Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When I was speaking on this bill just before question time I made the point that it is through the internet that the advertising of cigarettes is now going to have the most effect. The Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Amendment Bill 2010 specifically deals with trying to restrict the advertising of tobacco products through the internet because that is the best way to target the young people who are most likely to be vulnerable to becoming addicted to tobacco smoking. I said also that I wanted to make a few other points that are relevant to this legislation.

One of the matters I want to touch on is that when I was speaking on the excise and customs tariff amendment bills in June last year I raised the importance of ensuring that nicotine patches were placed under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. It is a matter that I feel strongly about. When the tax on cigarettes increased I spoke to many people who suggested to me that, whilst they would dearly like to give up cigarette smoking, they found it very, very difficult and nicotine patches were very costly and some of them could not afford to buy them. So, whilst they would like to give up smoking, they found it very difficult to do. Given that, as I and other speakers have made clear, cigarette smoking has direct health effects I believe it important that the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme does cover nicotine patches. I am pleased to see that the government has adopted and embraced that proposal and nicotine patches are now available under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. The anti-smoking drug varenicline, otherwise known as Champix, has also been made available through the PBS for an additional 12 weeks. I commend the Minister for Health and Ageing for supporting that move.

There are a number of other related matters which I will also touch on. One of them is the fact that, each year, millions of cigarette butts are thrown out into the environment generally. In fact, Australians discard some 32 billion cigarette butts each year and, if you put them all together, that equates to something like 40,000 cubic metres of waste. Sadly, much of that waste ends up in our waterways, in our drain systems, in our reserves, in public areas generally and in our seas and oceans. The risks to marine life as a result of both the butts being consumed by fish and the toxins that are in turn slowly discharged into the marine waters are very, very real. It has been suggested that cigarette butts take anywhere from one year to 12 or 13 years to break down and, whilst they are breaking down, they are constantly releasing the toxins and poisons that are in them in the first place. So, when you combine the effects of both the direct risks to the environment—to our oceans and fish in particular but also to other animals on land—and also the poisonous effects that occur due to the breakdown of cigarette butts, you can understand the serious implications and impacts of cigarette butts on our environment generally.

When you look at cigarette smoking rates across the country, smoking amongst Indigenous people is the highest, at around 50 per cent. We know that Indigenous people are generally worse off than other Australians. They have a higher unemployment rate and their life span is generally lower than that of other Australians. I suggest that the level of smoking amongst Indigenous people contributes not only to their shorter life span, because of the direct health impacts of smoking, but also to their lower standard of wellbeing. If they do not have employment in the first place and they are also spending money on cigarettes, that clearly leaves even less money for food and the other necessities of life. So, if we are going to do anything to curb smoking in Australia, we need to ensure that we have measures that specifically target the Indigenous population. I hope that is one of the strategies being adopted in responding to the health needs of Indigenous people through our Close the Gap program.

The last matter I will touch on is the impact of passive smoking. Again, it has been well-documented that passive smoking has a direct impact on other people. I am particularly concerned about the direct impact it has on children—including unborn children, when a mother smokes whilst carrying a child. Children have little say about the environment they live in and the habits of their household. They have little say about the conditions and places they find themselves in. Adults can choose not to frequent a venue where smoking occurs and can choose to distance themselves from smoking areas. Children generally cannot. We know full well that every health impact of smoking also applies to children who are in the company of people who are smoking. The impact is perhaps slightly lesser because they are not smoking themselves, but ultimately it is the same. Particularly when it comes to respiratory illnesses—children’s immune systems are not as strong as adults’—the evidence is very clear. In fact, sudden infant death syndrome has been linked to smoking. We as a society have an obligation to do whatever we can to protect those children.

For the reasons outlined by other speakers and by me in this debate, I support this bill and commend it to the House.

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I join my colleagues in support of the Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Amendment Bill 2010 and the inclusion of internet tobacco advertising within the tobacco advertising framework. This bill makes the advertising of tobacco products on the internet and by other electronic means an offence unless it complies with state or territory legislation or Commonwealth regulation. The bill simply amends the Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Act 1992 to extend existing restrictions on tobacco advertising.

The internet is being added to the list of media currently regulated: print media advertising; advertisements in films, videos, television and radio; advertising on tickets, handbills and other documents; advertising on anything sold or supplied; and outdoor advertising on billboards or public transport. It is entirely appropriate that all advertising content comply with the standards and laws of our land irrespective of the medium—whether it be print, television, radio, internet or even phone messaging, text. Uniformity is, in this case, a virtue.

Many people have argued over time that internet content should not be regulated, that a systematic intrusion and limitation of content by any means should not be applied to the World Wide Web. Arguments along this line were advanced in response to the concept of an internet filter, the purpose of which would be to disable web pages with proscribed content. The argument has been that people should be their own filters, being free to choose what they watch, read, listen to et cetera. It is a purely social libertarian argument—that the common sense of the individual provides satisfactory safety for that individual and guides what is in their best interests and thereby that of the society of which they are a part. It is a nice idea. It would be lovely if people made rational choices or if their choices could be made without impact on others—their family, their community and their nation.

Smoking is one of the many choices that impacts substantially on others. The impact of passive smoking, for example, can be devastating. We have all seen the health reports that come out on passive smoking. The sickness and disease caused by smoking is incredibly costly to each and every one of us, as in this we are all connected in one way or another. We are the family and friends of smokers, the workplace colleagues of smokers or the employing companies of smokers, and, ultimately, taxpayers pick up the vast majority of the health costs incurred in caring for smokers. Smoking is one choice that a person cannot make in isolation. The consequences impact on each and every one of us, directly or indirectly.

A person’s freedom of choice in this matter is further complicated by the fact that a person’s decision at one time is not necessarily a decision that can be reviewed and amended at a later time. I say that because tobacco is one of the most addictive substances in our marketplace. A person’s freedom to choose to buy and smoke a packet of cigarettes is not accompanied by an equally free choice, once the addiction has taken hold, to cease buying and smoking cigarettes. The likelihood of addiction and ultimately consequent disease and death sets this substance apart by far from the majority of consumables that we eat, drink and take.

I know about addiction to tobacco from direct experience. I remember how hard I found it to kick the habit. I will have been smoke-free for seven years this coming May. When I started smoking everyone around me was smoking and there was no education on it. We knew that perhaps it may cause some sort of harm, but it was something everyone did. We did not have the information at our hands that we have today. I am sure numerous members share this intimate knowledge of the education that we have about tobacco in this place. I appreciate the additional effort the medical professions made to help me seven years ago to rid myself of what I call a curse, because it was—I tried absolutely everything for years and struggled to give it up. But, being an addiction, one is never totally rid of the desire to smoke. That is what makes it such an evil—continually, constantly inspiring self-harm and indirect harm to others.

The theme of this bill is harm minimisation of our population through discouraging the consumption of tobacco products, especially—as we heard the member for Makin say earlier—in our younger population, our children; those who are the next customers of the big tobacco companies, because that is where they are aiming. They are losing people like me at a regular pace, either through death or through giving up, and their next market is the young—to try and get them as customers so they can have them for life.

It cannot do any harm to look at the facts again. The Australian Health Institute encapsulates the effects of smoking thus:

Tobacco smoking is the single most preventable cause of ill health and death. It is a major risk factor for coronary heart disease, stroke, peripheral vascular disease, cancer and a variety of other diseases and conditions.

Smoking is a key risk factor for the three diseases that cause most deaths in Australia: ischaemic heart disease, cerebrovascular disease and lung cancer. It is responsible for around 80 per cent of all lung cancer deaths and 20 per cent of all cancer deaths. Smoking has been linked to cancers of the mouth, bladder, kidney, stomach and cervix, among others. Smokers are also at increased risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and reduced lung function, and smoking in pregnancy increases the risk of health problems for both mother and child. Tobacco use has been linked to a variety of other conditions such as diabetes, peptic ulcers, some vision problems and back pain.

In 1998, over 10 years ago, smoking cost each and every one of us a combined total of almost $13 billion in healthcare, lost productivity and other costs. Healthcare costs attributable to tobacco for the year 1998-99 were over $1 billion, including medical, hospital, nursing home and pharmaceutical costs. The costs of the cigarettes are in addition to these figures, of course, putting additional strain on family budgets and decreasing family options for health and wellbeing.

When one looks at the irrational decision to smoke, the addiction to nicotine that keeps people smoking, the impact it has on the individuals concerned and the proportion of the public health dollar that goes to minimising the consequences of smoking related disease one can only be convinced of the merits of this bill. One can only be convinced that the degree to which liberty and personal freedoms within cyberspace are curtailed by the regulation of tobacco advertising is very minor in comparison to the cost of the consumption of tobacco products incurred by each and every one of us. I commend this bill to the House.

Deborah O'Neill (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to be able to speak today on this important legislation that will, when passed, clarify the application of the Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Act 1992. As other members have noted in the debate to date, the status of internet advertising of tobacco products is currently unclear. Through this Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Amendment Bill 2010 the government’s intention is to clarify that status. It will do so by making it a specific offence to advertise or promote tobacco products on the internet and all other electronic media and future technologies, unless—for a reason I cannot imagine—they are compliant with state and territory legislation and Commonwealth regulations. This is particularly important, given the way the internet really has engaged young people. Young people all around the world are very much engaged with modern technologies and social networking. We need to make sure that as they communicate with one another we create the safest possible medium for them to do that. It definitely needs to be a tobacco advertising-free zone.

This amendment will also enable the making of regulation in relation to internet tobacco advertising and will prescribe the size, the content, the format and location of tobacco advertisements; the inclusion of health warnings; warnings about age restrictions on the sale of tobacco products; and information about any fees, taxes and charges payable in relation to tobacco products. It is to make it absolutely clear to those people who are smoking—those people who do make a choice to smoke—how dangerous the activity they are about to engage in actually is.

The states and territories expressed their support for the Commonwealth to seek to regulate tobacco advertising on the internet at a Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy in 2007. Consultation with stakeholders on this legislation was conducted in 2007. The legislation was announced by the government on 29 April last year as part of a package of measures to tackle smoking. It certainly fits totally within the framework of preventative health that this government is committed to. That package also included several other measures: increasing the tobacco excise by 25 per cent above normal CPI adjustments, legislation to require plain packaging for tobacco products, and a targeted social marketing campaign to curb smoking among high-risk and disadvantaged groups.

This legislation means internet advertising of tobacco products is on an equal footing with other advertising media at points of sale. From a regional perspective this will help ensure that people in rural and regional Australia cannot become the target of a social marketing campaign. The legislation will also provide better protection against sales to minors in rural and regional areas where purchase over the internet may be more prevalent.

I am very glad to hear from those opposite that, in this instance, they will be giving their bipartisan support to the bill. This is clearly an indication of constructive, wiser heads of the opposition having had their say. When speaking to the Australian National Preventative Health Agency legislation last year, I was rather shocked to find that some opposition senators had actually gone on the record as opposing the creation of that agency on the grounds that preventative health initiatives infringed on—in their words—‘the way people choose, quite knowingly, to live their lives’. The member for Hindmarsh has just eloquently put the argument about why choices in a community involve not just an individual but also the lives of the people that they affect and the flow of costs in terms of health care that is required. That is very clearly the case with respect to people’s use of tobacco.

I am glad we have got through this debate so far and managed to avoid those predictable nanny state arguments, because the facts about smoking are clear and compelling. You do not have to go far to find warnings by our public health authorities that smoking is expected to kill one million Australians over the next decade. That is a really significant number in terms of the impact not only on our economy but also on the lives of all those people who work with, who are in a family with and who care for those one million Australians who simply will not be here because of the impacts of tobacco smoking on their life and health. The preventable death of one million Australians understandably needs to be our No. 1 focus.

The very first figure in the Preventative Health Taskforce’s National Preventative Health Strategy says it all. The strategy shows tobacco as the No. 1 risk factor contributing to Australia’s overall burden of disease. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has tobacco causing just under eight disability-adjusted life years. That is almost eight years off your life if you are a smoker. Consider as well that close to three million Australian adults smoke on a daily basis and you get a clear picture of the public health costs of smoking. Consider also that around half of these smokers who continue to smoke for a prolonged period die early. Half of them die in middle age.

Many of us here know people who have died of lung cancer, and this is the case for me. One woman I really wish was here today, somebody who knew me from the very day that I was born, is a great lady called Gay Wootton. I acknowledge in the gallery today my mother, who was a friend of Gay’s when she first arrived in Australia in 1960. Gay Wootton was a young woman at that stage and obviously susceptible to the advertising pool that drew her into smoking and finally succumbing to lung cancer. I recall receiving a phone call from her one evening. This is how news of lung cancer comes to people. I was at home and received a call and at the other end of the phone was somebody telling me that their death was imminent—and it was certainly attributable to the smoking of tobacco. Gay’s words of advice were simple: ‘I shouldn’t have smoked.’ She learnt too late to be able to stop herself from the habit, to be able to change her life outcome. That was two years ago—and, in terms of eight adjusted years of life, Gay should at least have another six. I am really sad that she is not here, and so many of her family and friends feel the same.

We are talking about millions and millions of Australians who have been impacted over the years by lung cancer. We can forgive the uptake rates that were happening at a time when smoking was so widely advertised and so widely accepted socially, but the facts have come out. We do know the truth these days. The clear and present danger of taking tobacco into your body and the risk of death that it brings to you from lung cancer can no longer be hidden.

I want to take this opportunity to put on the record the story of a former Labor Party member, a very loyal and long-serving member of the party—a gentleman by the name of Eddie Lawton, who resided at Green Point. I came to know Eddie through my years in the party on the Central Coast. I received a phone call from him about four or five months before he actually passed away from emphysema. Eddie rang and asked me to come to his home to speak with him because there was something important that he wanted to do. I was a little intrigued, I have to say, about what he might want to discuss. When I arrived I found that his sole purpose was to try to get a story in the local paper about the amazing care that he had received in the respiratory ward at Gosford Hospital. The lack of interest in the local newspaper at the time was very, very disappointing. Eddie did not get to tell his story, but I am glad to be able to tell it here and to acknowledge two things: firstly, that Eddie Lawton knew 100 per cent that his premature death was attributable to his smoking; and, secondly, the great care that is given in our public hospitals by those who work with people who are suffering all sorts of diseases, but particularly the ravaging loss of life that happens when somebody expires of lung cancer.

I want to also put on the record the reaction of my nieces and nephews and my own children to my youngest brother, Eamon, who continues to smoke. There is a plea from the entire family for him to cease. I do believe that, if he had lived in a context where smoking was less favoured and where tobacco advertising was less pervasive, there is a pretty good chance he might have got through his adolescence without being hooked on what is only going to cause his early death. This is the personal reality. This is the ultimate cost of smoking. On a macro level, the total quantifiable cost to the economy of smoking, including the costs associated with loss of life, is estimated at over $31 billion. So, if you need a financial argument to add to the human cost argument, there it is.

As someone who spoke to the legislation that established the Australian National Preventative Health Agency, I am delighted to see the agency’s badging on the ‘Quit’ television advertisements as part of the 2011 National Tobacco Campaign. The agency came into being last month, with Dr Rhonda Galbally as its transitional chief executive. The National Tobacco Campaign website, www.quitnow.info.au, lays out the importance of turning Australians away from smoking. Quitting at age 50 halves your risk of smoking related death, but quitting by age 30 avoids almost all of the excess risk. Stopping at age 60, 50, 40 or 30 can result in gains of, respectively, about three, six, nine or 10 years of life expectancy.

I am pleased to see the website with materials in different ethnic languages too. The strong antismoking culture and messages we have developed here in Australia over the last 20 years need to filter into ethnic communities. I have been privileged in previous years to travel to South-East Asia with my family, and my children noted with some considerable alarm the amazing number of smokers they saw in Asia by comparison with Australia. It is very, very concerning. With so many people travelling between South-East Asia and Australia, there is a possibility for that message to be disturbed, so we should push even harder to make sure that the message is clearly delivered in a range of languages to make it possible for all Australians to access it.

As a Labor member I also have regard to the prevalence of smoking among blue-collar workers. I am aware of research that found all three measures of socioeconomic status—education, income and relative socioeconomic disadvantage—are significantly related to the likelihood of smoking by both sexes. Of these three measures, relative social disadvantage was most strongly related to smoking status.

I might add that I am proud to be in a party that has chosen as a matter of principle not to take donations from tobacco companies. I encourage all other parties to take up this principled position, if they have not already, because it does not mean much to talk about the importance of preventative health in this place if you yourself are addicted to tobacco dollars. And no-one should underestimate the insidious ability of big tobacco to get its message through. On the Central Coast right now, the Alliance of Australian Retailers against plain packaging for cigarettes are running their anti-regulation radio ads. I find this quite disgraceful. The alliance home page carries a disclaimer that, frankly, says it all:

We are supported by British American Tobacco Australia Limited … Philip Morris Limited … and Imperial Tobacco Australia Limited …

Supported by? Owned by those companies to prosecute their self-interest would be much closer to the truth. I can only hope this preventative health campaign we are running is experiencing great success and that that of the opposition is experiencing its last gasp—to use a very appropriate expression.

A number of my male colleagues have spoken about the ubiquitous nature of tobacco advertising in sport in the 1970s and 1980s. We have certainly come a long way. The medical and health communities have been vocal in their support of the Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Amendment Bill 2010. As you would expect, the Australian Council on Smoking and Health has welcomed the move. The AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, has also voiced his support. Dr Pesce has said:

The proposed new law will make it harder for tobacco companies to target teenagers and young Australians with attractive ads and promotions on the Internet.

It will help deter young people from taking up smoking and save the lives of thousands of Australians.

That is the AMA, Mr Deputy Speaker. I think on this issue those words are a resounding support for this bill. I support the bill.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I call the honourable member for Fowler, on behalf of all honourable members I would like to welcome to the gallery the mother of the honourable member for Robertson.

Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also acknowledge Mary O’Neill as a neighbour of mine, notwithstanding the fact that she is the mother of the member for Robertson. Mary, well done.

I also rise to lend my support to the Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Amendment Bill 2010. I am proud to follow a number of speakers, including the member for Robertson, who gave a very salient dissertation on the issues of smoking. In a modern society there can be no doubt that smoking remains one of the leading causes of preventable death and disease among Australians. It is responsible for killing over 15,000 Australians every year. Leaving aside the emotional costs of that toll, the social costs are estimated at $31.5 billion. When we get carried away looking at budgetary requirements we should factor in real numbers like that, which actually show you the costs to the community as a consequence of smoking. I have looked at statistics such as these which show the harmful effects of smoking, the damage it does to people and to the wider community, what it does to families, and the importance of government doing as much as it can to reduce the appeal of smoking and discourage young Australians from taking up smoking.

While we have very strong laws on cigarette advertising, there are some loopholes, particularly with respect to internet advertising. I think the member for Robertson is right: with the preponderance of social networking sites, this is an area where those wishing to advance the cause of the tobacco industry have had the opportunity, almost a free rein, to advertise and encourage young people to take up cigarette smoking. I strongly support the intended effect of this bill to make it a specific offence to advertise and promote tobacco products on the internet or on other electronic media and using a range of technologies. In order to reduce the appeal of smoking the government needs the power to regulate internet tobacco advertising and therefore I support the intention of the bill to enable regulation in respect of the prescribed size, content, format and location of tobacco advertising, as well as any other health warnings and information, regardless of fees that must accompany any such advertisement.

I got the Parliamentary Library to conduct some research for me on Australians aged 14 and older who had not previously smoked. I was astounded to find that they had their first cigarette at 15.1 years of age for males and at 16.1 years—one year later—for females. That is a pretty alarming statistic. It shows that the group targeted by cigarette companies is high-school kids.

The Cancer Council of Victoria’s Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer led a nationally conducted study resulting in the report Smoking behaviours in Australian secondary students in 2005. They found that over 140,000 Australian schoolkids between 12 and 17 were smokers at that time. That equated to seven per cent of all 12- to 15-year-olds and 17 per cent of all 16- to 17-year-olds. For anyone who has raised children, that is of concern and it is something that, as I see my grandkids growing up, I certainly want to stay alert to. We know that the early uptake of smoking is also associated with heavier smoking and also greater difficulty in giving up smoking. We should be concerned about these statistics. We should be doing everything that we can to discourage smoking and to reduce the appeal, particularly to our younger people, of taking up cigarette smoking. That is why I support the bill and its intended effect: to clarify the Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Act 1992 by prescribing, among other things, requirements as to age restricted access systems for access to tobacco advertisements.

I support the government’s decision to legislate for mandatory plain paper packaging of tobacco products from July 2012. Again, this is something that goes with the general theme of making smoking less attractive to young people so they do not take it up. Harking back to the late fifties and sixties, I can remember—and you are probably the same age as me, Mr Deputy Speaker, so you would too—black-and-white TV sets, with the Marlboro Man ads and all the other things that were put out there to encourage people, not kids, to relate to and think they would take on another persona simply by smoking that brand of cigarette. Any advertising that occurs now, as the research shows, is not so much targeted at adults; it is absolutely targeted at the growing market, and that market is kids.

A couple of weeks ago, I put out a press release in my electorate with a couple of doctors. I would particularly like to thank Dr Sang Giang Phan, a Vietnamese doctor in Cabramatta, for pointing out a number of things about cigarette advertising. What he was particularly concerned about was that we should be doing more and more to encourage and help people to kick the habit by using the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. That has now come to pass. Smokers can now take advantage of nicotine patches under the PBS to break the habit. I think that is a good thing. I know there are a lot of people, who still argue, ‘That’s everyone’s personal choice,’ but we are talking about an addiction, and kicking an addiction is difficult. I know and, certainly, people who are addicted to smoking know that it is not a matter of choice for them.

The University of Adelaide conducted various research studies into smoking. The important part to me was that they determined that, in the Fairfield LGA, 26.1 per percent of males are current smokers and, in Liverpool, at the other end of my electorate, it is 24.5 per cent. Those figures are still well above the national average of 22 per cent of the community being smokers. Further, from the university’s figures, 26 per cent of females in the Fairfield LGA and 24½ per cent of females in Liverpool are smokers. Again, these are alarming figures. They show that we have a challenge in front of us, one that means that we have to make a solid commitment—we have to commit not only our minds but also resources and, in this case, legislative support—to make smoking less attractive. We need to do something about combating these figures, clearly. These alarming figures show that smoking is an issue, certainly in my electorate of Fowler. It is further evidence of why I support the intention of the bill. The thing that underlines all this is that I know that, of all the deaths of smokers that occur—whether it is a car accident, a heart attack or any other tragedy—50 per cent are tobacco related. The hit rate of tobacco on not only the health but also the mortality of Australians is that high.

As I said, I understand that quitting smoking is often difficult and stressful, but I urge people who smoke to think about their families and their children. I know that the member for Robertson spoke of her younger brother, Eamon, whom I know from schooldays. I have the same situation with my son Jonathon. Jonathon is a builder. He was probably smoking for some time before I became aware of it—so from his early 20s on. He is a very lucky kid; he has a very precious daughter, Kyani. This is how I put it to him these days: ‘You know the health risks associated with smoking and you also know how central you are to your daughter’s life. You need to make decisions based around that.’ Hopefully, that gets through, because it is not just about the impact of smoking on the person who smokes—and I do understand the issue of addiction—but also about the impact it has on your dependants and the others you love in your life. Sometimes I think you have to put it in that way to encourage people to break the habit to do the right thing, in this case, for their families.

While I know the changes that are proposed in the bill may not be popular with everybody—I know that some take the view that accessing the internet should not be subject to any restrictions at all—I believe that they are responsible insofar as they encourage smokers to quit and discourage young people in particular from taking up smoking in the first place. In our modern world, technology rapidly evolves and social networking plays an ever-increasingly influential role, so I am told. I am not a regular practitioner of these things, but I know from my own kids the role it does have. It is for everything from shopping online, accessing theatre tickets and a whole host of other things to working out what your family and your friends are up to. If that space were invaded by cigarette advertising, it would become patently clear who the target market is for cigarette companies: because cigarette smoking is probably starting to slow at the older end of society, they are aiming to increase the take-up rate at the younger end, from school age and beyond.

The amendments will apply to tobacco advertising on social networking sites and, therefore, I hope will have a distinct impact in making smoking less attractive, particularly for young people. As a father, it is one thing I discourage greatly. I know what the statistics are. It is not about going out there and lecturing family members about what they should and should not do. But when we carefully consider those that we love, I think we have a collective responsibility to do everything we can to discourage smoking. I commend the bill to the House.

Laura Smyth (La Trobe, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to be able to speak on such an important issue in this place. Certainly, this issue has been foremost in the mind of the government in dealing with what is still, regrettably, a very significant health concern to so many Australians, particularly many Australians of fairly young ages. We know that, as a community, we need to think very seriously indeed about the prevention of illness. Issues of communication culture, health culture and their influence on the health habits of our community are in many ways just as significant as considerations of the treatment and medications which are available to people who have become ill in our community.

This Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Amendment Bill 2010 very clearly will have a significant effect on behaviour and on health culture in general. It will have an effect on the means of communication, particularly to young people. We have heard quite a lot during the debate today about the concerns of many members of this place about young people in their respective communities who succumb to the effects of smoking and ultimately suffer the health consequences later in their lives. We have seen the effectiveness of curbing tobacco advertising in our community over the last decade or so and it is appropriate to now extend these efforts to internet advertising, particularly given the prevalence of that advertising and the regularity with which many people in our community come into contact with such advertising.

We know that tobacco smoking remains the leading preventable cause of premature death and disease in Australia. We know that smoking leads to a very wide range of diseases, including many types of cancer, heart disease, stroke, chest and lung illnesses, and stomach ulcers. We have heard the Cancer Council’s estimates that smoking claims the lives of 15,000 or more Australians every year and costs our economy around $31.5 billion. I was thinking about this figure in terms of the number of people that I represent in my electorate of La Trobe and it would equate to over 16 per cent of the electors in my seat. When I think about the sheer numbers of people and of the families, dependants, friends and colleagues of all of those people, who are undoubtedly affected by the loss of life that that occasions, it is disturbing indeed.

There are a great many statistics that can be discussed in this debate, which have been discussed and which will continue to be discussed. It is important that they be quoted regularly because they are so terribly alarming. It is really an unthinkable number of people. Our loss of those people from our community has very lasting and devastating impacts. We know that over 750,000 hospital bed days are attributable to tobacco related disease. In the context of our very recent and current discussions about how we are aiming to reform our national health system, it is a sobering reminder of the significance of such a preventable disease and such a prevalent cause of disease in our society.

This government knows the value of disease prevention. That is why we have made such a serious commitment to primary care through our national health reforms and it is why we are making such a concerted effort to curb cigarette smoking through a variety of measures. It is also why those of us on this side of the House will not accept political donations from the tobacco industry. That is a very significant point.

The Cancer Council estimates that 15 per cent of smokers do not smoke every day. That group of people includes new smokers who have not yet established regular smoking patterns and who might regard themselves as occasional or social smokers. In targeting smoking rates, this bill is very likely to benefit those in that category identified in the Cancer Council’s research. If we have the means of limiting the attraction of smoking for people who are at risk of taking up smoking or ex-smokers who have recently quit and who might otherwise be influenced to start smoking again then we really must use it.

The report of the Cancer Council into the smoking behaviours of Australian secondary students in 2005 was particularly troubling. It found that experience with smoking becomes more common as adolescents progress through secondary school. In 2005 around 84 per cent of 12-year-olds had no experience with smoking. But this proportion, unfortunately, decreased with the age of those surveyed. The research determined that only 45 per cent of 17-year-olds had no experience with smoking. Of those surveyed, across all age groups, around 32 per cent of current smokers smoked daily. It is worth bearing that in mind when we are talking about secondary school students. The proportion of current smokers that smoked on a daily basis increased from 17 per cent among the 12-year-olds to a very troubling 37 per cent among 17-year-olds.

We know that young Australians who are aged 25 to 29 have by far the highest rate of smoking among Australians. In 2007, the Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer estimated that some 28 per cent of adults in that age group were smokers. It found that in my home state of Victoria, in 2007, some 19 per cent of the adult population were smokers. It found that more than 80 per cent of smokers became addicted to cigarettes as teenagers and that the average age when people took up smoking was, at that stage, 15.9 years. The consequences of that in health terms are obviously very significant, assuming that all of those remain heavily addicted to smoking throughout their adult lives.

The centre also found that 19 per cent of young adults in the 18 to 24 age category were smokers and that 23 per cent of those aged 30 to 39 were smokers. Obviously these are extremely troubling statistics and any measures that we can implement to try to address those statistics are fairly welcome.

This bill is an important step in reaching the targets set under the COAG National Healthcare Agreement for reducing smoking rates by 10 per cent by 2018 and halving the Indigenous smoking rate. It will be important in addressing the health culture associated with cigarettes, particularly for those young people who may otherwise take up smoking or progress to heavier use of cigarettes. We know that the AMA has given its support resoundingly to the measures proposed in this bill. Indeed, its president has remarked:

The proposed new law will make it harder for tobacco companies to target teenagers and young Australians with attractive ads and promotions on the Internet. It will help deter young people from taking up smoking and save the lives of thousands of Australians. Banning or limiting tobacco industry advertising is vital if we are going to help people to quit smoking or stop taking up the killer habit.

We know that inroads have been made into the number of people smoking daily in Australia during the last decade, and in many ways that is very directly linked to the harsher measures imposed on advertising. We have seen that more than half a million fewer people are smoking than were smoking a decade ago. Unfortunately, we know that there are around three million Australians who still smoke. We certainly know and have heard regularly throughout this debate that messages and images promoting the use of tobacco products can normalise tobacco use. They can increase the uptake of smoking by youth and act as a significant disincentive to quit.

Since 1992 most forms of advertising of tobacco products have been banned under the act. For consistency, and to reflect the changes in technology and the means of communication of many people, particularly young people, and to ensure that our act reflects Australian society in 2011, it is important that this bill’s measures be implemented swiftly.

The bill is part of the government’s promised package of measures targeting smoking, and they are significant measures. They include record funding being committed to targeted antismoking campaigns aimed at cutting smoking in very high-risk and disadvantaged groups; the first increase in tobacco excise in over a decade; a requirement that cigarettes be sold in plain packaging; and now the restriction on internet advertising of tobacco products.

This bill will have a very significant focus on retailers who advertise their products without required health warnings and as being ‘tax-free’, therefore advertising ‘cheap’ cigarettes. It is intended to address the gap presently in place which does not cover internet advertising, and amends the act to specifically include advertising over both the internet and other electronic media.

Following, hopefully, this bill’s implementation, regulations will also be developed under the act in order to prescribe specific requirements for the advertising of tobacco products. These will include the provision of health warnings, warnings about age restrictions on the sale of those products, information about fees and charges payable in relation to those products, and particularly age restricted access systems for access to tobacco ads. These measures are very consistent with the government’s strong approach to curbing cigarette smoking and restricting tobacco advertising. We know that effects are very significant for those in the 24-29 age group in particular, who have continued to take up smoking and remain smokers at an alarmingly high rate, despite the good work that has been done in trying to limit tobacco advertising in recent decades. We certainly know that prevention, most of the time, is better than cure and that there need to be very significant efforts put into changing the culture associated with tobacco use in this country. I am particularly pleased to be able to speak to a bill which will have a fairly large impact upon my own electorate and on the young people whom I represent in this place.

Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When I saw this Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Amendment Bill 2010 on the Notice Paper, I thought: ‘There but for the grace of God.’ When I was about 10 years of age. or perhaps even younger—eight—we used to play tennis on a Saturday morning, my brother, Martin, my then best friend, Roman Iwachiw, and me. On one weekend we went to the overhead bridge between the two platforms at Guildford station and he introduced us to cigarettes. Martin and I, being the sons of a person who smoked 60 a day until last decade of his life, never touched them again, and Roman went on to smoke 60 day until the last decade or so himself. So that is an example of their pervasive availability at that time and the fact that people can be introduced to them at a very young age.

As the previous speaker indicated, there probably is a need, despite the fact that it is known by many people, to reiterate the actual health realities. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States estimate that 443,000 people a year die in the United States as a result of cigarette smoking. That is related to an estimate that eight million Americans will die by 2030 from this cause. They note:

More deaths are caused each year by tobacco use than by all deaths from human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides, and murders combined.

This is indeed a very serious area of public policy. Our nation has been at the forefront in this area. As early as 1973 we had banned television advertising, had action on excise, had workplace and public space bans, had advertising initiatives et cetera. The member for La Trobe, who spoke previously, indicated that this side of the House has made the decision not to take money from this fairly perfidious industry. So there has been very long-term action by governments in this country. Ironically, for all that was wrong with apartheid in South Africa, I think Australia and South Africa were amongst the countries that were most draconian with some of these measures many decades ago.

The background to this is a COAG agreement to try to halve the Indigenous rate of smoking and reduce the overall smoking rate in Australia by 10 per cent by 2018. As I said, the health figures are very persuasive: smoking causes 80 per cent of all lung cancer deaths and 20 per cent of all cancer deaths in general, such as mouth, bladder, kidney and stomach cancers.

In recent years the internet has been used for promotion and sales. In the same way that the tobacco companies have decided it is easier to move towards the Third World markets of China and Asia in general, as tough regulations have restricted their ability to make money in the West—there has been a very serious campaign to exploit those populations where governments are less active in countering them—there has been a tendency to use the internet. There are a series of citations I make on this matter. Obviously, this is more pronounced in the United States. An article in the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics as early as 2004 stated:

Purchasing tobacco over the Internet provides anonymity for the purchaser. Cyberspace tobacco purchasers are perceived as risk-free. Similar to vending machines, there is no face-to-face contact for Internet purchasers. Many Internet tobacco vendors purport to implement some form of customer age verification process, but they are nominal efforts. Approximately 65 percent of domestic tobacco sales websites have an age verification protocol that consists of either typing in a birth date or clicking a button that says, “Yes, I’m at least 18 years of age.” Roughly 9 percent of the websites ask the purchaser to fax in a picture ID, and only 6 percent check the purchaser’s identification when the tobacco is delivered.

                  …              …              …

In addition to allowing easy and anonymous tobacco sales to youth, Internet vendors also undermine tobacco restrictions by avoiding excise taxes. Numerous studies show that an increase in the excise tax on tobacco results in a decrease in tobacco consumption. Empirically, studies indicate that a 10 percent increase in tobacco prices results in a 5 percent decrease in adult usage rates and a 7 percent decrease in tobacco consumption among youth under the age of eighteen.

In the Substance Abuse Policy Research Program’s policy brief, Kurt Ribisl and others commented:

(1) Smokers in jurisdictions with higher cigarette excise taxes have easy access to cheap cigarettes online, which may undermine their resolve to quit or reduce their smoking. Left unchecked, rising Internet cigarette sales have the potential to undermine decades of progress in reducing youth and adult smoking rates achieved by raising cigarette prices.

          …            …            …

These findings suggest that the Internet is being used as a vehicle to circumvent current tobacco control policies, allowing for tax evasion, youth access, and unrestricted marketing. The findings suggest a clear need for federal policies to prevent tax evasion, limit youth access, restrict marketing, and to effectively regulate a growing business that occurs across state and country lines.

The PR Newswire article titled ‘Congress approves bill curbing internet tobacco sales in victory for kids and taxpayers’ notes:

Voting 387 to 25, the U.S. House of Representatives today gave final congressional approval to the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking (PACT) Act, legislation to curtail the growing sales of tax-evading, low-cost cigarettes and other tobacco products over the Internet and through the mail.

It said the PACT Act will:

• Require Internet sellers to pay all federal, state … taxes …
• Mandate that the age and identification of purchasers be checked at purchase and at delivery;
• Require Internet vendors to comply with state and local laws …
• Provide federal and state enforcement officials with new tools to block delivery of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products …

There is indeed concern, and attempts have been made to overcome the campaigns that we have seen. Where anonymity is reduced, evidence shows that there is a significant drop-off in usage. As I said earlier, the government of this country, for quite a number of decades, has not been slow with regard to action to counter cigarette smoking. Of course, this government in particular organised the first increase in tobacco excise above inflation for more than a decade, an increase of 25 per cent. It has cracked down on one of the last frontiers of tobacco advertising. In a world first, cigarettes will have to be sold in plain packaging. Furthermore, there have been moves to restrict Australian internet advertising of tobacco products. The government is injecting an extra nearly $28 million into hard-hitting antismoking campaigns.

It has been claimed that, if anything, this legislation is too moderate. By having only the same requirements as point of sale it is not going as far as it should in countering the very serious development where young people can purchase cigarettes without any evidence of their age whatsoever. There can be, through evasion of taxes, as I noted earlier, a very serious deterioration of the incentive to not smoke. According to market research studies commissioned on behalf of PM USA, more than 800 million cigarettes were sold to US consumers by internet sellers in 2008. That gives you, in a far bigger market with a far bigger population, some indication of the degree to which the internet can undermine these health initiatives.

I certainly congratulate the government for going down this line. We all know about the health impacts. As noted by the previous speaker, the Australian Medical Association has not been backward in supporting the government very strongly on this initiative. Dr Andrew Pesce said:

The Government’s strong action to restrict advertising of tobacco products must be backed by the Parliament.

Furthermore, he said:

It will help deter young people from taking up smoking and save the lives of thousands of Australians.

Those are important statements in this area. I commend the legislation.

Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Amendment Bill 2010, and its provisions which clarify and strengthen the application of tobacco advertising and promotion restrictions that will now apply to the internet and other new media communications technologies.

This reform institutes a sensible change that was contemplated within the parliament as far back as 2002. At that time a review of the Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Act, under the guidance of the then parliamentary secretary for health, Trish Worth, seemed to conclude that no change was required. I say ‘seemed’ because no report was prepared as a result of the review and the inquiry submissions were not made public.

In any case, it is through this government’s commitment to a substantially stronger and more effective preventative health program that we have before us a bill that ensures that there is a specific offence to cover the advertisement or promotion of tobacco products through the internet or other electronic media, including future technologies, where the promotion is non-compliant, and ensures regulations can be made to restrict and control any such promotion, including the requirements that pertain to health warnings and age restrictions.

These changes add to the range of measures the government has implemented to further decrease the rate of smoking and to further reduce the attraction of smoking in Australia. This includes an increase of 25 per cent in tobacco excise—the first increase in more than a decade. This measure alone has a double purpose: it adds a significant price disincentive to the purchase of tobacco products, and it will generate an additional $5 billion over four years to be directly invested in better health and hospitals through the National Health and Hospitals Network Fund.

This government is also responsible for the introduction of the world-first initiative requiring that cigarettes be sold in plain packaging, and for the rollout of a new $27.8 million anti-smoking campaign. Together, these measures are part of the government’s resolve when it comes to improving preventative health, and when it comes to making further headway in relation to reducing the severe public health impacts and costs of smoking.

Of course I acknowledge that the tobacco control position in Australia is a comparatively good one. The latest figures from the Australian Institute of Health show that daily smoking rates for people over 14 have fallen from 19.5 per cent in 2001 to 16.6 per cent in 2007. That rate is one of the lowest in the world, and has been a contributing factor in Australia achieving one of the highest average life expectancies.

But the changes that this bill introduces are important because they seek to head off the move by tobacco companies and some retailers to promote tobacco products through the internet and other electronic media. This is necessary because there has been a growth in promotion through such media. This was noted by the President of the Australian Council on Smoking and Health, Mike Daube, who said:

Cigarettes are now being heavily promoted on the internet, and there are serious concerns that both online advertising and social networking sites are being used to promote tobacco to young people.

It is in the nature of companies to explore the promotional opportunities represented by new media technologies, and of course it is particularly attractive in the case of a product like tobacco, whose advertising and promotion is strongly curtailed. Tobacco companies have a history of seeking new ways to promote their products in technical compliance with the letter of the law, even where that is clearly not in keeping within the law’s spirit.

And as we make these further changes let us remember, that notwithstanding the special nature of tobacco—that is, a product that when used as intended, kills people—the companies that produce it have made it their business, over time, to deny both that their products are addictive and that they are injurious to health. Let us remember what was set down clearly in the National Tobacco Strategy 2004-2009 which stated:

Tobacco is a unique consumer item. Tobacco products cause premature death and disability when used as intended by the manufacturer; and they are addictive. No company trying to introduce cigarettes into Australia today would succeed in getting them onto the market.

For these reasons, this bill is naturally supported by the National Preventative Health Taskforce and the Australian Medical Association.

I am very happy to say that since 2004 the Labor Party has not accepted donations from tobacco companies. The Liberal and National parties, however, continue to accept very substantial political donations from the two largest tobacco companies that operate in Australia: Philip Morris and British American Tobacco. Indeed, these companies are among the most generous donors to the coalition parties, and few companies donate more widely to their various branches and candidates.

The approach of the Leader of the Opposition, who of course was previously the health minister, has been to say that this is a legal product and there is no good reason for the Liberal Party to distinguish between tobacco companies and other legitimate corporate citizens. I think that is a fairly convenient position. The quote I gave earlier from the National Tobacco Strategy 2004-2009 makes it clear that tobacco is a product that needs to be distinguished from other products and that big tobacco is a class of corporate citizen that need to be distinguished from other corporate citizens.

The fact is that cigarettes are a legal form of highly-addictive and highly-effective poison. Tobacco-related deaths account for approximately 15 per cent of all deaths and 80 per cent of all drug-related deaths in Australia. In the 2008 report titled The costs of tobacco, alcohol and illicit drug abuse to Australian society in 2004-05, commissioned as part of the Commonwealth’s national drug strategy, the total social cost of smoking in the financial year 2004-05 was estimated at $31.5 billion. This represents 56 per cent of the total cost of tobacco, alcohol and illicit drug use. In 2004-05, smoking caused 14,900 deaths; was responsible for 753,618 hospital bed days, and for $669 million in hospital costs. For these reasons tobacco control is one of the most important areas of domestic policy.

Tobacco control needs to be exercised without the influence, or even the perception of influence, of big tobacco. The success we have had so far in controlling and regulating Australia’s deadliest product, and our progress towards the steady decrease in tobacco consumption, has occurred despite the often implacable resistance of tobacco companies. In illustrating big tobacco’s resistance to regulation, Konrad Jamrozik, an internationally recognised expert on tobacco control, made the following remarks about big tobacco, in his role as the Professor of Evidence-based Health Care, University of Queensland:

Its standard tactics are to debate almost endlessly the scientific evidence on the harm caused by its products, to cultivate (and regularly pay) spokespeople in other industries and in academia, and to purchase influence by making substantial donations to any political party that will accept them.

Sadly, Professor Jamrozik passed away last year after a professional life in which he had given so much to the antismoking cause. He was a life member and former Chairman of the Australian Council on Smoking and Health. He did work for the World Health Organisation in Geneva and in other countries. His contributions were recognised through his receipt of the inaugural President’s Award from the National Heart Foundation of Australia and the Nigel Gray Award, which is given for Excellence in International Tobacco Control. The work undertaken by Professor Konrad Jamrozik throughout his career helped to save thousands of lives. It is only appropriate that in the passage of this bill we remember and honour him.

The Howard government ratified the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the FCTC, in February 2005. Article 5(3) of the convention states:

In setting and implementing their public health policies with respect to tobacco control, Parties shall act to protect these policies from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry in accordance with national law.

Article 13(2) states:

Each Party shall in accordance with its constitution or constitutional principles undertake a comprehensive ban of all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.

Is it unrealistic or unreasonable to think that on this basis the Liberal and National parties would themselves refuse sponsorship by big tobacco? Tobacco control is not a matter of moral nicety and nor is it about playing politics. Tobacco control in this country must be exercised without the slightest hint or perception of influence for the simple reason that cigarettes cost this country so much. Each year they cost us thousands of deaths; each year they cost us billions of dollars.

Some opposite may point out that, notwithstanding their reliance on money from tobacco companies, Australia’s tobacco control record is a comparatively good one. No-one can dispute that, but the real question is: could it be better? Could there be fewer deaths and are there ways in which we could lower the social and economic costs of tobacco? Of course there are. And let us not assume that our progress when it comes to tobacco control, cigarette use and the death and disease and enormous expense that flow from this poisonous, addictive product is assured—because there are those who actually believe that we should retreat from the achievements we have made.

In 2006, the Victorian branch of the Young Liberal Movement took a proposal to their annual conference calling for an end to the prohibition on tobacco advertising. The explanatory text stated:

Prohibitions on tobacco advertising are an insult to the intelligence of the ordinary Australian.

One wonders not only about the intelligence of those conference participants but also about the guidance they had received from their political elders in a political party which relies so significantly on money from big tobacco.

Finally, I simply acknowledge that the Labor Party was wrong to accept money from big tobacco up until 2004. We confronted that error and we made the change: we quit big tobacco money. The Liberal and National parties are wrong to continue receiving a significant amount of their funding from tobacco companies. This bill is another step in the steady march towards a day when smoking tobacco will be looked back upon as an historical oddity and its terrible impact on the health of Australians and on the cost of health care will be a thing of the past.

Debate (on motion by Mr Marles) adjourned.