Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

In support of the Excise Tariff Amendment (Tobacco) Bill 2014 and the Customs Tariff Amendment (Tobacco) Bill 2014, I congratulate the government for taking up what we had suggested when we were in government—that is, to increase the rates of excise and excise equivalent customs duty on tobacco in a series of four-stage increases of 12.5 per cent commencing 1 December 2013 and indexation of the rates of excise and excise equivalent customs on tobacco to average weekly ordinary time earnings, instead of the consumer price index. The last CPI indexation occurred on 1 August 2013 and the first new indexation occurred on 1 March.

This is an important piece of legislation. On the face of it, it looks simply like a revenue measure. But it is more than that; it is not only about raising the excise and customs duty but also about preventative health as well. Tobacco smoking is the largest preventable cause of disease and death in this country. The social cost of the consumption of tobacco is $31.5 billion year and 15,500 Australians die each year of tobacco related disease. Each year in my home state of Queensland about 560 people die in Brisbane from lung cancer and other forms of cancer related to the consumption of tobacco. The instance of lung cancer in Queensland in women has increased 2.3 per cent recently. Fortunately in men it has decreased by 1.6 per cent. But, sadly, we are seeing about 32,000 Queensland children aged from 12 to 17 smoking weekly. That is simply not good enough. Quit Victoria reports there are now over 19,000 tobacco related deaths each year, higher than the accepted figure of 15,500 per year.

The Cancer Council estimates that the social cost of smoking to the Australian economy is about $31 billion. I congratulate the Ipswich City Council—my home city—which has banned smoking from pedestrian malls, particularly around Nicholas Street Mall and D'Arcy Doyle Place in the CBD. Not only has it produced a reduction in miscreant elements and criminal activity but it has also seen a beautification of the area as the council has also done up the mall. To say the tenor of the place and the lifestyle of the people of Ipswich in the CBD has improved would be to diminish the efforts of the council. I congratulate Mayor Paul Pisasale and particularly the councillor for the inner city of Ipswich, Councillor Andrew Antoniolli, for their initiative. So at a local government level work can be done, just as work is being done at a federal government level here by this particular piece of legislation.

When we were in government, it was clear that we were strongly committed to taking action in the consumption of tobacco. We introduced legislation to mandate plain packaging of tobacco products. I am pleased that in the end the coalition came through—they were dragged kicking and screaming. We made nicotine patches available on the PBS for all Australians who wanted to quit. Within the first year of quitting, smokers on average can save about $4,000 on their household expenses as well as reduce their risk of heart attack. Be under no illusions: smoking kills. It is as simple as that.

We need to take steps in this place to set a standard in conduct. Tobacco smoking has a terrible consequence not just for adults but for children who consume second-hand smoke and, as a result of that, themselves die. It is estimated that about six million people worldwide die from tobacco related heart attack, cancer, lung ailments or other disease, and that includes around 600,000 children—more than a quarter of whom will die from exposure to second-hand smoke each year.

I am pleased that this legislation is before the House. The World Health Organization estimates that the death toll from the global epidemic of tobacco use will rise to eight million by 2020. In fact, it is estimated that 100 million people were killed by tobacco in the 20th century, and tobacco use could kill about one billion during the 21st century if the rates continue.

This is a curse not just in the first world but in South-East Asia, where the largest growth in tobacco consumption has occurred, and it is there for all to see. If anyone chooses to travel to countries in South-East Asia, one of the first things that will strike them is the ever-present tobacco consumption, with a frequency and occurrence that we do not normally see here in Australia—although probably our parents and their parents before that would have seen that.

I have been pleased to see recent reports in my shadow portfolio of Indigenous affairs of a reduction in the consumption of tobacco amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Again, this is key to improving health outcomes and to closing the gap. The results of the November 2013 release of the 2012-13 ABS Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health survey show that 41 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 15 years and over still smoke on a daily basis. This is a decrease from 51 per cent in 2002. So it represents a progressive decline in consumption and daily smoking rates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We are having success. It has been a slow process but there is clear success across Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in the country.

We need to set an example in this place in the consumption of tobacco and in our association with this particular industry as well. That is why I as a Labor Party member and as a candidate in the 2004 election was very pleased by our principled decision as a political party to cease taking donations from tobacco companies. It was the right decision from a preventative health point of view. It said that, even though this is a legal product, it is a harmful product to Australian communities, Australian families and Australian individuals. As a major political party—Australia's oldest and, I would argue, best and most national political party—we had to show an example, and we did. That has not always been the way of the coalition.

I moved a motion in the last parliament, on 11 February 2013, calling on all members, senators, candidates and political parties to stop accepting donations from tobacco companies. I then said, 'Mr Abbott, it is time to quit the habit'. The then opposition leader was eventually shamed, by then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, into not accepting donations during the political campaign. I am pleased he took that up, honestly, and I am pleased the government have taken the step that they have today by this legislation. They have often had an equivocal attitude to this type of industry. Certainly, they have taken huge sums of money from the tobacco industry—millions of dollars after the Labor Party ceased to take donations. By the way, it is around about $3 million that the Liberal and National parties have taken from big tobacco since 2004—from companies like Philip Morris, for example.

The National Party, sadly, has continued to take tobacco donations. As recently as 5 February 2014, reporter Dan Harrison in TheSydney Morning Herald reported that the national federal director Scott Mitchell had confirmed—tragically, shamefully and disgracefully—on the Tuesday before this report, that the National Party was still open to donations:

'Our position has been that it's a legal product, they're legitimate businesses,' Mr Mitchell said. 'Like all other parties we accept money from a broad range of organisations and individuals.

I call on the National Party to follow what the Liberal Party and the Labor Party did years ago and stop accepting donations.

We have senior members of the National Party in the government, like the Deputy Prime Minister, the primary industries minister, the Minister for Indigenous Affairs and, curiously enough, the Assistant Minister for Health, whose responsibility is preventative health in this country. That minister has a responsibility not just in terms of front-of-pack labelling and preventative health but in relation to tobacco consumption as well, I would have thought. Certainly when I was Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing, in the last year of office, I had those types of responsibilities. So it really behoves the National Party to listen to the Liberal Party and follow the longstanding and principled position of the Labor Party in not taking donations.

We stopped in 2004. The Greens, to their credit—and it is pretty hard for me, being from a rural and regional area, to ever give the Greens any credit whatsoever—have never accepted tobacco donations. Tobacco donations were banned in New South Wales. In August the then Leader of the Opposition said they would not take that tobacco funding.

The National Party, when they vote for this particular legislation, should ask themselves this question: 'Should we continue to take these donations?' If they want to take a principled and preventative health stand, if they want to stand up for the health of this country, and reduce the cost and burden of the chronic disease inflicted by this terrible product, they should do the right thing and cease to take these donations. I call on them, as they vote in favour of this legislation, to listen to their conscience, to think about doing the right thing, and to set the example, not just in their personal lives but also in their party lives, and stop taking these donations.

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