuters reports. People are being asked to work from home when they can, wear masks in public and use vaccine passes. It sounds a lot like New Zealand’s traffic light system. Officials here warn that it’s only a question of when omicron arrives.
Got some feedback about The Bulletin, or anything in the news?
Get in touch with me at thebulletin@thespinoff.co.nz
Right now on The Spinoff: Madeleine Chapman ranks the country’s 87 ice blocks (I had my first ever ice block recently, it was #36 on her list. Maybe I’ll try a second one?) Tara Ward writes about the 10 best moments from the Great Kiwi Bake Off finale. Justin Latif reports on how a 5,000 home development in South Auckland ran into a roadblock. Naomii Seah argues we shouldn’t glorify Lord of the Rings. Alice Webb-Liddall (partnership content) speaks with five people about the lessons they've learned from Covid.
For a longer read today, what we know of omicron’s rapid growth. Sarah Zhang writes in The Atlantic that while much still isn’t known, the new variant is spreading very fast. How fast? It’s moving through highly immune populations at about the same rate the original virus infected people who had no previous exposure to Covid-19. While there’s early evidence that it might be more mild, a massive mild wave of the coronavirus is still a big problem. Here’s some of what she wrote:
“To be clear, this does not mean the pandemic clock has reset to early 2020. Vaccines and previous infections can blunt the virus’s worst effects. Even if protection against infection is eroded, which experts expect, given omicron’s heavily mutated spike protein, protection against severe disease and death should be more durable.”
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