There are huge holes in the bit in green. They are trying to conflate tobacco growth with a 20% increase in greenhouse gas. That's just wrong. It is clever wording from ASH.
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From Blackcap: That is not what I am saying. But for many the cost is prohibitive and really does cut into the budget at the expense of other items including looking after kids.
A lot of things going on there. The question should be reframed. Why are housing and groceries so expensive in NZ? How can access to education be improved for the lower socio-economic groups? Governments on both left and right in NZ avoid tackling the bigger issues.
Why this big focus on tobacco, when there are other things that should really be tackled. I agree other issues, drugs, health etc. should not be ignored.
By the way, its not only a poor issue, smoking goes through all demographics, its the poor that do smoke that really feel it.
Many studies have shown poorer health outcomes for poorer socio-economic groups as the result of smoking prevalence. Smoking could be responsible for 1/3 of the worse outcomes for lower socio-economic groups. Interesting: https://www.otago.ac.nz/__data/asset...996-025021.pdf
I don't buy the health costs argument associated with smoking, drinking possible costs a hell of a lot more.Sure they both have a big health cost associated with them. I would favour a more limited access to alcohol too. Just because society does not tackle some other issues as seriously doesn’t mean tobacco should not be tackled either. That is politics for you.
Big job ahead for the new government in education after 6 years of attempts by Ardern, Hipkins and the woke leftists to skew the education system towards indoctrination to favour the left :
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/c...pg?format=500w
I don't need to call the period anything at all.
Same as the last public hanging in England was in 1868 - very civilised!
You can go back into the history of any country and find things we see as appalling today.
Don't forget that England only abbolished slavery in 1834 - very civilised!
Think about Parihaka in the context of Maori in 1822 - from the so-called civilised British.
I hope the Coalition Government reviews all its contributions to the useless United Nations and all it's agencies, that achieve absolutely nothing. Now proven their staff assisted Hamas in planning the October 7 attack on Israel. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68104203
Tip of the iceberg.
What happened to the billions of dollars in aid to Gaza which were diverted into terrorism activities like tunnels and rockets rather than schools, hospitals and businesses?
It is so very clear that the UN agencies closed more than one eye to what was really going on in Gaza.
United Nations.
Is that the outfit Helen Clark works with, and Comrade Ardern, oops, Gayford, wants to join?
Shame!!
David Seymour:
“We are at a turning point. We can put the right values back in government. But we shouldn't underestimate the massive challenge that lies ahead of us if we try to do so.
There are hundreds of noisy groups who don't want us to see the right values put into practice. The media will give them a platform every night at 6pm. And it's too easy for governments to back down in the face of negative headlines.
The forces for more government in your life haven't gone away. Standing up to them will take courage and initiative.”
If South Island maori can happily perform Te Rauparaha’s haka after their ancestors literally passed through the digestive systems out of the anuses of him and his warriors then it should be pretty easy for them to forgive so-called ‘pakeha’ I would have thought.
Do we know of any ‘kupapa’ tribes who fought against Maori ‘rebels’ have made restitution for their ‘wrongs’? Of course we don’t. Pakeha were ‘wrong’, Maori are always right no matter whose side they are on or what they are doing.
Why did the Crown have to make restitution for the Moriori Genocide when this utterly barbaric and heinous genocide was perpetrated by two Maori Iwi?
‘The Moriori genocide[1] was the mass murder and enslavement of the Moriori people, the indigenous ethnic group of the Chatham Islands, by members of the mainland New Zealand iwi Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama from 1835 to 1863. The invaders murdered around 300 Moriori and enslaved the remaining population,[2] causing the population to drop from 1,700 in 1835 to only 100 in 1870.[1][3]’
Far from the Crown wronging Maori I think the actual history is of the Crown cleaning up the mess of an irresponsible and self-deluding people for almost two hundred years now.