PAUL What do you make of Mr Harawira's initiative, of his inquiry, and he wants to be the first country in the world ...
STEVE MAHAREY - Massey University Vice
Chancellor
Great idea, pushes the envelope out but it's never gonna
happen, I think that the points that you raised are the reasons
it'll stop in its tracks, but you know everyone would say at least
we run the argument so we can talk about it.
RAYMOND MILLER - Political Analyst
I like his passion, parts of the argument are very
persuasive, but I don't think that you can ever achieve a ban on
smoking, I mean work on getting rid of advertising what remains of
it, increase taxes, because after all the cost, the health costs
are quite significant, work on public education, but there's also
personal responsibility. I think all of those things are
important.
PAUL That is true, but you're dealing with addictions of course. I mean I like what he said, you see he said, I think he was trying to make the distinction - it wouldn't be illegal to smoke, as long as your outside or something, it wouldn't be illegal to smoke, but he wants to hit the tobacco companies, no marketing, manufacturing, selling. What do you make of it?
RICHARD PREBBLE - Former ACT Leader
Patronising and racist actually, I read his speech where he
said that smoking was a colonial imposition upon Maori and that's
why it should be done. A load of rubbish, actually native
Americans gave smoking - it's the other way around and killed a lot
more white people but leave that to one side. Look the thing
that gets me is this, he gave up smoking, it's a matter of personal
responsibility and he's trying to claim that other people can't, it
would be far better if he actually said to people this is something
you have to take personal responsibility for, it's not easy but
I've done it, if I've done it you can do it, instead he wants the
colonial state to ban cigarettes for him. I mean it's the
most patronising statement I've seen from a politician in a long
time, and there's plenty of competition for that position, but what
he's doing won't work, and just because it's a good cause that
doesn't make it right.
STEVE But he should do it, because if you go to a restaurant in Europe now, I don't know if you've done this over the last little while, you sit there with the smoke wafting around, little images he's putting up of say a Tourism Minister saying come to New Zealand you'll be free of all that kinda thing, I actually seek out restaurants when I'm overseas now to get away from smokers. I think it's a public health issue, he's right to raise it ....
RICHARD We get a large number of tourists actually from Asia and if they found out that they can't smoke here, they sure as heck wouldn't be coming.
STEVE It's good to raise the argument.
PAUL Well I think it's good to raise the argument but there are other arguments need to be raised too, like we have what appears to be a P scourge, we have a crime problem, that also is very addictive as we know. We find out this week that 50% of our prison population is Maori, why not take this stuff on?
RICHARD Well we should, but I'm afraid I'd go the other way, were banning in fact marijuana. In the valley that I'm in there's so much marijuana grown and smoked that you actually see people smoking it quite openly. Now the Police can't stop that, and yet here we are having an MP who apparently is so out of touch with his electorate doesn't realise that marijuana is growing wild in the north and is now saying he's going to ban tobacco. Look if I was in organised crime and I heard Hone this morning, I'd be writing out a cheque for his campaign. If you really want to get organised crime going and flourishing and have a Mafia, let's ban tobacco, that'd be great.
PAUL Quick word on the politics of what he's going to do, I mean what can you call a win?
RAYMOND Well I think a win is to draw the public attention to it, and I think that's very important, and I think particularly as a Maori health issue, it's something we should all be extremely concerned about.
PAUL Yeah but what about the Maori health issue of smoking the dope in the valley?
RICHARD Sure, does anyone think that young Maori don't know that smoking's bad for them? Of course they do.
PAUL Coming up in the week ahead, big story you might be looking for each of you, Parliament's in recess.
STEVE It is in recess and Prime Minister's on holiday, so I guess everything will slow down, but the stories that will continue I think are people like Sue Bradford resigning, that's got some big implications for the Greens, the Emissions Trading debate will go on to the Select Committee this week, so the stories I think for this week will be the ones that have been carrying on from that three weeks of urgency and the trip overseas.
RAYMOND The housing accommodation issue with respect to the Bill English situation, I mean that one really has to be resolved, I mean not only are we in the middle of a recession, but he is the Minister of Finance, there's a need for moral leadership, where is this primary residence, for goodness sake declare it as being Wellington and let's get over it.
RICHARD Oh the biggest story I think is Bill English saying he's going to borrow another four hundred million dollars this week, he borrowed four hundred million dollars last week, and he's going to go on doing it apparently for 30 years. He should sort out where he lives and then realise we can't borrow four hundred million dollars a week.
PAUL Thank you panel very much.
