Health Commissars know best

Unnamed health officials, whose pay comes from your pockets, want new laws to control when and where people smoke and new taxes besides.

The call from the Auckland Regional Public Health Service for a range of tough measures comes in its submission to the Maori affairs select committee's forthcoming inquiry into the tobacco industry and the effects of tobacco use on Maori.

Talk about paternalistic, well maternalistic really.

What I'd like to see is a select committee look into why we have so many intrusive public officials and what they really do to justify their continued existence on the public payroll.