Bob Edlin: Seymour got a laugh in London.....

Seymour got a laugh in London – but tobacco researchers rubbish his remarks as reprehensible

Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour has been chided by “tobacco researchers” for making remarks about smoking which made a British audience laugh.

Seymour had delivered an address privately to an outfit called the Adam Smith Institute, based in London, during a visit to the UK this month.

But something he said has outraged the researchers back home.

Newsroom has reported on the offending remark and the reaction:

“If you want to save your country’s balance sheet, light up, because … lots of excise tax, no pension – I mean, you’re a hero,” he said to laughter from the audience.

That’s in line with something Treasury said around 13 years ago.

But the tobacco researchers quoted by Newsroom were outraged when they learned of what he said.

They spluttered that calling smokers “fiscal heroes” and declaring that people should “light up” to save their government’s balance sheet was “reprehensible” and made light of addiction.

Newsroom said Seymour largely stood by his remarks, arguing that smokers generate a net economic positive through tobacco tax and reduced superannuation from early deaths.

But he conceded he was wrong to describe as “quite evil” the Labour government’s plan to create a smokefree generation.

The back story is that the coalition Government – early in its term – sparked controversy by repealing a law that would have banned the sale of tobacco to anyone born after January 1, 2009 and dramatically reduced both the number of outlets able to sell tobacco and the nicotine levels in cigarettes.

Seymour spoke about that decision after delivering his speech to the Adam Smith Institute.

Asked about the smokefree generation concept, which has been taken up by the British government, Seymour said the New Zealand policy had been “quite evil, in a way” and described smokers as “fiscal heroes”.

“If you want to save your country’s balance sheet, light up, because … lots of excise tax, no pension – I mean, you’re a hero,” he said to laughter from the audience.

Whether outraged tobacco researchers brought those remarks to Newsroom’s attention, or whether Newsroom went looking for tobacco researchers who would express their outrage, is unclear.

But Newsroom certainly asked Seymour to explain himself:

Seymour told Newsroom his remarks were based on arguments he made before about the role of the Government when it came to smoking.

“I’m not seriously suggesting that we should encourage people to smoke to save the Government money. It’s clearly an absurd statement, but you do have to have a bit of a sense of humour in this life, otherwise it would be too dull.”

The state should make sure the public was aware of the dangers of smoking, while stopping smokers from doing harm to others (such as through second-hand smoke) and ensuring they did not impose financial costs on others.

“As far as I can tell, that condition is well and truly satisfied: I mean, the Government gets $2 billion of tax revenue from about, what is it now, 8 percent of the population?” (The Customs Service collected $1.5b in tobacco excise and equivalent duties in 2023/24, while that year’s NZ Health Survey reported a daily smoking rate of 6.9 percent.)

Seymour said it was “just a sad fact” that smokers were also likely to die younger, reducing the amount of superannuation they collected, while he was unconvinced their healthcare costs would be markedly higher than those who died of other illnesses.

“If anything, smokers are probably saving other citizens money.”

But Seymour did backtrack on disparaging the previous Government’s smokefree generation plans as “quite evil”:

“I’m not sure that was the right word, on reflection.

“I certainly think the idea that, in 30 years’ time, someone’s going to have to prove that they’re 49 rather than 47 does seem draconian – it seems almost a bit of an Orwellian situation.”

Inevitably, Newsroom sought an opinion from Labour:

Labour Party health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall told Newsroom the minister’s remarks showed the Government had the wrong priorities when it came to its smokefree policy.

“They are prioritising balancing the books on the misery done to smokers due to the harms of tobacco.”

Verrall said there was clear evidence of tobacco’s cost to the health system, and the last government’s smokefree generation policy had been “fundamentally based on humanitarian grounds”.

“This is an addictive product: it is unique in that it kills half the people who use it. It’s not like the more nuanced debates we have about … social media for kids.”

Then it was the turn of the tobacco researchers:

• University of Otago associate professor Andrew Waa told Newsroom Seymour’s “perverse” arguments were further evidence of the Government placing tobacco tax revenue over other concerns.

“It’s literally blood money: it’s money that the Government taxes on a deadly product, and yet they’re still treating it as a profit margin for them.”

Waa said the minister’s comments ignored the social costs of tobacco, and would only help an industry “intent on exploiting addiction at whatever cost”.

“I don’t know if it’s naive, or if it’s [his] ideology that it’s all personal choice – there’s no choice when it comes to smoking some of these things.

“There’s a reason why certain communities are more likely to smoke, because they get tobacco products shoved in their face all the time; by the time they decide to think that they don’t wanna use the stuff, it’s too late.”

• Janet Hoek, the co-director of tobacco control research partnership ASPIRE Aotearoa, told Newsroom that the comments were “really ridiculous and reprehensible”.

“It just seems incredibly disappointing that Mr Seymour apparently thinks it’s amusing to suggest that addiction, and early and often painful death, are a good way to generate government revenue.”

Hoek said the environmental and productivity costs associated with smoking also needed to be taken into account, as did the social harm done to communities when their loved ones died prematurely.

Newsroom didn’t winkle out the report which – back in 2012 – resulted in RNZ telling its audience:

Treasury says smokers save the Govt money

A report by the Treasury has admitted that smoking actually saves the Government money in the long run.

The fiscal benefits of smoking have long been suspected but rarely acknowledged and a report by the Treasury now puts this on the record.

In its report, the Treasury said smokers often died earlier than non-smokers and saved the state in superannuation costs.

The Treasury said smokers at that time paid $1.3 billion a year in excise, which might already exceed the direct health costs they imposed.

The report then goes on to consider broader economic questions. It says smokers’ shorter life expectancy reduces superannuation and aged care costs, meaning they are already “paying their way in narrowly fiscal terms”.

The report was prepared for a Budget decision to raise the tax on cigarettes to discourage smoking.

The tobacco excise was lifted by 10% a year for the following four years, beginning on 1 January 2013. This was in addition to the annual inflation-indexed increase.

RNZ said:

The Treasury’s report says smoking helped, not harmed, Government finances, because the early death of smokers saved huge huge pension costs of $5.5 billion to $5.8 billion a year.

But health lobby group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) said those figures ignored many costs from smoking.

As for smokers, a group of them spoken to in central Wellington “seemed determined to keep on smoking, saying they would save money in other areas as the price goes up”.

Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE. - where this article was sourced.