Seymour’s ‘light up’ message alarms tobacco researchers

Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour’s comments to a London audience calling smokers “fiscal heroes” – and declaring people should “light up” to save their government’s balance sheet – are reprehensible and make light of addiction, tobacco researchers say.

Seymour largely stands by his remarks, arguing smokers are a net economic positive through tobacco tax and reduced superannuation from early deaths – but has conceded he was wrong to describe as “quite evil” the Labour government’s plan to create a smokefree generation.

Early in its term, the coalition Government sparked controversy by repealing a law that would have banned the sale of tobacco to anyone born after January 1, 2009 and dramatically reduced both the number of outlets able to sell tobacco and the nicotine levels in cigarettes.

Seymour spoke about the decision following a speech to the Adam Smith Institute, a neoliberal think tank based in London, during a visit to the UK this month.

Asked about the smokefree generation concept, which has been taken up by the British government, Seymour said the New Zealand policy had been “quite evil, in a way” and described smokers as “fiscal heroes”.

“If you want to save your country’s balance sheet, light up, because … lots of excise tax, no pension – I mean, you’re a hero,” he said to laughter from the audience.

Seymour told Newsroom his remarks were based on arguments he made before about the role of the Government when it came to smoking.

“I’m not seriously suggesting that we should encourage people to smoke to save the Government money. It’s clearly an absurd statement, but you do have to have a bit of a sense of humour in this life, otherwise it would be too dull.”

The state should make sure the public was aware of the dangers of smoking, while stopping smokers from doing harm to others (such as through second-hand smoke) and ensuring they did not impose financial costs on others.

“As far as I can tell, that condition is well and truly satisfied: I mean, the Government gets $2 billion of tax revenue from about, what is it now, 8 percent of the population?” (The Customs Service collected $1.5b in tobacco excise and equivalent duties in 2023/24, while that year’s NZ Health Survey reported a daily smoking rate of 6.9 percent.)

Seymour said it was “just a sad fact” that smokers were also likely to die younger, reducing the amount of superannuation they collected, while he was unconvinced their healthcare costs would be markedly higher than those who died of other illnesses.

“If anything, smokers are probably saving other citizens money.”

However, he backtracked on his suggestion the last Government’s smokefree generation plans were “quite evil”, saying: “I’m not sure that was the right word, on reflection.

“I certainly think the idea that, in 30 years’ time, someone’s going to have to prove that they’re 49 rather than 47 does seem draconian – it seems almost a bit of an Orwellian situation.”

While the Adam Smith Institute’s event page billed Seymour as the Deputy Prime Minister, he said his speech was delivered in a private capacity rather than on behalf of the Government, while he had not used taxpayer money for his travel (he also confirmed the Institute did not cover any of his costs).

Labour Party health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall told Newsroom the minister’s remarks showed the Government had the wrong priorities when it came to its smokefree policy.

“They are prioritising balancing the books on the misery done to smokers due to the harms of tobacco.”

Verrall said there was clear evidence of tobacco’s cost to the health system, and the last government’s smokefree generation policy had been “fundamentally based on humanitarian grounds”.

“This is an addictive product: it is unique in that it kills half the people who use it. It’s not like the more nuanced debates we have about … social media for kids.”

University of Otago associate professor Andrew Waa told Newsroom Seymour’s “perverse” arguments were further evidence of the Government placing tobacco tax revenue over other concerns.

“It’s literally blood money: it’s money that the Government taxes on a deadly product, and yet they’re still treating it as a profit margin for them.”

Waa said the minister’s comments ignored the social costs of tobacco, and would only help an industry “intent on exploiting addiction at whatever cost”.

“I don’t know if it’s naive, or if it’s [his] ideology that it’s all personal choice – there’s no choice when it comes to smoking some of these things.

“There’s a reason why certain communities are more likely to smoke, because they get tobacco products shoved in their face all the time; by the time they decide to think that they don’t wanna use the stuff, it’s too late.”

Janet Hoek, the co-director of tobacco control research partnership ASPIRE Aotearoa, told Newsroom that the comments were “really ridiculous and reprehensible”.

“It just seems incredibly disappointing that Mr Seymour apparently thinks it’s amusing to suggest that addiction, and early and often painful death, are a good way to generate government revenue.”

Hoek said the environmental and productivity costs associated with smoking also needed to be taken into account, as did the social harm done to communities when their loved ones died prematurely.

While some politicians dismissed public health experts as “muppets … living in ivory towers”, the suggestion that smokers were making an informed choice was itself out of touch with reality.