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The good news: Tariana Turia’s Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill has passed the first Reading in Parliament and is headed to a Select Committee where the public can make submissions.
Fantastic news!
This is another step in the elimination of this ghastly, toxic product from our society.
The not-so-good news: our spineless Prime Minister wants to put the Bill “on hold”, until a court case between the Australian government and tobacco giant, Philip Morris, is settled in an Australian court. He said,
“I don’t really see the point in us finally passing the legislation until we see exactly what happens in the Australian court case. We have a slightly different system, but there might just be some learnings and if there are learnings out of that, it would be sensible to potentially incorporate those in either our legislation or avoid some significant costs.”
Aside from the question whether or not “Learnings” is a real word, one hopes that our corporate-cultured, money-trading, deal-broking, multi-millionaire Prime Minister is not getting ‘cold feet’ on this issue.
Too many people are dying for John Key to succumb to pressure from big tobacco.
The bad news is that only one man voted against this Bill – John “Nothing-to-fear-nothing-to-hide” Banks”. In explanation, he said,
“No one dislikes smoking more than me”. But he was against the state seizing property rights without compensation.
Banks added.
“It’s an interesting exercise in futility. If the government was serious it would double the price of tobacco over the next five years… all we’re doing is introducing a bill so we feel good.”
So saving peoples’ lives by doing everything possible to slowly eliminate this destructive product … is an “exercise in futility”?
Funny thing…
He was only too happy to front on the steps of Parliament on 30 July 2013, supporting the banning of testing synthetic “highs” on animals;
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…I say to my Parliament colleagues testing fun drugs on animals is obscene.It is obscene in a country that prides itself on animal welfare and animal ethics. Britain banned testing; Britain banned testing of fun drugs on animals in 1997. The EU has banned the testing of cosmetrics of on that beautiful rabbit down there some years ago.
… If we want to be leaders; if we want to be leaders in the safety of fun drugs in this country, if it’s necessary to have these mind-changing chemicals, then test them on the idiots that want to take them, because there’s hundreds that want to do it. There are hundreds and hundreds of idiots up and and down the country that will willingly take fun drugs to test their toxicity.
…And I say to my Parliamentary colleagues, don’t test them on animals at all!”
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What a strange, twisted mind that opposes a simple plain packaging on a product that kills 4,300 to 4,600 people per year – whilst demanding at the same time that animals are saved from the horrors of drug-testing.
When did the lives of people become less important than the lives of animals, or the “rights” of multi-national corporations to market addictive, toxic products?
It’s a shame John Banks doesn’t care for his fellow human beings as much as he does for bunnies, puppies, and Big Tobacco.
As for John Key – grow a spine, mate.
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References
Daily Mail Online: Cigarette giant Philip Morris sues Australian government for billions over plain packaging law
Radio NZ: Plain packaging bill passes first hurdle
NZ Herald: Most MPs set to back plain-package smokes
Smokefree Coalition: The health effects of smoking
Previous related blogpost
Nationwide rally condemns animal testing for party-drugs (part rua)
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Above image acknowledgment: Francis Owen
This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 12 February 2014.
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= fs =
I will actually cut John Banks a bit of slack here, his argument was, ban them altogether.
Doubling the price is effectively a tax on poor people – as they’re the ones who tend to smoke.
Hampering massive corporations ability to advertise, is something else altogether.
The Tobacco industry kills about 1 Hitler’s worth of people every 5 years – or to put it another way, The Tobacco industry kills people at about the same rate that the Nazis did.
And the first time anyone time-travels, they always kill Hitler right?
Here’s what I would do:
1) arrest all tobacco industry execs, to be held without bail, on trial for mass-murder.
2) Do to the tobacco industry what Canberra, and the Swiss, to with marijuana – it is legal to grow a small number of plants yourself.
Pitch this at a level that the biggest tobacco selling operations, only sell locally – a farmer’s market level thing… something similar to boutique breweries that produce a diverse and high-quality product, but which have no political power.
This would free us from the corporations that sell it – no risk of us being sued for trying to save people’s lives. It also produces a product that isn’t quite so rammed with toxins as commercial tobacco.
FWIW, I’d also do this with alcohol – and legalise all other, far less harmful drugs… Nixon’s “War on Drugs” being a catastrophic failure, and a humanitarian disaster, any way you care to cut it.
… which, I suspect, Raegun, is a much harder call to make.
You are unfair on John Banks this time. He wants the price of tobacco doubled (via a tax increase I suppose).
@ Andrew R: So why not plain packaging as well as doubling the price?
This problem (I refuse to call it an “issue”) requires multiple avenues for solutions. It seems unlikely that only one solution will work.
So the only member of a party that expouses the ideologocal purity of a free market, wants to double taxes?
His argument is an informal fallacy known as the Nirvana fallacy.
Good point, Naturesong. Wish I’d thought of it…! 😀
[…] Some thoughts on the Plain Packaging Bill […]
“When did the lives of people become less important than the lives of animals”
Hate to break it to you , Frank, but we are animals too!
I guess you just neglected to stick an “other” before “animals” in this sentence, as I find it hard to believe you would be that arrogant.
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