media release

Trying to get back-door access to a major Auckland poverty group as well as lobbying key figures in the Ministry of Health and approaching a senior manager at Counties Manukau DHB to have their devices included in its stop smoking programmes shows that Philip Morris International (PMI) is back to its old tricks.

Hāpai Te Hauora, Mihi Blair, the General Manager of the Tobacco Control Advocacy Service says that Philip Morris’s recent intensified lobbying of the Ministry of Health and Counties Manukau DHB, shows what happens when the vaping sector remains unregulated.

Hāpai Te Hauora is providing support on the ground at the peaceful demonstration at Ihumātao.

“Many whānau are travelling from around the country to stand in solidarity for Māori sovereignty over our whenua and it’s our responsibility as local public health advocates to manaaki all the kaitiaki at Ihumatāo.” Selah Hart, CEO of Hāpai Te Hauora says. 

Hāpai Te Hauora GM for the National Tobacco Control Advocacy Service, Mihi Blair, is concerned that recent media coverage of vaping has the potential to harm whānau.

Hāpai te Hauora believes appointing Minister Peeni Henare, to Associate Minister of Health was a strategic move which has the potential to accelerate progress towards smokefree 2025.
Mr Henare was appointed as Associate Minister of Health and Minister of Civil Defense, as part of Jacinda Ardern’s cabinet reshuffle this week.

Hāpai te Hauora congratulates Associate Health Minister Jenny Salesa and her colleagues on today’s launch of the 3-year strategy to reduce gambling harm and their decision to increase the proportion of the gambling levy funded from the money lost by gamblers.

Hāpai are pleased to see specific funding allocated to new initiatives such as residential care for the most addicted problem gamblers, peer-support networks and technology pilots, such as a possible facial recognition database as first steps to further changes.

As New Zealand’s Smokefree 2025 deadline draws closer, the Health Research Council of New Zealand (HRC) has just awarded $4.95 million in funding for the Whakahā o Te Pā Harakeke programme. This programme will be led in partnership by Otago University, Hāpai Te Hauora, Kōkiri Marae, Keriana Olsen Trust, and ESR.

The programme aims to develop and improve ways to close smoking disparities for Māori and Pasifika as well as push towards a Smokefree Aotearoa. Whakahā o Te Pā Harakeke is one of only five to receive Programme Funding from the Health Research Council.

The New Zealand Wellbeing Budget was released only two weeks ago, representing a global anomaly in its attempts to prioritise the wellbeing of people in line with economic growth.

Selah Hart, Chief Executive Officer, Hāpai Te Hauora, says "The true measure of this budget’s commitment to wellbeing depends on the government’s ability to combine fiscal resourcing with meaningful policy and action across all domains of the public sector."

In a first for a Gull petrol station, Kaukapakapa branch owner, Brett Peachy, has today pledged that tobacco will no longer be sold at his petrol station.

This week the Government put their values into action by voting against the third reading of the "Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill". Hāpai Te Hauora, Māori public health advocates, say this is a small step in the right direction to treating drug harm as a health issue in Aotearoa. 

As expressed by many MPs in Parliament, rather than addressing drug demand, this bill would instead have entrenched the cycle of drug distribution and harm.

Hāpai te Hauora is calling for TV show, The Project, to seek expert advice on vaping before developing unhelpful media content.