May 16, 2019
Taxes keeping Māori smokers in poverty
A Māori tobacco researcher says high taxes on tobacco products are a huge burden on Māori society.
Dr Marewa Glover is critical of smoking reduction policies that rely on price signals through high taxes rather than supporting alternatives like vaping or programmes that specifically target Māori.
She says the $1.1 billion the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research estimates Māori paid last year in taxes on tobacco, alcohol and gambling dwarfs the $20 million paid out in treaty settlements.
"So these taxes, this amount, $723 million in tobacco tax, $264 million from alcohol, $161 million from gambling taxes, these amounts are coming from the same people. If you add on petrol tax, the rents going up, this is crushing. It's keeping our people in poverty," Dr Glover says.
She says no Government has done anything effective to reduce the disparity between Māori and non-Māori smoking, so the Pākehā smoking rate is now just 13 percent against 33.5 percent for Māori.
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