NEW ZEALAND Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced his new government’s programme yesterday, which includes repealing tobacco controls, excluding high employment from the central bank’s goals and measures on ethnicity that critics have branded racist.

Mr Luxon outlined 49 steps that he said his right-wing National Party government intended to take over the next three months.

The first new law would narrow the mandate of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand to focus purely on keeping inflation in check, he said, abandoning its current dual goals of low inflation and high employment.

Many of the actions in the 100-day plan involve reversing initiatives taken by the previous Labour government, which held office for six years. Other measures include a plan to double renewable energy production.

A number of the proposals are proving contentious, among them the lifting of tobacco restrictions approved by the previous government last year. They included requirements for low nicotine levels in cigarettes, fewer retailers and a lifetime ban for youth.

Mr Luxon’s government has said that cancelling the tobacco restrictions, which were not due to take effect until next year, would bring in more tax dollars, although he insisted yesterday that he was not trading health protection for money.

“We are going to continue to drive smoking rates down across New Zealand under our government,” Mr Luxon said.

However, critics describe the plan as a setback for public health and a win for the tobacco industry.

The government’s plans on ethnicity, such as disbanding the Maori Health Authority, have been portrayed by the Luxon government as measures to treat all citizens equally, but others say that they represent racism against indigenous people.