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New Zealand Can Lead the World in Tobacco Control: Plain Packaging 2.0

Thursday, March 10th, 2016 | Kate Sloane | 1 Comment

Janet Hoek, Co-Director, ASPIRE2025 and Professor of Marketing and Philip Gendall, ASPIRE2025 and Emeritus Professor of Marketing

wallet what got to showThe Prime Minister’s decision to progress plain packaging legislation “sooner rather than later” is an important step towards our smokefree 2025 goal. There are four key areas for improving on Australia’s legislation to maximise the effectiveness of plain packaging:

  • preventing the proliferation of brand variant names;
  • improving the pictorial warning labels so these resonate more effectively with smokers;
  • introducing dissuasive cigarette sticks and rolling papers, and
  • foregrounding Quitline information and supportive cessation messages on packages.

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Tax Reform Pros & Cons: A Brief Look from a Public Health Perspective

Tuesday, February 9th, 2016 | Kate Sloane | No Comments

Prof Nick Wilson, Dr Caroline Shaw, Dr Nhung Nghiem, Prof Tony Blakely, A/Prof Ralph Chapman

Tax policies have major impacts on society and designing such policies is complex. But if death and disease, tobacco taxthe perspective is around gaining health and saving costs for the public health system, then certain tax reforms may be favoured more than others. In this blog we take a brief look at what potential there is for revising the NZ tax system from a public health perspective.

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The Trans Pacific Partnership Treaty and tobacco: no cause to celebrate

Monday, December 21st, 2015 | Nick Wilson | 1 Comment

Louise Delany, Senior Lecturer, Assoc Prof George Thomson*

In this blog we ask what the tobacco ‘carve out’ from the Trans Pacific Partnership TPP Map(TPP) Treaty means for public health. Despite the partial exemption of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), the TPP agreement as a whole applies to tobacco, and breaches of the TPP might, in principle, be alleged in relation to tobacco. The TPP provides mechanisms to pursue complaints for breaches of its obligations in addition to ISDS. These other mechanisms remain unaffected by the partial, and optional, exclusion of ISDS. While the partial investor-state dispute settlement exclusion is a small step in the right direction, the fundamental inconsistencies between agreements such as the TPP and public health in general are left untouched.

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The race to be the first place in Aotearoa to be smokefree

Thursday, December 17th, 2015 | Kate Sloane | 4 Comments

Associate Professor George Thomson, Professor Richard Edwards

There is growing frustration with lack of robust action and progress at the national level with the Smokefree 2025 goal. However, it is not all bad news. A major avenue of hope for a smokefree Aotearoa comes from the enthusiastic efforts by local coalitions of local government, NGOs and iwi. Here we detail some of the progress since 2013 in eight city and district council areas. Highlights include significant downtown smokefree areas in Whanganui, Palmerston North and Whangarei, an innovative smokefree pavement dining bylaw in Palmerston North, smokefree pavements in front of Horowhenua early childhood centres and schools, and smokefree bus stops in a number of places. The race to become the first place to be smokefree in Aotearoa is on!

Ngati Kahungunu: A leader in smokefree/tobacco free events

Ngati Kahungunu: A leader in smokefree/tobacco free events

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The Draft NZ Health Strategy: Will it enable New Zealanders to “live well, stay well and get well”?

Tuesday, December 1st, 2015 | Kate Sloane | 2 Comments

Prof Nick Wilson, Prof Richard Edwards, Prof Tony Blakely

The new draft NZ Health Strategy is strong on strengthening the health care system and has some strong population health aspects, at least rhetorically. It includes phrases like a system moving “from treatment to prevention”. But how does it fare when considering the science around burden of disease and interventions to address the 10 top risk factors for health loss in NZ? Unfortunately not well at all. There are no population health goals and minimal evidence of concrete action to address the major preventable causes of poor health and premature death. In summary, there seems plenty of scope for upgrading the draft Strategy if it is going to enable New Zealanders to “live well, stay well and get well”.

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