Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—The member for Werriwa would be taking a rather unusual step if he did not grant me leave to speak again on this bill, given the predicament the House finds itself in, awaiting the arrival of the Minister for Home Affairs. The Customs Tariff Amendment (Tobacco Content) Bill 2008 is putting into legislation something that has been in practice for some time. But I will say, in speaking more widely about tobacco content, that the previous government had a tremendous record in terms of lowering tobacco use. When we came to power in 1996, the rate of tobacco use was in the mid-20s in terms of the percentage of the population using tobacco. The figures from the latest national household survey on drugs and alcohol, which were released in December 2007, actually show that the use of tobacco among all Australians has dropped to 16.4 per cent. So the campaigns that we conducted over that 11-year period did actually work. Education, rehabilitation and treatment of comorbidities and other issues have made all the difference to the rate of tobacco use in our country.

I think we all know, too, that the more we can reduce tobacco use, the greater the impact on the health budget. It is the single most important factor in cost saving within the health budget. You may be wondering how I know these things, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is because when I was the Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing I had responsibility for tobacco, alcohol and drugs. I welcome the opportunity that has been afforded by the House to talk about tobacco in a wider sense—the excellent record of the previous government on that issue—rather than in the narrower sense in which I expected to speak on this technical bill. I welcome the arrival of the Minister for Home Affairs.

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