Tobacco chiefs ‘must front up’
Tobacco company bosses who refuse to take part in a select committee inquiry into the tobacco industry will be named and shamed by Maori Party MP Hone Harawira.
The Maori Affairs committee agreed yesterday to hold an inquiry into the impact of tobacco use on Maori. Mr Harawira, the committee’s deputy chairman, launched a scathing attack on the country’s tobacco executives.
“If they don’t turn up we’ll put their pictures up on the wall so people know who they are.
“To be brutally frank, I’d like to lynch these bastards. This is a war against people who kill New Zealanders . . .”
Mr Harawira said 5000 New Zealanders died annually from smoking-related illnesses, 500 of whom were Maori. Too many had died horrible deaths because they smoked, including his father.
About half of all Maori women and 40 per cent of Maori men smoke – about double the non-Maori rate.
Committe chairman Tau Henare, a smoker, would not comment on whether tobacco should be banned.
Ridding New Zealand of tobacco is the aim of Te Reo Marama (Maori Tobacco Control Advocates). Director Shane Bradbrook said tobacco had “no benefit to anyone”.
“For too long the tobacco industry has hidden in the shadows counting the money it makes off its customers’ addiction.”
The managers of the country’s three leading tobacco companies – British American Tobacco’s Graeme Amey, Imperial Tobacco’s Wayne Merrett and Philip Morris’ Martin Inkster – could not be reached.
But BAT spokeswoman Susan Jones said the country’s biggest tobacco company would participate in the inquiry, although she did not say at what level.
Mr Harawira acknowledged that the industry contributed more than $1.1 billion in tax each year but said he would be happy to forgo that. He hoped cancer patients, their families, health researchers, teachers, tobacco control groups and industry representatives would appear before the committee.
The inquiry will examine the impact of tobacco use on the health, economic, social and cultural wellbeing of Maori, and report to Parliament. Submissions close in January. Prime Minister John Key and Finance Minister Bill English have both supported the inquiry.
© 24/09/2009 Stuff
