Labour’s health spokesperson Dr Ayesha Verrall said it was "absolutely disgusting” that the Government was playing with those laws to “fund the National Party’s tax credits”.
A number of health experts have expressed dismay at the Government’s decision, which has also been picked up by overseas media outlets.
Dr Verrall said health leaders were “so shocked” because usually decisions around smoking have a bipartisan consensus.
She found it “absolutely hard” to believe the Government could bring down smoking at the same rate as the current legislation would lead to.
Newshub
This is news to just about everyone involved in politics because there has never been a bipartisan consensus on tobacco control. Ever.
Maybe Ayesha Verrall was not in the house when National and ACT repeatedly spoke against and voted against tobacco control legislation.
While the professional bludger/trougher classes are having kittens over a new government not listening to their intellectual superiors, Derek Cheng in the Herald deserves credit for a thoughtful and accurate piece of journalism. He outlines specifically where ACT and National did not come to a bipartisan consensus on tobacco control.
National and Act opposed the law change in December last year, and while Act didn’t make a song and dance about it during the campaign, its alternative Budget banked additional revenue from reversing the law. The NZ First 2023 manifesto also called for repealing the changes “put in place by Labour to achieve an illusory Smokefree 2025.”
NZ Herald
Derek Cheng will probably be sacked for actually reporting facts instead of making stuff up and saying a lefty rant is an “opinion”.
And Ayesha Verrall is lucky that the media don’t hold her to the same standards as Winston Peters, whom they are fact-checking on media bribes while publishing a lie as fact-without-question.
But the point remains: Labour and their over-bearing nanny statism were soundly and comprehensively beaten at the election. Voters actually voted for this, that’s how democracy works, and Ayesha Verrall and her little army of troughers and bludgers need to pull their heads in.
We won, you lost, eat that.
Cam Slater is a New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. Cam blogs regularly on the BFD - where this article was sourced.
4 comments:
Is Ayesha Verrall lying or stupid?
Both, would be my answer to that question Cam.
Summed it up perfectly, Cam:-
"We won, you lost, eat that." !!
I give that very same message to the mainstream media who took the $61,000,000 bribe from their Labour maters.
Verrall's opinion is worth absolutely nothing to anyone other than a bought and paid for journalist. The labour cult is history, let's look forward to a return of a free life where the government works for the people.
A great rant Cam - "The Empress Verrall indeed has no clothes". So far the media has seemingly forgotten who won the Election and who got cast into the Wilderness. Why the Tom Dooley are they still asking Chippy, James Shaw (who got sidelined by his own party and then somehow re-instated in the same breath) and Ayesha Verrall what they think? The voting public doesn't care about Labour's lame-ducks, "Remember, People?" Banging the old drum about Winston being the troublesome child is already growing wafer-thin, as the media scramble for non-existent dirt on the new Government. Let Luxon and his crew get on with things, at least for 100 days, as they grapple with the disarray they have inherited.
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