Kerre Woodham: Smokers puff over price

Photo / Richard Robinson

This column seems to be turning into vice of the week. Last week, it was all about the Law Commission's recommendations to Parliament on tightening up our liquor laws.

This week, it's about the king hit smokers got with the announcement that excise duty on fags will go up by 10 per cent immediately and another 10 per cent each year until 2012.

This will put the cost of a packet of fags up to $14 or so and a 30g pouch of loose tobacco at around 30 bucks.

Parliament acted under urgency on Wednesday night and the bill was passed overwhelmingly with only four Act MPs voting against the increase.

Sir Roger Douglas, who was one of the four, made the point that if price hikes were going to stop people smoking, the Government should do the job properly and put up the price of fags by 600 per cent. That'd do the trick, he said.

Talkback callers were outraged - even the non-smokers were furious.

They pointed out that the Law Commission had recommended a rise in the excise duty on alcohol but the Government had been very quick to rule that out as an option.

Why should smokers be targeted, they fumed, when drinkers cause more problems in our society?

One young man was so incensed that even though he's a non-smoker, he said he would start smoking and that would show the Government.

The smokers have a point. They are very much a user-pays crowd.

Their taxes go a long way towards paying for the health care they will inevitably need after a lifetime of smoking but the drinkers in our community are paying little towards their expenses.

And although I hate the smell of cigarettes, and even writing about it makes my stomach turn over, there's a part of me that thinks people should be left to go to hell in their own way.

Smoking will more than likely kill you - in a ghastly and painful fashion. Drowning to death in your own lung fluid must be one of the worst ways to go.

But then my dad died at 60 and he'd never had a cigarette in his life.

It's interesting, though - while most of the smokers I've talked to are adamant they should be allowed to keep up their bad habit, not one of them wanted to see kids have ready access to coffin sticks.

One caller made the point that if the Government was serious about restricting the availability of cigarettes to young people, the Government would prohibit the sale of tobacco from everywhere except licensed premises.

That would also solve the problem of dairy owners being targeted by thieves - pubs and clubs generally have better security than the average corner dairy. If the dairies can't sell ciggies, then they won't be sitting ducks.

I'm very happy that we have such tough rules about smoking in public places. I can understand why decision makers want to try to protect people from themselves.

But clearly the Government sees that pinot-swilling drinkers are more valuable to them in terms of votes than manky old smokers.