The Hui host Julian Wilcox has hit out at National for easing smokefree legislation, saying the incoming government is taking the country backwards.
The new government is coming under fire for its decision to scrap smokefree legislation to help pay for National's tax cuts.
On the scrap heap includes world-leading legislation banning the sale of cigarettes to future generations, reducing nicotine levels and the number of tobacco retailers.
The reason for this is money. ACT leader David Seymour told Newshub Nation on Saturday tobacco brings in about $1.8 billion of tax revenue every year. But health experts say the actual cost is thousands of lives, especially for Māori.
Luxon told AM on Monday morning a by-product of removing the legislation is collecting more tax and denied his government would allow more young people to become addicted to smoking than would happen if Labour was in power.
He also hit out at some of Labour's smokefree policies saying they would've seen ram raids increase.
Wilcox appeared on AM's political panel on Monday morning and accused the new government of giving up on being a world leader in being smokefree.
"It was suggested the Labour Party's new legislative requirements under the smokefree policy would save around 8000 lives, so when you talk about this as a health issue, it doesn't make sense, it doesn't stack up," he said.
"There are warnings on the packets of cigarettes telling you this will kill you and the fact that they've loosened that legislation and New Zealand was a world leader in this space, it feels like for many people they've given up on that."
Wilcox was also critical of the incoming government's message of taking the country forward.
"This was a government that talked about going forward, making change for the betterment of all New Zealand's going forward," he said.
"When you talk about smokefree policy and you are unbundling that, this feels like we're getting dragged back, when you add in treaty policy, it feels like we're getting dragged back to 2005."
The conversation on the panel then turned to the Treaty of Waitangi.
Despite not getting a referendum over the line, the ACT Party reached a deal with National and New Zealand First to get a Bill on the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi to the first reading.
It was a compromise on a proposed referendum, with Luxon saying before the election a public vote on such a matter would be "divisive and not helpful".
Joining Wilcox on the panel was political commentator Trish Sherson who told AM National should be "cautious" on this topic despite most likely having a lot of support for it from their voters.
"This is a personal thing. As a mum with kids who whakapapa Māori, I get very nervous when debates around things like, as we saw during the election, not putting Māori on road signs because it becomes a shorthand for something with an intent that I don't feel comfortable with," Sherson said.
"I have heard David Seymour taking great care to say, we want to do this in a positive way and there is a way to do that, but you also know that with political discourse in New Zealand, often it comes down to a shorthand and we've seen over the last three years, particularly a sort of a divisiveness fomenting.
"I think we do have to take great care and I don't think it's the thing that this government wants as its legacy or to characterise it."
Watch the full interview above.
