I am pleased to report that, after approaching candidates in my Rongotai electorate, so far two who expressed deep concern about the vape shops in the electorate and the rate of vaping uptake by children, and consider that attractive vape shops are not a sensible smoking cessation protocol, have signed the petition.
They are Karuna Muthu (National) and Bruce Welsh (New Conservative).
They were both very genuine about the issue, but of course a little publicity on it, given the problems are appalling voters across the board, is arguably beneficial pre-election.
Clearly we want action. Candidates committing themselves to a position which reflects a responsible duty of care to the community, including children, vapers, and tobacco smokers trying to quit, is a good start.
If you are able to contact your respective candidates, ideally in person but phone or email is good, and they sign the petition, their name and their party can be publicised on this site. If the communication is brief and respectful hopefully candidates will not object to a bunch of requests, as will hopefully occur.
Below is a link to candidates in your electorate. For most of them, finding their contact details is easy.
The message below is based on an email, with specific names etc left blank, which I sent to some candidates, having been advised by one that he had signed. It is extremely simple, and it may be advisable to include more, eg one of the paragraphs in the petition under 'why this petition matters' or your personal view etc while of course being respectful and polite. (I had already interacted on the topic with some of the candidates.)
' Dear ..........
I am engaged in a petition requesting closure of vape shops and only pharmacy availability of vapes.
I live in ......... and am writing to you in your role as the ............. party candidate for .......
I wondered what your position was regarding these shops, and whether you would sign the petition. (link below)
A heads up-
The ............ candidate expressed deep concern regarding the shops, advised me ...... was strongly supportive of their closure, and has signed.
Over the next few weeks, on the petition site, the name, party and electorate of each candidate who has signed will be published.
Kind regards
..............
... address..
The link to candidates in each area :
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candidates_in_the_2023_New_Zealand_general_election_by_electorate
If you write 'a comment', under this update, just stating the name, party and electorate of any candidate who advises they will sign, when their name shows up on the list of signers I will include them in a weekly update, up to a week before the election, only 6 weeks or so from now. Each update will include, under electorate area, any candidate who has signed up to the time of posting the update.
Note - it can take as little as 10 minutes or so if you do a quick pro forma email.. A quick chat is better of course..
Labour candidates may worry about the petition criticising the current government, but may wish to encourage a shift in Labour policy, already indicated by Chris Hipkins in the policy he mentioned of reducing vape specialty outlets.
The petition was never intended to be generally anti-Labour. (Some keen Labour supporters have signed it.) It was always about the vape policies and their effects. The ball does however seem to have been dropped in this regard.
During the early Covid scenario the government saw what was happening in other countries and acted responsibly. With vaping it is facilitating the epidemic. Protection of tobacco smokers clearly does not justify this.