Tobacco lobbyist guest at ministers’ ceremony
A tobacco lobbyist was a guest at the swearing-in ceremony for new Government ministers and was pictured posing with NZ First’s Shane Jones.
The incoming National-led Government revealed on taking office that it would scrap a world-first smoking “generation ban” to fund tax cuts, as part of its coalition deal with NZ First.
Apirana Dawson, the director of External Relations at Philip Morris International, attended the event in late November last year.
Dawson, known as Api, is a long-time associate of NZ First and a former party staffer. In pictures posted to Facebook by Jones’ wife Dot, Dawson is shown posing alongside the newly minted minister in the gardens of Wellington’s Government House. Both are holding celebratory glasses of sparkling wine.
In another image, seen by The Post, he is pictured in the audience watching the formalities conducted by Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro.
Jones said Dawson was a “longterm associate and friend”, who he has known since he was a Labour MP. “I was very happy to have him along, given the long-standing association I have had with the chap.
“On the question as to whether it reflects something unsavoury, which meddlesome minds might promote, the changes that took place in terms of the anti-smoking regulations were changes that our party campaigned on.
“We trace our capacity to have promoted those changes to the fact we went before the New Zealand public and told them had if we had the opportunity, we would affect these changes.”
Dawson served as intern for NZ First leader Winston Peters in 2005 and rose to be director of operations, helping to manage manage the party’s 2015 Northland by-election and 2017 general election campaigns.
He also worked for Labour between 2008 and 2011, and has worked for the tobacco giant for more than four years.
The Post has asked Dawson for comment.
Jones confirmed he had discussed the party’s tobacco policy with the lobbyist. “We took soundings from a whole range of people. My friendship and association goes well before the cigarette business.
“I know, because I’m the minister of mining and fisheries, that I’ve got a lot of whitewater in front of me. I’ve always talked to industry.
“I get a lot of my information about the ebb and flow of the minerals and fishing industry from within industry. And I think it’s hard to pull a conspiracy on a politician like me, when I just openly tell everyone, that’s where I get my information from.”
Asked if he’d received any donations from the tobacco sector, Jones declined to answer, saying those returns would soon be public. “I will be declaring my donations and people can draw their own conclusions,” he said.
In 2022, legislation was passed which introduced a rising smoking age to stop those born after 2009 from legally buying cigarettes, reducing the amount of nicotine in tobacco products, and slashing the number of stores permitted to sell the products.
The laws were due to come into force in July, but the Government agreed to repeal them, to an outcry and protests from health advocates.
The additional tax revenue from cigarette sales would go towards the coalition’s tax cuts, and ministers argued the u-turn would prevent a hidden tobacco market cropping up and cut retail crime associated with the black market.