Radio NZ reports:
Te pāti Māori's co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer has accused the new government of “deliberate .. systemic genocide” over its policies to roll back the smokefree policy and the Māori Health Authority.
The left love hysterical language. If you oppose racial quotas in laws, you are a racist. And now if you sack 400 bureaucrats you are genocidal.
Everyone tuts tuts (including me) when Donald trump says outrageous things such as calling his opponents vermin, but here you have an opposition leader accusing her opponents of being genocidal. Does she get condemned for hysterical language? No. As she is on the left.
“For 150-plus years no health system has been able to address the growing inequities of Māori, we come up with a unique, well thought out, futuristic model. It's not perfect … but it is a solution that is addressing inequities that only Māori confront.
Having 400 more bureaucrats doesn't fix inequities. Lifting immunisation rates does.
And while there are differences in health outcomes for many groups (much due to lifestyle choices), the improvement over 125 years has been immense. The life expectancy for Maori men has gone from 25 to 73 and for Maori women from 23 to 77.
For European NZers, the change over the same period has been from 55 to 81 for men and 58 to 84 for women. So an increase of 48 years for Maori men, 54 years for Maori women, 26 years for European men and 26 years for European women.
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.
4 comments:
Left talk in hyperbole. Everything is genocide, except real genocide.
Unfortunately David the left don't deal with the truth, reality or facts. I'm pretty sure they don't even know what they want, nutcases rarely do.
It's incredible that the Maori Party can say whatever they want and get away with it. Any criticism about anything they say is called racism.
Labour / Green / Te Putty Maori supporters are all referring to the proposed abandonment of the tobacco prohibition legislation as motivated by the new government's wish to maintain tax revenue from tobacco. However, there will be more important considerations underpinning the proposed change.
The existing plan to ban sales to people born from a particular year is prohibition albeit in stages. Prohibition doesn't work. The ethical (e.g. age discrimination) and realistic problems with that plan mount up.
Claims of 'genocide' due to avoiding a prohibitionist route ignore the harm caused by prohibition. Great progress in reducing smoking was being achieved by making tobacco use less fashionable and convenient, but moving further towards prohibition is likely to reverse such progress. Smoking will develop mystique, desirability (as happens for resources that are restricted in supply) and a symbol of rebellion against restriction. Thwarting those restrictions will bring a rewarding sense of achievement. The black market will thrive, providing another source of income for gangs and other criminal groups and exposing users to their unscrupulous ploys and influence. Black market tobacco will be cut with potentially more dangerous plant material and/or laced with other substances such as rat poison that causes a stimulant feeling, or even more addictive drugs such as methamphetamine to expand that lucrative market.
Another example of hyperbole by the last government's supporters is the claims of health system costs of ongoing smoking. Balanced economic analyses have previously determined that smoking actually saves taxpayers' money because smokers die younger so don't receive superannuation for as long and that outweighs the cost of short periods of hospital care. Of course, that doesn't mean we should promote smoking as a positive economic solution, but official discouragement of smoking and truthful information about its consequences are sufficient and sensible. Individual right to choose over their own bodies (given accurate information) and individual responsibility for the consequences are profound ethics deserving prioritization in most cases.
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