Wait? WHAT! A quarter of a billion for the Tobacco industry while Public Health falls over?
Govt set aside $216m to pay for heated tobacco product tax cuts
The government has agreed to set aside $216 million it may need to pay for tax cuts for heated tobacco products (HTPs).
RNZ reported earlier this month that Associate Health Minister Casey Costello – who is also Customs Minister – had implemented a 50 percent cut to the excise tax on HTPs, where the tobacco is heated to a vapour rather than burned.
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 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.
Let me see if I can get this completely straight, we are gutting $130million each month from Health because National refused to fund Health for population growth and inflation nut we are giving Big Tobacco a $216million tax loop hole deal that helps a tobacco monopoly put forward by Casey Costello who was a previous pimp for the Tobacco Industry?
We are gutting public health while helping the fucking Tobacco lobby?
What the fuck have we mutated into here NZ?
Post Covid bitter voters were so pissed off with Jacinda for having the temerity to save 20 000 lives (most whom were Boomers who then went on to vote for NZF), that we have agreed to gut public health while propping up the Tobacco industry and that’s acceptable is it?
Is this what feeling alienated in your own home country because of your anti-vaxx views justifies does it?
Is this what the alienating Trans debate has justified is it?
Is this what your feral fears of da Maaaaaaaaaaaris secretly taking over Democracy argues for does it?
Maybe, just maybe this redneck cracker settler routine is on you, and allowing rich corporations to manipulate your petty bigotries so that they can collectively exploit us is the problem here?
There are issues and we can spend a lot of time arguing about those issues, but NOTHING, no woke mind virus, no cultural insecurity, no hashtag outrage Olympics justifies giving the Billionaire clique, the donor class and the Real Estate Pimps total influence over our destiny while gutting public health to support Big Tobacco pimps.
New Zealand is bigger and more important than the petty bigotries of easily manipulated redneck voters.
Say what you like about this government but they sure know how to keep a promise and how to deliver a substantial return on investment for their financial backers. Every lobby group that gave their money have received their reward and without delay.
In addition, with the exception of one secret meeting by Jones and the dumb MP from New Plymouth ‘forgetting’ to declare his vested interest donations, everything has been out in the open with no shame.
The other half of the well announced agenda, the re-colonization of those uppity maoris is also going along as planned.
As a bonus the Wealthy-Poor divide is widening nicely and we can look forward to some serious bene-bashing soon, as icing on the cake
Meanwhile the Greens are imploding, TPM are down the separatist rabbit hole(and who can blame them) and if Labour are planning anything then it’s Incrementalism 2.0.
If we shift our gaze to the rest of the world it seems that things here aren’t too bad by comparison.
Fuck me.
Lets kill more people and flood the already over whelmed health system will cancer sufferers and promise to treat them with drugs that only increase the time they suffer .
Bloody hell what is up with these idiots .
Cigarette companiies will be laughing all the way to the Aussie owned banks .
This sort of mad nonsense from our govt. beggars belief. Who are these horrible anti-NZ people.
We have a government full of corporate stooges and lobbyists. It needs to be dissolved.
I cannot think of one person whom I’d trust to walk my dog.
We can be sure that the UN, WHO, even WEF or any NZ university, will not welcome one of them into their illustrious ranks when we spit them out finally. There is absolutely no talent there and definitely no integrity.
Costello can’t even organise a decent haircut, let alone make far-reaching decisions for our country. Winston was having a bleat about the standard of dress in parliament so he obviously hasn’t even clapped eyes on Costello, even though she’s in his own party.
So there’s another minus, glaring hypocrisy.
Since the government can’t even hold sensible rules around tobacco use there is no hope of them having any sensible rules around alcohol, while I can appreciate that many of you would not like my idea of sensible rules I heard that the police were asking for 20 to be the age to get off-license alcohol which would at least be a good start.
It seems incomprehensible to me that people can think that tax cuts to the wealthy, underfunding health & possibly increasing tobacco use is in any way a sensible move yet the village idiots on various sites still insist that the last government was the worst in history while ignoring the catastrophic crash that will be inevitable under this current government.
And yet they can find the money to fund 3 associate health commissioners. Seems it’s only bloated when the dictatorship government says it’s bloated.
Thats layer 15
What can one say?
It’s what National and Act do.
As a supporter of this government I must admit I am at a loss to understand why this has got through.
I gave up smoking 50 years ago when my first child was born as I wanted to see he grow . Even now I still miss lighting up so realize it is a hard drug to get ride of
It’s appalling. In fact, I’m worried that it’s so appalling that there is obviously zero plan to get re-elected, but just to rape and pillage for three (or will it be four) years and cash out at the end with a nice load of non-executive directorships. Why am I worried that it will be just one term? It means Labour will have to come up with absolutely nothing to kick them out and we’ll end up with the same do-nothing, woke-thought police agenda we had before they got kicked out. Shite lite. Ho hum.