Peters wrong on 1080

Stuff reports:

In questions from the floor Peters’ was asked if there are plans to have an even playing field for health care as the woman felt there is preference given to those injured rather than those with an illness.

While he wouldn’t divulge his full policy he did say, “there would be a full review of all the DHB’s and a full scale look at ACC”.

When asked what his stance was on 1080 he said that he was opposed to 1080 on the grounds that it has been banned everywhere else in the world because they know something we don’t know.

This is both factually wrong and misleading.

1080 (a brand name for sodium fluoroacetate) is not banned everywhere else in the world. It is used in a number of countries including Australia, the US, Israel, Japan and Equador.

Peters implies they know something about it that we don’t. This is wrong. NZ has done more research into 1080 than any other country.

The reasons 1080 is more widely used in NZ than most countries is because we have no native land mammals (apart from bats) and a huge number of destructive mammalian pests. So that makes it very suitable for NZ and unsuitable in countries with native land mammals. Nothing to do with them knowing something we don’t.

At the end of the day, it is just Peters desperately trying to win votes through ignorance.