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senate vote 2018-09-18#1
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2018-09-29 16:16:31
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Title
Bills — Tobacco Plain Packaging Amendment Bill 2018; Second Reading- Tobacco Plain Packaging Amendment Bill 2018 - Second Reading - Agree with the bill's main idea
Description
<p class="speaker">Richard Colbeck</p><p>I note that I am resuming from just prior to the adjournment last night.</p> <p class="speaker">Alex Gallacher</p>- The majority voted in favour of a [motion](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?id=2018-09-18.6.2) to agree with the bill's main idea. In parliamentary jargon, they voted to read the bill for a [second time](https://www.peo.gov.au/learning/fact-sheets/making-a-law.html).
- ### Bill's main idea
- The [bill was introduced](http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id:legislation/billhome/r6155) "*to expand the range of persons who can be appointed as authorised officers for the purposes of undertaking compliance and enforcement activities under the [Tobacco Plain Packaging Act 2011]*".
- Read more in the [bills digest](https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/bd/bd1819a/19bd025).
<p>It was 35c for a pack of Escort!</p> <p class="speaker">Richard Colbeck</p><p>You remember the 27c, Senator? As I said last night, I think you probably pay more excise on one smoke now than I paid for that one packet that I bought when I was a lot younger. I was making some remarks around initiatives that have been put in place over a period of time around tobacco and tobacco campaigns and, in particular, responding to a comment made by Senator O'Neill that there weren't any current campaigns running. I did make the point that, when Prime Minister Rudd came to office, one of the things he promised us was a shock and awe campaign around tobacco and tobacco advertising. That didn't come to pass, like many of the other things that Prime Minister Rudd promised—things like 'cash for clunkers', which the minister at the time had to ban his department from using and was such a bad policy that it actually never got off the ground at all. But the important point that I was making was that, over a period of time, it's not just one particular element that's going to help us resolve the issue that we have with smoking.</p><p>I did note last night that the rate of decline has slowed; the most recent figures that I had were of a reduction from 13.3 per cent to 12.8 per cent, so it's a very slow and small decline. The fact is: to get that last bit, you need to be very targeted in what you're doing—to target the campaigns on areas of the community where it will have the most impact or where there is the highest incidence of smoking.</p><p>The national campaign running at the moment, which is: 'Don't make smokes your story', was developed as part of the National Tobacco Campaign but targets specifically Indigenous Australians where there's a high incidence of smoking. It provides support services online, including the Quitline. An important element, which is 'Quit for You, Quit for Two', is a particular campaign targeted at pregnant women and their partners, and, at a time when they are making important decisions about their lives, potentially getting them to make another really important decision around the birth of their child that can have an impact over generations. We know from a number of other places, including some of the campaigning that I have seen and heard around alcohol, that kids learn by example from their parents. So a parent making a decision at a time of pregnancy to give up smoking obviously does a lot for the child as a fetus and as it develops, but it also means that the example's gone by the time the child is born and growing up. That's a way to break the cycle, and that's important.</p><p>Just to reinforce the currency of that campaign, the latest phase of that campaign was launched on 27 May this year across television, print, radio, digital and out-of-home formats. So, contrary to what Senator O'Neill was saying, there are ongoing programs, they continue to be operated, and they are targeted at areas of need. I think that's very, very important.</p><p>Obviously, we've seen in recent times the government working very hard to manage illicit tobacco, noting that, once a product gets to a certain price point, there's an incentive to trade the product illegally. Disappointingly, we've seen a significant increase in that. We do continue the growth in excise that was put in place some time ago—that continues—but, in the context of other tobacco products, including loose tobacco and roll your own, the government announced in the '17-'18 budget that those other products will be subject to a tax treatment more comparable to manufactured cigarettes. So there is a continuing process that the government is undertaking to discourage people from smoking or taking up smoking.</p><p>I said last night that I counted myself very lucky that I'd never taken up the habit. When I think about what that might have meant to me, personally, in financial terms, given the cost of excise these days, the impact on my home budget, if I were a smoker, would be quite significant.</p><p>The legislation before us is again taking another step in that multifaceted approach that I've talked about, in managing the current regulatory framework. A number of my colleagues have said that they weren't necessarily supportive of plain packaging for tobacco products but they are supportive of this particular measure, because it's about how the measure works. The opposition might want to have a sideways crack at us over that, but it's about how it works. We're looking to improve how this piece of legislation works. So it's about providing additional resources, through recognising authorised officers under the Tobacco Plain Packaging Act 2011, and also about working cooperatively with the states and territories for the appointment of those authorised officers.</p><p>Both sides of politics have, over a long time now, taken measures to continue to discourage people from smoking. We know the negative health effects in the economy. Those have been raised a number of times during this debate today. It is important that we continue to improve the way that our legislative frameworks operate. So, in that context, I add my support to the bill.</p> <p class="speaker">David Leyonhjelm</p><p>I rise to oppose the Tobacco Plain Packaging Amendment Bill 2018. This bill broadens the range of people who can be authorised to ensure that the government's plain packaging rules are being complied with—more people to measure the font on cigarette packets; more people to check that the dark green colour on cigarette packs is the right dark green; and, of course, more people to make sure that nothing about cigarettes is bright and colourful, in case it stimulates non-smokers into becoming smokers. Nobody has ever met anyone like that, but the government just knows for sure that they are out there, just sitting there, ready to become nicotine addicts at the first sign of colour on a cigarette packet. The fact that the government knows they are out there gives them a reason to go around the world congratulating themselves on their wonderful tobacco control initiatives and encouraging other countries to do the same, because, if the government knows there are such people in Australia, it also knows that they must also be present in other countries.</p><p>The bill widens the categories of people who may be appointed as authorised officers under the act. So now they will include Commonwealth officers not appointed under the Public Service Act, state or territory government officers, state and territory police officers and local government officials. All those people will be authorised to run around checking that the plain packaging policy is being complied with.</p><p>The problem is: plain packaging is a failed policy. As everyone except the government seems to know, there are no people out there ready to become nicotine addicts at the first sign of colour on a cigarette packet. There never were any. When you think about it, there was never any reason to believe there were. The legislated purpose of plain packaging is to:</p><p class="italic">(a) to improve public health by:</p><p class="italic">  (i) discouraging people from taking up smoking, or using tobacco products; and</p><p class="italic">  (ii) encouraging people to give up smoking, and to stop using tobacco products; and</p><p class="italic">  (iii) discouraging people who have given up smoking, or who have stopped using tobacco products, from relapsing; and</p><p class="italic">  (iv) reducing people’s exposure to smoke from tobacco products; …</p><p>These are all logical objectives, but has plain packaging improved public health by discouraging smoking and encouraging quitting?</p><p>The answer is, clearly, no. The latest data shows there was no statistically significant decline in the smoking rate over the most recent three-year period. This is the first time in years that we haven't seen such a decline, and this during a period when tobacco taxes were raised through the roof. Professor Sinclair Davidson from RMIT University also points out that the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission has reported an increase over a similar time frame in the amount of nicotine in its national wastewater survey, and a paper in the <i>Tobacco Prevention & Cessation</i> journal found no statistically significant reduction in youth smoking in the first year after the introduction of plain packaging. Very simply and plainly, plain packaging has clearly failed to improve public health by discouraging smoking and encouraging quitting.</p><p>The government knows this. Its own report on plain packaging studiously avoided the requirement in its terms of reference to analyse whether plain packaging had actually achieved the legislated purpose of improving public health. Instead, the report focuses on perceptions of graphic health warnings, which is a requirement that preceded and is quite separate from plain packaging.</p><p>Not only has plain packaging failed to achieve its purpose of improving human health, it has also done considerable damage. Consumers are no longer drawn to high-cost brands but have shifted to lower-cost brands, so the lower cost has helped to sustain their habit. And consumers are no longer drawn by branding and marketing to buy legal cigarettes, so the shift to the far cheaper illegal tobacco has accelerated. This has helped organised crime and cross-subsidised their other operations, such as their trade in illegal drugs and guns.</p><p>And, all the while, quoting false information about the cost of smoking: the Collins and Lapsley paper on the costs of smoking has to be the most discredited economic study ever, and yet the Department of Health quotes it on every occasion. Smoking does not cost $31.5 billion. It has never been anywhere close to that. It's not even a tenth of that. It's true, though, that smoking is a leading cause of health problems, and it would be preferable if people stopped smoking. That is not in question. But the government should not be telling lies about its cost and it shouldn't be sticking with policies that are clearly failing. The truth is that government policy is sustaining the smoking habit by denying smokers the much less harmful option of e-cigarettes. In countries where e-cigarettes are available, smoking is declining. And they don't have plain packaging or sky-high taxes on tobacco.</p><p>Government tobacco policy is sinking like the <i>Titanic</i>. Yet with the bill before us today the government is merely rearranging the deckchairs by tweaking the administration of the failed plain-packaging rules. Government tax policy is driving smokers deeper into financial hardship, and government tax and plain-packaging policy is putting smokers into contact with organised criminals pushing a range of other drugs. Smoking is a public health issue, but the government's cack-handed policy response is a joke—a farce—and this bill is evidence of that. Indeed, the government is fiddling while Australians continue to burn their cigarettes. This is bill is immoral, and I will not be voting for it.</p> <p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>
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