How did Government and Opposition MPs justify and oppose repealing the smokefree endgame measures?

In December 2022, Aotearoa New Zealand (Aotearoa) passed world-leading legislation designed to catalyse reductions in smoking prevalence and realise the Smokefree 2025 goal: smoking prevalence of no more than five percent among all population groups.1 However, in February 2024, the newly-elected coalition Government repealed measures that would have set a new low nicotine standard, greatly reduced tobacco availability, and created a smokefree generation. 

Because the repeal proceeded under urgency, a process that does not allow for select committee hearings, public submissions or extensive debate,2 examining the arguments MPs presented could help other countries anticipate potential opposition and avoid the fate Aotearoa’s measures met. We recently reviewed the verbatim Hansard record using the Policy Dystopia Model,3 a framework that outlines argumentative strategies tobacco companies use to oppose policies that would restrict their marketing. In general terms, the PDM explains tactics tobacco companies use to deny and question benefits that public health policies would bring, while escalating the perceived costs of introducing these policies. We expanded the PDM by analysing counter-arguments presented by Opposition MPs, who argued against the repeal legislation. 

What arguments did we identify?

Evidence from the NZ Health Survey showed daily smoking prevalence among Māori in 2023 (i.e., the most recent data at the time of the repeal) was 17.1%, more than three times the maximum specified in the goal.4 However, Coalition MPs argued endgame policies were unnecessary and claimed Aotearoa was “on track” to achieve the Smokefree 2025 goal. 

Even using the most recent data, which show daily smoking prevalence of 14.7% among Māori,  it is clear the Smokefree 2025 goal is very unlikely to be achieved for Māori.5 Arguments to the contrary fail to align with findings from our most comprehensive population health survey.4

Rather than regulate tobacco companies’ aggressive marketing, role in promoting smoking as socially normative,6 and creation of highly addictive products,7 Coalition MPs proposed returning to individually focused measures, such as smoking cessation support.

This approach shifts responsibility for smoking onto people who smoke and overlooks tobacco companies’ efforts to question smoking’s harms and addictiveness.8 9

NZ data showed endgame measures would not create unexpected costs (and would have resulted in health savings10) for example, illicit tobacco trade has remained stable over time with a recent analysis suggesting it may even have decreased.11 12 However, Coalition MPs alleged the endgame measures would increase illicit trade and retail crime. 

In fact, a key way to reduce retail crime is to reduce smoking prevalence as quickly as possible; as fewer people smoke, the market for illicit products and incentive to steal tobacco decrease. Our earlier briefings explain this logic (see here and here).

Coalition MPs’ narratives lacked supporting evidence and were often contrary to research findings and national survey data. Few Coalition MPs referred to supporting evidence and several presented ideas that had strong parallels with tobacco companies’ rhetoric.13 

Opposition MPs fought the repeal, raised concerns about the process followed, and argued progressing the repeal under urgency created numerous procedural failures. Citing Te Tiriti o Waitangi, they suggested the process was anti-democratic and breached constitutional obligations to Māori; furthermore, they criticised the Coalition Government for proceeding without awaiting the outcome of a claim lodged with the Waitangi Tribunal.

Opposition speakers criticised the rushed repeal process; they drew unfavourable comparisons between the process used to develop the SERPA legislation and its repeal, which excluded many submitters, including community representatives, iwi members, young people, and public health experts, and suggested the Coalition Government had no mandate to proceed with the repeal.

For Opposition speakers, these procedural failures made harmful outcomes inevitable; they predicted socially and economically regressive outcomes that would exacerbate health, economic and social inequities.

What are the implications for Aotearoa and other nations?

Whether deliberate or not, Coalition MPs’ use of arguments made by tobacco companies suggests an urgent need to restrict tobacco companies’ ability to influence policy. Countries that allow tobacco companies to submit on policy proposals could close this opportunity, given tobacco industry interference is a powerful obstacle to evidence-based tobacco policies.14 Additional measures, include introducing lobbying regulations, such as a code of conduct to govern lobbying, a register that records all lobbying activity undertaken by organisations, and legislation that would define how policy makers and officials maintain high compliance with their obligations under the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.15 16 These policies would increase transparency and should be an urgent priority here and internationally. 

Yet while limiting lobbying and making interactions more transparent is crucial, even these steps may not capture all the interactions between politicians, their staff, and tobacco companies (or groups they support). Researchers must thus continue to question tobacco companies’ arguments, and the logic and evidence used to support these, particularly given court findings that tobacco companies deceived the public for many decades.17
 

Authors details

Prof Janet Hoek Co-Director of ASPIRE Aotearoa Research Centre, and Department of Public Health, University of Otago Wellington | Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka, Pōneke

Anna Graham DeMello Research fellow, ASPIRE Aotearoa Research Centre, and Department of Public Health, University of Otago Wellington | Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka, Pōneke