30058 (2023). Hon Ginny Andersen to the Minister of Police

30058 (2023). Hon Ginny Andersen to the Minister of Police: Does the Minister agree with Nicola Willis’ statement that, “we continue to want fewer people to be smoking. Actually, what we have agreed to do in our coalition agreements is we have said the proposal to, in future, restrict the number of shops that could sell tobacco to just 600 is not one that we are going to proceed with, nor are we going to proceed with the policy to reduce dramatically the amount of nicotine in cigarettes. And that's because of concerns that those two things could not only lead to a massive black market and heaven for the gangs, but also ram raids and retail crime on the remaining stores. So absolutely, we still want to see lower numbers of people smoking, but we don't think that the outgoing government's policy was the best way to achieve that”, and if so, what reports or advice, if any, has he or his office seen regarding a correlation between cigarettes and crime?

Hon Mark Mitchell: Yes.