Brian Rudman: Forget cigarettes, worry about toxic car fumes

What on earth's going on in mainstream New Zealand? Last week it was National Party leader Don Brash threatening to ban public expectorators from our phlegm-free shores.

Dr Brash denounced "those who insist on their right to spit in the street" in the same breath as people who "demand the right to practise female circumcision" and/or stone gays and adulterers, and declared them all equally unwelcome as migrants if he were to become prime minister.

Now the good folk of heartland South Taranaki have gone all politically correct as well and are on the warpath against people who smoke in the public parks of such hotbeds of social busy-bothering as Hawera, Kaponga, Eltham and Patea.

South Taranaki manager of community services Jan Martin says the aim is "to demonstrate leadership in promoting a positive message that a smokefree lifestyle is both desirable and the norm in South Taranaki".

How dare those conservative cow-cockies steal our clothes! Social engineering's what we godless Aucklanders get up to, not them.

They're even trying the touchy-feely approach. Instead of a fine, they're appealing to the addicts' better nature with signs saying "this park contains fresh Taranaki air, please do not smoke ... "

Maybe in a small town, where everyone knows everyone else, the potential to shame is enough to make the voluntary approach work. I'm not so sure about Auckland.

Here, even though littering is an offence, 25 million cigarette butts a year are tossed on to city roads and end up in one or other harbour. That was the number the last time the Auckland Regional Council counted them - before smokers were forced out into the streets by smoking bans in workplaces and pubs.

You only have to catch sight of the clusters of gasping, sallow-faced workers, sucking away outside the back and front entrances of city office blocks to guess the count is up.

It's this litter problem, not air pollution, that's higher up the ARC's environment police's smoking worry list.

In fact second-hand cigarette smoke is way off the worry radar here in Auckland compared with vehicle emissions when it comes to air pollution.

The ARC website says that over the last six weeks 47,934 cars drove past an emission monitor that was set up in various locations. One out 10 failed.

The ARC says "up to 80 per cent of Auckland's air pollution is from vehicle emissions which causes over 250 premature deaths every year and contributes to serious health effects such as cardio-respiratory problems, cancer and increased asthma attacks".

Similarly in Sydney, beaches such as Bondi and Manly introduced smoking bans because of the problems with discarded butts, not air quality. Park staff at Long Bay, Auckland's busiest summer beach, say it's not an issue there. Maybe we don't smoke as much, the beach is bigger, or smokers take their butts home.

But getting back to those social policy adventurers down in the shadow of Mt Egmont. Should we rush to catch up? I can't see why. In the Auckland atmosphere at least, a few tonnes of cigarette smoke is going to be nothing compared with the "thousands of tonnes of toxic air pollutants" the ARC says Auckland's 650,000 vehicles pumps out each year.

As a non-smoker, I was jubilant when smokers were driven from my places of work and leisure. But to take this ban out into the streets and parks seems to me a little like hounding the unfortunates for the hell of it.

But cracking down on those who toss their butts on to the pavement or gutter is another issue. To prevent them polluting the harbour, local authorities are forced to install expensive screening equipment in the stormwater system, which has to regularly cleaned. Perhaps it's time to demand smokers carry a little ash tin in which to store their fag ends. Dog owners are supposed to cleanse the footpath after any indiscretions, why not smokers?

And it might be wise of them to get into the habit before polling day. Who knows what Dr Brash might come down on hard if he were to win.

He certainly hates spitting on the pavement, something he might have picked up from his wife who, we all know, comes from Singapore where anti-spitting has long been an obsession.

And Singapore is not very happy with public smoking either. Smokers beware. You could end up on the spitters' boat out of here.