New Zealand Sets a Budget to Oust Smoking

Source from:  Tobacco Reporter 05/30/2012

May 25, 2012-New Zealand's 2012 budget, announced yesterday, provides for an annual cigarette excise increase of 10 per cent during the next four years, starting on January 1, 2013, according to a Voxy story relayed by the TMA. And it makes provision for NZ$20 million to fund a new scheme called the Pathway to Smoke-Free 2025, also during the next four years. Associate health minister, Tariana Turia, said the budget reinforced the government's goal of making the country smoke-free by 2025. The cigarette excise tax hike, which will increase the price of an average pack of 20 cigarettes to more than NZ$20 by 2016, is in addition to the annual inflation-indexed increases in taxes and follows a 40 per cent increase in the tax rate since April 2010. Turia said that for every 10 per cent increase in cigarette taxes, consumption declined by about five per cent. Imperial Tobacco spokesperson, Brendan Walker, was quoted in a New Zealand Herald story as saying that the government "could shoot itself in the foot with this policy decision by creating a lucrative black market". Policymakers, he added, needed to remember that the company sold "a legal, highly regulated product to consenting adults whose right to use our product of their own free will should be respected". Meanwhile, in a NZ Newswire story, also relayed by the TMA, British American Tobacco spokesperson, Susan Jones, said consumers already paid high taxes on tobacco products. Taxes accounted for nearly NZ$9 of a NZ$14.40 pack of cigarettes. Tax hikes were driving consumers to cheaper options, including illicit products, she added.Enditem