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August 25, 2014
Dirty tricks stub out Maori tobacco campaign
Waatea Team
Posted On August 25, 2014
A Maori tobacco control champion says the Dirty Politics book shows it has exposed a tobacco industry lobbyist colluded with Cameron Slater’s Whale Oil Blog against his organisation.
Shane Bradbrook says he long suspected the link, but Nicky Hager’s book makes it clear Mr Slater was being paid by lobbyist Carrick Graham to undermine his organisation, Te Ao Marama.
He says the media slurs led to the Ministry of Health getting cold feet on a planned expansion, despite good governance and a decade of effective, low cost advocacy.
"We were in discussions with the Ministry of Health and all of a sudden when this stuff started hitting the media via Cameron Slater, things just froze up and then we got frozen out. So the power of, you could say it was one person, but really it was a whole corporate mechanism behind that running a dirty tricks campaign to get rid of you and they could argue they won but I always look to the scoreboard and see Smokefree 2025," he says.
Mr Bradbrook says questions need to be asked about whether there was political interference in the decision to stop funding Te Ao Marama.
FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH SHANE BRADBROOK CLICK ON THE LINK
https://secure.zeald.com/uma/play_podcast?podlink=MjE0Mzc=
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