Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, I am happy to forward you a copy of the Hansard post this to aid the process, but the point is, in relation to this bill: can the government get it right? Has the government got the right mix in the black letter law that it provides in this bill? Can the government implement policy in this area that is going to be effective? That is the question in relation to this bill that is before this House.

This government has taken a particular course of action. I have outlined the history in this area of public policy. I do think it is incredibly important for the House to consider whether they believe this government can introduce the changes they have before the House. When we examine clause by clause every aspect of this bill, the questions need to be: is the government opening the taxpayers up to liability and will we see the reduction in smoking that we all want? These are the questions that need to be asked. It is rightly put in terms of the historical context because these are the very issues that the minister herself raised in relation to this bill. Why are we at a point in history where we do have low smoking rates? What has contributed to low smoking rates? These are issues which the minister has publicly discussed and which we have debated in this chamber and in the public eye otherwise. These are issues which are rightly addressed as part of this debate.

Can the government get it right in terms of plain packaging? Is this the start of plain packaging, as the government might like us to believe? No, it is not. As I said before, when the graphic health warnings were introduced in 2006 by a Liberal government that was in effect taking away from the bling of packaging that young people saw when they purchased packets of cigarettes. This is a reasonable question to ask as part of this debate: do the Australian public believe that the Gillard government has the ability to introduce these changes, however well intentioned they may be? We want to assist in every way possible the government to reduce smoking rates.

I think it is for the public to judge whether there is a case for the political way in which the government have conducted themselves in this debate. I think it has been a shameful exercise. We want to make sure when we get into government that we do not use the issue of reducing smoking rates, particularly for young people and in Indigenous communities, as some sort of a blunt political axe. I think all of that will be for the people to judge at the upcoming election. I ask people to judge this government by their performance so far.

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