The Concepts of Personal Choice & Personal Responsibility must be unheard of when Labour are sort of in / fudging along / desperately clinging on for dear life in there, mostly in it for themselves more than anyone else ;)
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Perhaps those spraying BS about corruption & bribery should count themselves lucky they aren't in the US. Giuliani sure wishes he was in a different jurisdiction.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-b2464611.html
Some home truths about the ferry fiasco, in Steven Joyce's paywalled article in the Herald today: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/...CVVEMDIBKJNNQ/
"The interisland ferry decision was the wrong one from the start. As Finance Minister in 2017, I clearly recall being advised that rail-enabled ferries would be a big, expensive mistake in this day and age. All over the world they were being retired, and virtually nobody was building new ones. The market had long since voted with its feet and we should too. Interestingly, at that time KiwiRail agreed.
The only fiscally responsible move was roll-on, roll-off ferries, which do a fine job of shifting freight and people between islands and continents all around the world. With most freight now in containers, getting it from shore to ship and ship to shore is simple and easy. In 2017, it made no sense for New Zealand to be the last country in the world to build ferries with train tracks on them."
Obviously vaping is not harm free, but is nothing like as harmful & lethal as tobacco which will kill half its users & leave others with strokes, heart bypasses, limb amputations, major surgery to remove carcinomas of the tongue & mouth etc.
The Vaping argument are rehearsed lines being put out by the Tobacco industry to stop Smokefree2025 & unfortunately repeated by politicians.
Nicotine itself is not poisonous, its the 70+ other carcinoma agents in tobacco smoke which do the damage.
Vapes are mostly water vapour plus nicotine ( but like many things we eat & drink not good for your health)
The projected $3 billion in savings to our taxpayer funded Health System & in lost productivity is based solely on the gains of bringing in Smokefree2025, versus staying the course on our present settings & present trajectory.
There are those that argue its personal choice, but you & I will be paying for these smokers avoidable Healthcare & medical expenses so how do they feel about that ?
That's billions we will be paying for which could be spent on education, hospitals, infrastructure instead.
& then compare those well documented health risks to cannibas which many of these people voted to keep criminalised.
‘Common side effects of vaping include dry mouth, coughing, nausea and headaches. Serious long-term side effects of vaping include an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, lung damage, lung disease, seizures, and nicotine addiction and poisoning.
Researchers don't yet know all the effects vaping can have on your body.’
Stopping this fiasco in its tracks pardon the pun, is very much the right thing to do.
Either not the full information was provided I.e the cost of the infrastructure changes required for the new ferries or not the right questions were asked.
I don't believe that the changes to the supporting infrastructure that were obviously going to be required were included in the report to Ministers.
Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong.