Tad hysterical, don’t you think?
College of Public Health Medicine president Sir Collin Tukuitonga has said the reversal of the smokefree amendments would result in about 1000 extra deaths over the next decade, mostly Māori, and cost the health system $1.3 billion.
Calling that a “genocide” is a bit ridiculous.
Maybe. I’m not convinced this particular repeal was due to majority/popular demand.
The only campaign I ever saw about repealing turned out to be astroturfing by a tobacco company pretending to be a dairy owner.
It seems way more like the sort of thing Seymour and ACT would be interested in. So I think it was a coalition agreement issue. Here’s my reasoning:
The average voter isn’t affected by the law change personally so the only point of repealing it would be to fight for your children to smoke tobacco. Parents mostly don’t especially want their own kids to risk lung cancer, and it’s also not a tangible improvement to communities.
That leaves fighting for it as a matter of ideological principle. I.e ACT.
Winnie has made some surprisingly pro smoking statements during his career, so he would likely have been on board as well.
Good point, it could even originate with him - I saw someone saying Winston has links with tobacco companies. Not sure how true that is.
Also Winston himself smokes. If he is using transfusions from blood boys or something to stay immortal, maybe he needs them to be able to smoke too?
That would explain a lot actually.