Te Hunga Whaitake

Te Hunga Whaitake, the Newsmakers is a weekly half-hour programme in English focusing on the newsmaker of the day from te ao Māori.

Hosted by Dale Husband, Te Hunga Whaitake includes one-on-one in-depth interviews with those people making headlines, their respective backgrounds and their views on the topic which have placed them in the media spotlight. 

Te Hunga Whaitake, the Newsmaker, live on Radio Waatea 603am, Wednesday mornings from 10.00-10.30am. Brought to you by NZ On Air. 

Ban on tobacco will save Maori lives

Wednesday 10 March 2010

The Labour Party's Kelvin Davis says he's all for banning tobacco if it means saving Maori lives.

The Tobacco Inquiry is on the road and is being held in Auckland today and tomorrow.

Kelvin Davis says too many Maori are dying prematurely from smoking, and banning the habit would reduce the number of unnecessary deaths.

But he says it's important that a black market for tobacco isn't created as a result.

Marijuana is banned but we as Maori have become experts at growing our own marijuana, we'd become experts again at growing tobacco quite possibly and in that way we ourselves would be perpetuating that cycle upon ourselves which we don't want.

Kelvin Davis says too many Maori miss out on growing up with their parents and grandparents, and speakers on the paepae are getting younger all the time.