NEW ZEALAND – Strict against smoking already, New Zealand (NZ) plans to make tobacco companies remove their logos from cigarette packs, but will wait until a challenge to a similar Australian law is resolved.
Report by Sapa
The packaging law “will remove the last remaining vestige of glamour from these deadly products”, Health associate minister Tariana Turia said in announcing the plan yesterday.
New Zealand has already increased cigarette taxes and makes retailers hide packs below the counter.
The new legislation would follow an Australian law that took effect in December and replaced logos on packs with graphic warnings including cancer-riddled mouths.
The proposed law could be introduced in Parliament later this year to take effect when the trade case over Australia’s law plays out — next year at the earliest.
Tobacco companies lost a legal challenge in Australia’s highest court in 2012, but the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has agreed to hear a complaint about the law from several tobacco-growing countries led by the Ukraine.
The Ukraine, Zimbabwe, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Indonesia argued that governments should pursue health policies “without unnecessarily restricting international trade and without nullifying intellectual property rights”.
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New Zealand, Norway and Uruguay have lined up behind Australia in the WTO case. Uruguay told the trade body it couldn’t remain silent about “the most serious pandemic confronting humanity”.
Many countries mandate that packages display photos or text describing smoking’s health effects and some limit the size of the branding or ban certain slogans, but Australia’s dual approach is the strictest globally.
New Zealand has set itself a target of eliminating smoking altogether by 2025.
Turia said the government would consider introducing further measures, such as banning smoking in cars and public places and further hiking taxes.
