"Smokers are the new Lepers" - MP

[Cyberbob]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/poli...-lepers-Henare

National MP Tau Henare is smoking again and has suggested it is OK for pregnant women to do the same.

A parliamentary hearing into the wellbeing of Maori children was told yesterday that controlling tobacco was the single most important thing the Government could do.

Mr Henare, who has publicly struggled to give up smoking, took offence at that.

Smokers were paying for their own healthcare through their $1.5 billion tax bill and were sick of being looked down upon, he said.

"One of the things, as a smoker and smokers hate, is having this feeling of being ostracised in their community, being told off, being treated like some sort of pariah."

It was "seriously depressing" having to go outside in the cold to smoke. "We are the new lepers of the community."

Discipline required to raise kids, that's easy.
Discipline required to quit smoking? too hard.

[fixed_truth]

Lepers of the community gotta be better than smoking being cool I suppose.

Keep hiking prices up and free champix imo. Let's be honest, how many smokers don't really want to quit?

[Deadmeat]

Wanting to smoke in your own space? Fine.
Complaining of butthurt because others don't want to put up with your habit? GTFO.

[xor]

I wonder how much money lobbyists gave him to say that

[TnT]

And this just in Tau Henare is fucking idiot.

Now here's Jim with sport.

[Dusty]

Why do we have this guy in parliament? Who voted him in?

[chubby]

For nearly 20 years, Mr Dunne has taken a public position opposed to tobacco control. In 1987, while an Undersecretary of Health in the Labour Government, he was reported as describing those who wanted a ban on tobacco advertising as ‘elitist zealots’.1 Since he left the Labour Party in 1994, he has consistently voted against tobacco control initiatives.
Mr Dunne has described the efforts in New Zealand to prevent the sale of tobacco to underage children as ‘fascist’,2 and tobacco control spending as a ‘scandalous waste of money in pursuit of some health zealots’ beady eyed political correctness.’3 Mr Dunne also described the 2003 New Zealand legislation for smokefree bars as ‘extremism

http://journal.nzma.org.nz/journal/118-1226/1765/

plenty of wankers in parliament.

[TnT]

Originally Posted by Dusty

Why do we have this guy in parliament? Who voted him in?

I see what you did there.