When will Costello be sacked?

This really is Banana Republic stuff.

At the same time the Government is saying to the good people of Dunedin they can’t have the hospital they were promised because of cost the Government has allocated $216 million for a tax cut for a multi national corporation peddling health damaging products.

And the bizarre thing is that there is no apparent proof that the products are better for health than normal smokes. And there is no proof that the cost to consumers will be cut. All the multi national corporation may do is keep the savings and make more profit.

And instead of following very clear policy advice from officials Minister Casey Costello has chosen to follow alternative advice which no one, including the Prime Minister has seen.

From Guyon Espiner at Radio New Zealand:

Officials told New Zealand First minister Casey Costello that Philip Morris would be the biggest winner from tax cuts for Heated Tobacco Products (HTPs), which they said were toxic and more harmful than vaping.

Despite a long list of problems Treasury identified with the proposal, Costello claimed she had got her own “independent” advice to the contrary and went ahead with a 50 percent excise tax cut for HTPs, at a cost of up to $216 million.

Associate Health Minister Costello has been criticised by public health experts, who last week said the excise tax cut amounted to an untested, radical experiment.

When the tax cut was revealed by RNZ in July, it was immediately criticised as “weighted in favour of the tobacco industry” by Janet Hoek, a professor of public health.

New documents obtained under the Official Information Act show Treasury officials shared those concerns, among others, which they laid out in detailed briefings to Costello.

The government is a signatory to the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, and is obliged to protect policies from “commercial and other vested interests” of the tobacco industry, the briefing states.

“Removing duty from HTPs may be viewed as in the interests of the tobacco industry, noting that the WHO recommendation is that HTPs should be taxed at an equivalent rate to conventional smoked cigarettes.”

The only commercial beneficiary of the tobacco tax cuts is Philip Morris, which is the “sole supplier” of HTPs in New Zealand.

Costello claimed that Heated Tobacco Products were good for health. Official advice is that they are more damaging to the health of smokers than vaping and that cutting taxes may produce worse health outcomes.

Costello based her claim on alternative advice that she has received.

From Espiner’s article:

Both health and Treasury officials have stressed the lack of evidence that HTPs even work as a smoking cessation tool.

The documents said because “HTP use is associated with dual cigarette/HTP use, and is not associated with smoking cessation” there was a risk smokers would continue to use both cigarettes and HTPs.

“Some studies suggest that former smokers that use HTPs are more likely to relapse. Other studies suggest HTP users are less likely to transition away from smoking conventional cigarettes than those users exclusively smoking cigarettes.”

But the documents showed Costello went to alternative sources to back up her claim that HTPs help people quit.

“I, the Associate Minister of Health, have received independent advice on the efficacy of HTPs as a smoking cessation tool,” the documents recorded Costello as saying.

RNZ asked where the “independent advice” came from, but Costello would not say.

I wonder where the advice came from?

Was it from David Broome, who was chief of staff for NZ First between 2014 and 2017, before becoming external relations manager at Philip Morris.

Or maybe it was from Apirana Dawson who was director of operations and research in the Winston’s office from 2013 to 2017 and led the election campaigns and who is now Philip Morris’ director of external affairs.

Costello has tried this sort of stunt before. She refused to disclose the source of the documents that she gave to officials at the beginning of the term to develop policy. The documents made all sorts of outlandish claim such as nicotine is as harmful as caffeine, and that Labour’s smokefree generation policy was nanny state nonsense. They argued for tobacco tax cuts.

She was reprimanded by the Ombudsman for her failure to disclose the source of the documents.

This morning Christopher Luxon was interviewed about the matter.

He claimed that he had not seen the advice.

My jaw dropped when I heard this.

What sort of banana republic are we living in when a report that results in $216 million of taxpayers money being applied to a tax cut to Phillip Morris is not read by the Prime Minister and is not made available to the public?

If it had happened during Helen Clark’s time she would not only have read the report herself she would have sent it to officials to be critiqued and she probably would have sacked the Minister for being so stupid as to try this sort of stunt.

Luxon then continued to trot out variations of “the Government is committed to its Smoke Free 2025 goals” and “we are up to trying all sorts of alternatives”.

He was asked if he could point to any evidence to show that HTPs were less harmful. He said:

We have an alternative product here which is not as harmful as smoking.

Way to beg the question. When officials are telling you that these products may worsen health outcomes you owe it to subject the advice to rigorous review.

There will no doubt be a concerted effort to have the document released. There is no way that it should not be.

And if it turns out that Costello has been taking advice directly or indirectly from Phillip Morris then Luxon has to sack her. That is as long as conventional understandings of the role of Ministers are still relevant.