The latest government plan to reach New Zealand’s Smokefree 2025 goal has received strong support from Auckland Council.
The measures outlined in the plan stress the need for continued Māori leadership in the work being undertaken, increased health promotion and community mobilisation, more targeted stop smoking services, the reduction of nicotine in tobacco to reduce addictiveness and a decrease in the supply of tobacco.
“This is a major move and a very bold one to help more people to quit smoking,” says Councillor Alf Filipaina, a longstanding Smokefree champion for Tāmaki Makaurau.
“Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the country, so we welcome the government’s initiative prioritising the reduction of smoking in our communities.
“We know the rates in our Māori and Pacific communities remain high and that’s a concern for us, so we need to continue to engage and support our people to make it easier for them to quit the habit.,” he adds.
In 2019, Auckland Council committed $2m in funding and resource to create a smokefree Tāmaki Makaurau by 2025.
This commitment is supported by the Smokefree Implementation Plan and the Auahi Kore Hāpori Whānui project, which focuses on how to support and empower communities to lead their own smokefree journeys in locations where smoking is most prevalent in Tāmaki Makaurau.
While Māori and Pacific smoking has declined, it is still over-represented in Tāmaki Makaurau. In Auckland’s nine priority community areas of Henderson-Massey, Glen Innes, Point England, Māngere, Ōtāhuhu, Ōtara, Papatoetoe, Manurewa and Papakura, 40 per cent of the population still smoke.
Hāpai Te Hauora Chief Executive Officer, Selah Hart, says “This plan is a great move for a government, after successive governments have been slow off the mark to actually commit themselves to making progress towards the national goal of a Smokefree Aotearoa by 2025.
“An important part of our movement forward is a significant supply reduction approach, removing this deadly product from every corner of our neighbourhoods.
“We see this, alongside the range of other measures announced today, as integral to our collective success and ultimately, less of our whānau suffering the deadly effects of tobacco.”
Auckland Council has a massive task ahead in helping more people of Tāmaki Makaurau give up cigarettes.
“To achieve the Smokefree 2025 goal for Tāmaki Makaurau, 7000 to 8000 Māori and Pacific people would need to quit smoking over the next four years," says Kataraina Maki, General Manager community social policy.
“The smokefree action plan aligns well to the council’s focus on raising community awareness of the smokefree goal and where to get stop smoking support through regional campaigns. But more importantly having community lead their own smokefree journey will be key in helping them to quit tobacco and achieve the smokefree goal by 2025.”
Latest data from the New Zealand Health Survey released last week shows a significant drop in smoking across Aotearoa, down to 9.4 per cent from 11.9 per cent. This is the largest decline in smoking ever recorded by the survey and a significant drop from the 2019-2020 survey which saw the number of those smoking daily drop from 485,000 to 387,000.
The Smokefree 2025 goal is that less than 5 per cent of all adults smoke daily by 2025.
For more information, visit ash.org.nz
