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Former health minister Khairy Jamaluddin has accused two cabinet ministers and someone he refers to as “the gaffer” of obstructing a bill to ban people born after 2007 from buying or consuming nicotine products.
Khairy in a post on Instagram claimed the two ministers were Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Legal and Institutional Reform) Azalina Othman Said and Tourism Minister Tiong King Sing.
As for “the gaffer”, it is likely to refer to Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim because it is a British slang term that means “boss”.
Although Putrajaya did not provide an update on the bill, health watchdog CodeBlue claimed the cabinet had decided to drop provisions related to the age-based ban on tobacco and vaping, commonly referred to as the “ending generation”, from the Smoking Products Control Bill to Public Health 2023.
According to CodeBlue, Attorney General Ahmad Terrirudin Mohd Salleh believes that the GEG provision violates the constitution” because it is against Article 8 of the Federal Constitution which guarantees equality before the law.
“To the (Attorney General’s Department), there will be two sets of laws for two different groups of people based on age,” a source told CodeBlue.
Khairy, the original drafter of the bill said the way the cabinet handled the bill was “absolutely baffling.”
He said that when he handled the bill, the AGC never objected but that stance has now reportedly changed.
“You know why? The fiercest critic of GEG is none other than the law minister himself. He doesn’t want it passed.
“GEG’s biggest opponents in the cabinet are the law minister, the tourism minister and the ‘gaffer’,” he said.
Khairy has repeatedly argued that the GEG Bill is necessary to protect public health because spending on the treatment of smoking and vaping-related illnesses is far higher than the taxes collected from the industry.
When the Smoking Product Control Bill for Public Health 2023 was drafted around 2022 and presented in June 2023, the attorney general at that time was Idrus Harun.
Idrus was replaced by Terrirudin last September.
When contacted, Azalina told Malaysiakini that the attorney general is the legal advisor to the cabinet in accordance with Article 145 (2) of the Federal Constitution.
“Therefore, as the legal advisor to the cabinet, the AGC has presented their legal views on the GEG during the cabinet meeting.
“All ministers have the prerogative right as members of the cabinet to present their views on any matter including this bill paper but ultimately, the cabinet is collectively responsible for the decisions made.
“By the way, who is the ‘gaffer’, if I may ask,” asked Azalina.
Although Azalina did not publicly comment on the provisions of the GEG Bill, Tiong once told parliament last year that the measures set out in the draft bill were too strict and would unfairly punish low-income earners.
Tiong was not a member of the cabinet at that time, Malaysiakini reported.
Meanwhile, New Sin Yew’s lawyer through a tweet on the X platform argued that Article 8 allows discrimination if there is an “understandable difference” and if the discrimination pursues a “legitimate objective”.
“There is an ‘intelligible difference’ because it clearly identifies a class born before a certain time cannot smoke.
“Public health is a legitimate objective,” wrote New, who suggested that the way around that would be to refine the wording in the GEG bill.
