For young people today it is different. Those who manage to avoid the lures of the tobacco industry can, to a considerable extent, thank the community leaders who took on big tobacco and made the air cleaner for all of us.
I’ve written about leadership in this column before, at that time focusing on a few inspirational people profiled in an excellent book, Te Kai a te Rangatira, during a period when the general electioneering was downright horrible. Sadly, the neoconservative and individualistic values of those spinning the right-wing rhetoric are now driving our central government leadership. We hear and see their beliefs in the economic approach of "trickle down".
An obvious place where their leadership will be responsible for harm in Aotearoa New Zealand, is associated with nicotine and tobacco use.
So, in times like these, it’s worth remembering the foresight and leadership of others who have long fought to reduce that harm, through initiatives such as Tupeka Kore, undertaken by a collective of Māori organisations and advocates.
I was lucky enough to attend the world premiere of a documentary that shares that history, Tupeka Kore: The Whakapapa of Māori Tobacco Control in Aotearoa NZ. Through the documentary, I had a glimpse into the globally significant leadership by the late, great kuia and Te Tohu Kairangi/Dame Tariana Turia, and others. There were key points in this documentary that people who hold positions in our current central government would do well to heed.
Key people and key events have stood up, stood tall and stood firm.
In 2006, then-MP Hone Hawawira introduced a private member’s bill to ban the sale of tobacco and initiated an inquiry into the tobacco industry. The subsequent 2010 report was vociferous in its demand to hold the tobacco industry accountable for its harms.
Tupeka Kore, a collective demanding eradication of nicotine from our lives, was born at this time too. Matua Shane Bradbrook was key in its creation and is still one of the leaders of the resistance movement. The documentary ensured that we heard the voices of the Minhinnick family, as they told the story of their kuia going from marae to marae, seemingly a one-person change agent: he mana wahine toa ia.
The government destroys our social science research environment, insisting we need more STEM, not arts, yet ignores that science, technology, engineering and maths provide overwhelming evidence against tobacco. Science tells us the product, in all its forms, is evil. Perhaps they should have added economics, making "steem", to understand that a healthy population, not ill from nicotine and tobacco-related illnesses, will produce better outcomes for Aotearoa New Zealand into the future than the short-term gains from being in the same bed as tobacco companies.
We heard from my colleagues, Anaru Waa and Lani Teddy, as they epitomised generations of researchers. Work such as theirs should mean making the right choice is the easy choice. As researchers, we know our maths, and the numbers demonstrate that, for the first time in a decade, tobacco use rates in Aotearoa New Zealand have plateaued. We know that vaping was one of the responses of the tobacco companies to declines in smoking rates, their vape devices delivering "new customers" for the industry, while helping to keep their old ones. As scary as vaping has proved to be, even more disturbing is that the tobacco companies and their co-conspirators are continuously creating the next generations of nicotine delivery.
In the documentary, we heard from the rangatahi pressure group Hashtags that they don’t want nicotine in their lives, and that the repeal of the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Act 2023 was a very clear sign that the current government is not listening to them. I was heartened to hear from Hashtags member Pōtatau Clark, as they stand up, stand tall and stand firm, being vocal in Parliament, in their councils, in their communities, that nicotine has no place in their lives. The Hashtags are nearing voting age; heed this call.
Finally, I was privileged to hear from our kuia, Catherine Manning, representative of those who have pushed and pushed against the tobacco industry. We should never forget that this is the industry that lied and lied, knowingly hiding their evidence that smoking tobacco causes cancer.
The documentary, Tupeka Kore, is a celebration of Māori leadership, demonstrating the strength of the collective, the strategy and the persistence of many, for the betterment of all, not just Māori. As was said in the 2010 Inquiry into the Tobacco Industry report presentation to Parliament, "the tobacco industry is a killer of whakapapa". Legends were lost along the way. Moe mai rā e kuia, e koro.
The documentary demonstrated that although we’ve been here before, and we shouldn’t have to be here again, we can take on the unsupportive and actually obstructive current government and take on the tobacco companies. We have our old people, our communities, and our young people keeping us in Tupeka Kore. Tū mai rā. Kia haere tōtika. Kia kaha haere.
