Wednesday 27 May 2015

An Outbreak Of Common Sense In New South Wales

If you were up early enough this morning, you might have caught a proper liberal preparing to address a baying mob of authoritarian, tiny-minded snobs who seem intent on taking control of everyone's freedom of choice.


Peter Phelps is a government whip in the New South Wales parliament and a very sound beacon of sanity bobbing around in an ocean of proud fascists.

He was tweeting in advance of a debate about restrictions on e-cigs for under 18s which, of course, is never going to be enough for the knuckle-dragging ignoramuses who want to see them banned entirely. Globally we have seen unbelievably stupid politicians installing bans on devices which are actively encouraging hardcore smokers to quit - 1.1 million at last count in the UK - simply because they are too stupid to understand the huge potential societal and public health benefits they are trying to destroy.

An array of nodding dog prohibitionists set their stall out in claiming all kinds of fantasy dangers about e-cigs - along with the usual cherry-picking of 'evidence' and adherence to the word of reactionary tobacco control industry dinosaurs who just can't bear to see their life's work relegated to irrelevance by something they didn't imagine themselves - but Phelps bided his time.


Those opposing him, as is always the case with kneejerk nanny state advocates, had little else in their armoury but insults, smears, innuendo, wild assumptions, and downright lies.


You can read the whole e-cigs debate in two parts at this link but it will take a bit of scrolling. I was minded to pull out a few fab quotes from his speech and reproduce them here but it's far more entertatining if you read everything he said in its entirety, so here it is below.

Watch out for his emphasising the inconvenient truth that healthy people cost an economy more than the 'unhealthy' do (before sin taxes), his lampooning of a Queensland e-cig denialist, and the cunning way he led the parliament - to their shame, and subsequent palpable fury - to admit that they admire lifestyle advice given by the nazis.


Bravo, Dr Phelps, well played Sir!


24 comments:

What the.... said...

An outbreak of common sense in New South Wales

What?? If only…

A few weeks ago a 12-month “trial” smoking ban went into effect in [outdoor] Martin Place in the Sydney (New South Wales, Australia) CBD.

Of course, there are the standard, unquestioned straight-out lies concerning “harm” –

“Thousands of people pass through Martin Place every day, so it’s important we make the right decision for our workers, residents, visitors and businesses.
This trial ban will protect visitors including many children and families by
reducing their exposure to harmful second-hand tobacco smoke".


And now it’s not even enough to simply put up “no smoking” signs. Now it’s
become a point of antismoker “pride”:

Martin Place
Proud to be
Smokefree


In the following links you can check out the considerable cost (see pics)
incurred by the Sydney City Council in placing numerous [expensive] banners high up through Martin Place declaring “Proud to be Smokefree”

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-11/smoking-ban-to-be-trialled-in-sydneys-martin-place/6459496

http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/community/health-and-safety/smoking-in-public-places

What the.... said...

More:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/the-ban-wont-stop-me-people-already-flouting-12-month-smoking-ban-in-martin-place/story-e6frg6n6-1227359911185

Thank goodness there’s a New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties. It’ll give the lying prohibitionists a run for their money. Oh no. Guess what? The CCL welcomes the [baseless] smoking ban. So we have a civil liberties organization that not
only cannot recognize the civil liberties issue involved but is enthusiastically riding the prohibition bandwagon. This organization is clueless. It couldn’t be worse if the CCL was run by antismokers….. maybe it is. That’s how far gone is the land of Oz.

http://www.nswccl.org.au/martin_place_smoking_media

I should also point out that Sydney is the locale for the annual “gay pride” mardi gras – now even televised – that’s been running for years.

truckerlyn said...

The harmful second-hand tobacco smoke mantra is their mantra so it is spouted whenever they seem threatened - or so it seems! What joy if we could get rid of these morons and clone Dr Phelps to take their places as common sense is very scarce these days, particularly in governments who become ever more gullible!

Jurie Botha said...

It's good to see not all politicians are stir-crazy fascists!

jmshigham said...

Australia has a broader spectrum of banning fever even than ciggies - it's become a place of far less freedom in the last decade.

JonathanBagley said...

Great stuff. The health care costs bit came from here

http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050029

bakerb said...

It was getting so depressing with Cancer Council, Heart Foundation and QuitVic spewing out media propaganda and stupid animated videos and calling for all out bans (when only non-nic ecigs legal to sell) and using children to push agendas. So this is a massive beam of light in the darkness + NSW Gov. is not going to extend the appropriate age regs. to total indoor ban.

So sick of the prohibitionist stance always coming from the left as well, true double-standards next to support for heroin harm reduction strategies and support for legalisation of *smoked* weed.

JLTrader said...

That's a very good speech. The world needs more politicians like him.

Peter Phelps MLC said...

Thank you for the primary reference. Bookmarked.

Peter Phelps MLC said...

It's not "all clear" yet, but from either the 'personal freedom' or 'harm minimisation' perspectives, vapes fake perfect sense.

Peter Phelps MLC said...

I am not sure I am the only one, but the "who's looking out for the kiddies?" or "why do you support cancer?" rhetoric we get from certain lobby groups makes it hard for many, especially given Australia's bizarre deference toward Argument From Authority.

nisakiman said...

Yes, bravo Peter. This is exactly the approach that the prohibitionists take; play the man, not the ball, and straw man arguments. Because as you so astutely pointed out in your speech, they don't actually have a valid argument, only a visceral hatred of anything and anyone to do with smoking, whatever form it takes.

It really is very sad. I lived in Aus (Melbourne mostly) for most of the 70s, and it really was the land of milk and honey. There was a live-and-let-live approach to life, and freedom was the accepted normality. I loved it.

When I last went there about 15 years ago to visit my sons and their families in Adelaide, I was quite horrified at the changes that had taken place. I'd flown from Kuala Lumpur, with a refuelling stopover of a couple of hours in Melbourne. Having been airborne for about eight or nine hours, I disembarked to stretch my legs and find somewhere comfortable to enjoy a cigarette. I asked one of the cleaners where I could go for a ciggy, and was informed that there was no smoking facilities anywhere airside and that a $600 fine was applied to anyone caught smoking!

In Adelaide, already the smokers had been thrown out of the pub and onto the street, with hectoring no smoking signs everywhere, and to top it all when I arrived I was treated with rudeness and contempt by customs and immigration the like of which I've never in my life experienced before. And I've travelled a lot. It was appalling.

I swore then that I would never again set foot in Australia. Such a bloody shame.

jude said...

Yep, its a pity these pinch mouthed puritans are so vocally ignorant, they really are destroying the society which I once loved. They have an overweening sense of entitlement to tell others how to live their lives, but they only go for the soft targets, those that don't have the means to fight back.

In Western Australia, my home state, I cannot buy any vape hardware, or liquids without nicotine, let alone ones with nicotine, which I cannot buy anywhere in Aus. But, I can buy tobacco cigs just about anywhere, so in effect, I can smoke, but I can't buy the orders of magnitude safer alternative. All because of a law designed to stop the sale of cigarette shaped lollies and toys to children. Its bizarre and insane, but that's what is happening. Please look at this current court case for how this mad situation has come about. :

http://www.gofundme.com/Ecigs-Our-Right-to-Choose



The money raised to fight this court case comes from vapers from all walks of life, and all over the world.


Its pretty sad when people have to fight their own government, along with orgs like the cancer council and quit orgs, for the right to quit smoking in a way of our choosing.


I'd be interested in your thoughts on this bizarre situation.


BTW, thank you for engaging with us, its a rare thing these days :)

jude said...

On another note, with the banning of the sales of vapour products in WA, several small, (but growing ) businesses, have closed, the employees no longer have jobs, and the government is no longer receiving any sales taxes, or company taxes.


The money I would have spent in the Australian economy, now goes overseas, and I'm only one of many thousands of vapers in this country.


If more bans follow in other states, the money from all those vapers will start heading out of the country as well, along with the businesses and jobs created. All so that a few ignorant puritans can feel smug about preventing smokers accessing an orders of magnitude safer alternative to tobacco.

What the.... said...

Kudos, Peter.

but the "who's looking out for the kiddies?" or "why do you support cancer?"

Peter, the moralizing zealots have been using this “tactic”
for decades. Just tell them straight out – “We’ve had enough of these nonsensical statements”.

Moralizing zealots/prohibitionists always view themselves as “superior”, way above the riff-raff of usual folk and their inflammatory rhetoric typically polarizes. We should be thankful to the Australian antismoking nut case, Simon
Chapman, for committing to words how the antismoking movement should proceed in the (their) war against the tobacco empire and tobacco users. It was part of his presentation at the 1983 [antismoking] World Conference on Smoking & Health taken from his manual on how to do propaganda, “The Lung Goodbye”:

“Such a list could be added to considerably, but most entries would be characterized by being somehow cast in a mythological good versus evil battle in an arena observed by mass numbers of people. The good (health/clean air/children) versus evil (cancer/uncaring, callous industry) dimension is the ineluctable bottom line in the whole issue
and a rich reservoir for spawning a great deal of useful social drama, metaphor, and symbolic politics that is the stuff of ‘news value’ and which is almost always to the detriment of the industry.” p.11
(see Godber Blueprint)

Having cast themselves in the role of the “mythological good” [natch], the zealots are always right. Anyone who dares disagree with them is always wrong and part of some “evil” tobacco industry “conspiracy”. It’s all for manipulative, “theatrical” effect – although there are plenty in the antismoking movement that have a “god complex” - and has been quite successfully used for the last three decades on an essentially superficial/gullible political class, media, and public. Extremists force this dichotomy: There are only two choices – Us, the “mythological good”, and Them, the “mythological evil”. If you’re not in agreement with Us, then you must be one of Them. Disagree with the fanatics and you’ll be accused of being an emissary of the “evil” tobacco industry, a promoter of cancer, and a child corrupter/killer. The zealots and their financial partners (government and Pharma) must have regular belly laughs at how all too easy the brainwashing has been.

Important to note is that the zealot prohibitionists will reframe any circumstance into the “Us vs Them” dichotomy, typically with the intent of smearing any opposition to Tobacco Control, painted with the “poison brush” of the “evil” tobacco industry. It’s been the modus operandus in demonizing the Tobacco Industry and avoiding questioning. Connect anyone, however duplicitously, with the “evil” Tobacco Industry and it’s been tantamount – without necessarily having to say so directly - to having their
reputation sullied and their comments dismissed as bought and corrupt. And after all this time, they’re still getting away with the con job.

What the.... said...

Peter, antismoking (misocapny) is not new. It has a sordid,
400+ year history. Not sure how familiar you are with this history but you may find comments by “Casey88” in the following of interest:

http://www.nationalelfservice.net/publication-types/systematic-review/the-effect-of-smoke-free-psychiatric-hospitals-on-smoking-behaviour-more-evidence-needed/

john Walker said...

Peter bravo.
Do the 'improvements' proposed by the Labor-Green authoritarians have a chance?( I hope not).
Nicotine use (without smoke ) , by consenting adults, is not a public order issue, nor is it a public health issue. It is no business of government

Peter Phelps MLC said...

Unfortunately, yes. They will need 21 votes to get a majority, but there is a bit of unholy alliance between the Prohibitionists forces of Labor, Greens and Christian Democrats. The only hope we have is if the Shooters and Fishers Party (2 votes) live up to their small government ideals and vote the Amendments down. Otherwise we're screwed. So NSW vapers really need to get on to them before it's too late.

john Walker said...

I presume the Shooters and Fishers Party members email addresses are on the parliament website?

Peter Phelps MLC said...

Indeed, they are.

john Walker said...

epistle has been sent.

john Walker said...

Peter Hi, How is it going?

Peter Phelps MLC said...

Bill is still in limbo as we await developments about the proposed amendments. It has passed its 'Second Reading'stage but has not yet gone into Committee for amendment. Waiting...

john Walker said...

fingers crossed