You have to worry about how trustworthy the Government is especially when it gets very simple facts wrong.
Latest example has come from its attempt to justify its rolling back of the Smokefree reforms so that it had space to give landlords a retrospective tax cut.
On Wednesday Christopher Luxon claimed that if the reforms passed there would only be one tobacco retail outlet in Northland.
From Amelia Wade at Newshub:
National didn’t campaign on the smokefree rollback. It was a line item in ACT’s alternative budget and was only added to New Zealand First’s manifesto one week before the election – after people had started voting.
The Prime Minister has now seen the cigarette light in his governing buddies’ position.
“You’ve got one store in Northland that will be a magnet for crime, absolutely no doubt about it there will also be a big drive around the black market,” Luxon said.
But a correction, the former Government’s reduction of cigarette retailers actually allowed for 18 stores in Northland.
By my count the proposal actually allows for 34 stores in all, five in Whangarei, two each in Dargaville and Kaikohe and Paihia/Kawakawa/Moerewa, one each in in Kerikeri and Mangawhai Heads and One Tree Point and Ruakākā and Snells Beach, and 18 in rural areas of Northland.
But did National back off from what is clearly wrong? This morning on Q&A former Tobacco lobbyist and current Minister Chris Bishop doubled down on the claim.
The claim is easily disproved. The Director General’s list is readily available and I presume people within National can count.
But repeating the falsehood when it has been pointed out that it is wrong and refusing to back down is really worrying. And clearly Bishop has not read the Director General’s reports. And if policy has been formulated by such an easily disproved misapprehension of the policy then you have to wonder about how valid the analysis behind other policies is.
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