Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) recognises that:

(a) tobacco is still the single most preventable cause of death and disease in Australia;

(b) there was over 19,000 tobacco related deaths in 2012 in Australia; and

(c) the social cost of smoking is as high as $31 billion a year in Australia;

(2) notes that mandatory plain packaging of tobacco took effect in Australia on 1 December 2012; and

(3) calls on all Members, Senators, candidates and political parties to stop accepting donations from tobacco companies.

In a cruel twist of irony, the Marlboro Man died of lung cancer. Actually, it has been reported that three of the actors who appeared in one of the most successful advertising campaigns of all time have died from cancer. One of those actors was Wayne McLaren. He contracted lung cancer in the early 1990s. He had been a smoker for 25 years and died at the age of 51 in 1992. The Philip Morris company initially tried to deny that McLaren had appeared in the ads but later admitted he had. McLaren spent his last few years testifying in favour of antismoking legislation and trying to convince Philip Morris to limit tobacco advertising. It is said that some of his last words were: 'Take care of the children. Tobacco will kill you and I'm living proof of it.'

Tobacco smoking is the largest preventable cause of disease and death in this nation. Lung cancer is the leading cancer related cause of death, and tobacco smoking is by far the leading cause of lung cancer. Each year, over 560 people die from lung cancer in Brisbane alone, in my home state of Queensland. The incidence of lung cancer in Queensland women has increased 2.3 per cent, while the incidence in men has dropped by 1.6 per cent, according to Cancer Council Queensland. Smoking harms men and women. Women who smoke tobacco are more likely to develop cervical cancer and have a higher risk of having stillborn and low-birth-weight babies. They risk reduced fertility and complications during pregnancy and childbirth. It is disturbing that 32,000 Queensland schoolchildren aged 12 to 17 are smoking weekly. There is significant research that links tobacco smoking with social disadvantage in Australia. Quit Victoria reports that there are now over 19,000 tobacco related deaths each year.

It is imperative that we do all that we can to reduce the incidence of tobacco smoking. Australia is considered a mature market, meaning that tobacco use is in decline. South-East Asia is now big tobacco's largest market, with six million new smokers recruited in 2009 and another 30 million expected to be added by 2014. The World Health Organization calculates that, of the six million people who will die from tobacco use each year, 80 per cent will be in the developing world. Big Tobacco is determined to get young people in developing countries hooked, and their exploitation is a tragedy.

This federal Labor government is renowned through the world for its stance against Big Tobacco. I commend the former Attorney-General and Minister for Health and Ageing, the member for Gellibrand, for her courage in taking on and tackling tobacco smoking. Thanks to legislation passed in the House, Australia now has the toughest and most comprehensive antismoking measures in the world. Plain packaging laws have come into effect, and there are many other things that we have done, including listing nicotine patches on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme to reduce the price of those patches, producing rounds of antismoking ads and the like. Sadly, still 15 per cent of Australians are daily smokers—compared with about 50 per cent after the Second World War. The social cost, according to the Cancer Council, is $31 billion. Locally, I congratulate the Ipswich City Council for its stance against smoking, banning it from pedestrian malls such as the Nicholas Street Mall and D'Arcy Doyle Place in the CBD.

All of this is why the Labor Party refuses to accept donations from tobacco companies, and has for years. The Liberal and National parties have long been friends of the tobacco industry. In the 2011 financial year, the coalition accepted almost $263,000 from Big Tobacco—Philip Morris and British American Tobacco. Since 2004, Big Tobacco has donated almost $2 million to the Liberal and National parties. On top of that, in the 2011 financial year Imperial Tobacco and Philip Morris invested $4.74 million in political advertising against the federal Labor government's plain packaging of tobacco products initiative.

The former Howard government health minister and current Leader of the Opposition infamously said on the ABC's AM program in 2009:

… I personally would not get hung up on something, in my view, as trivial as smoking while the kids are in the car.

And former Liberal senator Nick Minchin infamously said on Q&A in 2010 that smokers die early and actually save us money.   How Orwellian. The influence of Big Tobacco is all too pervasive, and there is a list of former Liberal Party identities, like Graeme Morris, Tony Barry, Nick Greiner and Chris Argent, all working for Big Tobacco. It is time for all of us—parties, individuals and MPs—to cut ties to Big Tobacco. It is time to say no to tobacco donations. It is time for the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Abbott, to kick the habit and say no to tobacco donations.

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve the right to speak.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In Australia, smoking is the largest single cause of death and disease, with about 290 people dying from a smoking related illness every week and a total of 15,500 people dying every year. Smoking rates have significantly declined over the years, but there are still 16.4 per cent of Australian males aged 14 and over, and 13.9 per cent of females aged 14 and over smoking in Australia. They are terrible statistics. These numbers are still much higher than we would like to see, yet when we consider that 72 per cent of men were smoking in 1945 and 33 per cent of women were smoking in 1976 we have can see how low the numbers have dropped. The drop in numbers has occurred as a result of sustained federal, state and territory government education campaigns and tobacco control strategies, including tobacco taxes and advertising restrictions. Amongst men, the highest rates of daily smoking are those aged 30 to 39 and 40 to 49, and for women, amongst those aged 40 to 49. Many of these smokers will have been smoking for at least 20 years of their life—20 years of doing damage to their bodies and also damage to the bodies of those affected by their second-hand passive smoke.

Quitting smoking at any age will have health benefits, and obviously the earlier you stop the better. Quitline details the benefits of quitting which can start to occur as early as only 12 hours after quitting when almost all the nicotine is out of your body. After 24 hours the carbon monoxide, a highly toxic gas, has dramatically decreased in a smoker's bloodstream and oxygen has increased. After a year of not smoking, a person will have halved the risk of dying from heart disease of that of a continuing smoker, and after a decade the risk of lung cancer is less than half of a continuing smoker and continues to decline. Despite these benefits many people continue to smoke. Why? Why do they do this? Perhaps because quitting smoking is one of the most difficult things a person can do.

The United States Surgeon General, Regina Benjamin, has stated that tobacco products are as addictive as heroin. Given 80 per cent of smokers have tried to quit but failed, the strength of the dependence on smoking is clear. I can honestly say I have never put a smoke to my lips. The fact that I am out of breath is due to the fact that I have run all the way from the Senate to get here because it is such an important issue and I wanted to have my words recorded on this. The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners identifies smoking as the behavioural risk factor responsible for the highest level of preventable and premature death in Australia, even though the smoking rate continues to fall. The college recognises that, if a general practitioner can stop two potential lifelong smokers, they have saved a life. There is no other intervention for a common problem which is this effective.

Whilst someone who is already smoking is likely to continue to do so, we do not really understand why people choose to take up smoking in the first place. There are multitudes of educational campaigns available, yet studies show that many people remain unaware of the extent of the impact of smoking on the body. They know smoking is bad, just not how bad. This is particularly concerning amongst young people. Schools run educational programs, messages are promoted through television programs, and even friends tell each other about the dangers and consequences of smoking. It is therefore shocking and highly concerning that a 2011 survey of Australian school students found current smoking rates amongst boys aged 12 to 17 to be seven per cent and amongst girls in the same aged bracket to be 6.3 per cent. Why do children so young want to smoke, and where are they getting access to tobacco products?

In my electorate of Riverina, the TAFE NSW Riverina Institute became a smoke-free workplace on 10 April last year. This was done to align with community expectations about smoking zones, and the institute also put systems in place to support staff and students who may have used the smoke-free measure as an inspiration to quit. There can be no better means of helping to curb smoking and to stop it being taken up in the first place than with education campaigns. Whilst current campaigns are working, we need to continue to work on finding the reasons why people initially take it up and then choose to continue to do so. Australia has great support networks such as Quitline to assist those who do wish to give up, and it is important we remember it has to be an individual's decision to quit, but we can ensure there are plenty of measures in place to support them during this difficult time.

My father, Lance, passed away through lung cancer in 2008. I can honestly say that any measures that help save a life from smoking is a measure well worth taking.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is something I do not think I have ever done before, but I commend the member for Riverina for his contribution, and I pass on my kind thoughts to him for his family. In rising to support this motion put forward by the member of the Blair, I think there is a lot of bipartisan support for the motion and the idea that the government needs to recognise that tobacco is still Australia's single most preventative cause of death. At least three million Australians still smoke regularly. Unlike the member for Riverina, I cannot say I have never had a smoke. Thankfully, I did give up back in the seventies when I was still a kid. But, sadly, not before I hooked my older sister, Kerry Shearer, and she still hounds me over that. Out of the nine children who are alive in my family, three of them still smoke. So we are certainly a smoking family. Sadly, smoking kills more than 19,000 Australians every year, and I was horrified to see, when researching this, that it went up from 16,000 in 2003.

Smoking costs society more than $31 billion a year. If all those Australians who smoke were to stop smoking, that would actually create enough money to almost half-fill the opposition's budget black hole, so it is obviously something that there should be bipartisan support for. We must do more to discourage people from smoking and I appeal to all those that have spoken or will speak—members, senators, candidates and political parties—to stop accepting donations from tobacco companies. I was horrified to hear some of those figures from the member from Blair of the amount of money that has rolled into the coffers of those opposite over the last few years from tobacco companies. Obviously, the Labor Government today, in 2013, is no friend of tobacco. Already we have increased the excise by 25 per cent to make smoking less affordable.

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Moreton will resume his seat. The member for Dawson on a point of order.

George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on a point of order. The National Party does not receive funding from tobacco.

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Dawson knows that there are other means in which he can make a contribution. The member for Moreton.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I just confirm that the Liberal-National Party in Queensland receives money from the big tobacco companies. That is the fact. There is opportunity for me to correct the record but that is the actual fact. I was interested to see the member for Dawson rise on that point of order.

The reality is that the Labor government has taken significant steps. We have increased the excise by 25 per cent to make smoking less affordable. We have a great record on tobacco control. We have plain packaging because we introduced the world's first legislation for plain packaging for tobacco products. That was the last front for marketing tobacco products. That legislation was not supported by those opposite. We have also banned internet advertising.

Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Primary Healthcare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's wrong.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Would you like me to show you the tweets that were made by those opposite in terms of not supporting the plain packaging?

Dr Southcott interjecting—

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Boothby will desist from interjecting. The member for Moreton has the call.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry, Deputy Speaker, I stand corrected by the member for Boothby on that. The nanny-state postcards that I received were not from the Liberal Party. I should stress that, although the nanny-state campaign was certainly supported by some members opposite. I particularly commend the courage of the former Attorney-General, the member for Gellibrand, Nicola Roxon, for her stance on this.

We put nicotine patches on the PBS, making them more affordable, especially for pensioners and low-income earners. And we have had 111,900 dispensed between February and June, which means lives have been saved because people have stopped smoking. We have the social marketing campaign, under which $85 million was invested in campaigns to encourage Australians to quit smoking. The Quitline investment of $5 million was so that people get the support when they need to get off the darbs.

Obviously, Indigenous communities have been particularly vulnerable to advertising techniques because their smoking rates have increased—particularly for Indigenous women—so we are putting $100 million into Closing the Gap programs across 57 regions in Australia. There has been a record $872 million invested in preventative health programs, including in Tackling Smoking programs through workplaces and councils.

Sadly, the Liberal Party does not have the same view as the Labor Party in terms of refusing endorsements from large companies including Big Tobacco like British American Tobacco and Phillip Morris. With $2 million since 2004, obviously the head of that organisation, Brian Loughnane, has made the decision to keep on accepting that money. Obviously the Leader of the Opposition has made his decision to keep on accepting that money. (Time expired)

Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Primary Healthcare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the very important issue of tobacco control in Australia. Currently, smoking is a leading cause of preventable death and disease in Australia. There are approximately 3.3 million Australians who still smoke. Half of all long-term smokers will die prematurely because they smoked. The cost of smoking to the community was $31.5 billion in 2004-05, and it would be of a similar order of magnitude today.

In 2010, 15.1 per cent of people over 14 years old were smoking daily but that has come down considerably from 24.3 per cent 20 years earlier. Australia has much to be proud of in the efforts to reduce the incidence of smoking. We have some of the lowest rates of smoking in the world. However, there is still much more to be done. When you look at what has happened to smoking rates over the last 30 years you find that Australia has seen the largest declines in the rates of smoking. And it is not something that has been occurring all around the world. We have seen drops in smoking rates amongst women in the order of 40 per cent, and that has been matched by some of the Scandinavian countries. But if you look at Europe you find that they have seen increases in female smoking rates over the same time period: five or six per cent in countries like France and Germany, and an incredible 44 per cent in Greece.

Australia has been particularly successful in reducing the smoking rates through a multi-pronged strategy which involves state governments, local governments and the federal government, and addressing all aspects of tobacco control. But there are still significant disparities in the incidence of smoking within certain social demographics. We still see much higher smoking rates amongst lower socio-economic groups. The unemployed, the homeless, the imprisoned, those suffering mental illness and those with drug or alcohol dependencies are much more likely to smoke. Those living in remote areas are more likely to smoke—28.9 per cent compared with 16.8 per cent in the major cities. In 2008 more than 45 per cent of Indigenous Australians over 15 smoked daily.

The coalition has always had a strong track record when it comes to tobacco control, and we will continue to do so. The coalition presided over the biggest decline in smoking rates whilst we were in government. Under the last coalition government the prevalence of smoking declined from 21.8 per cent in 1998 to 16.6 per cent of Australians over the age of 14 by 2007.

It was Robert Menzies who first introduced a voluntary tobacco advertising code for television in 1966. Malcolm Fraser banned tobacco advertising on TV. Dr Michael Wooldridge, in June 1997, announced what at the time was the biggest ever national advertising campaign against smoking. It was the Howard government, and Tony Abbott as health minister, who introduced the graphic health warnings on tobacco products in 2006—something which I think will be very significant in reducing smoking rates. And it was the coalition who first proposed, in opposition, an increase in the tobacco excise in 2009—a measure which was later adopted by the government.

There is bipartisan support to reduce the incidence of smoking to under 10 per cent—and it can be done. Jurisdictions like California already have a smoking rate below that level. The COAG agreement details how to get to a smoking rate of below 10 per cent and also how to reduce, specifically, the Indigenous smoking rate.

In January this year, the government released the updated National Tobacco Strategy 2012 to 2018. It sets out the framework to help achieve the goal of 10 per cent. The first National Tobacco Strategy was implemented in 2004 under the Howard government. The renewed strategy has nine priority areas, which include increasing mass advertising, reducing the affordability of tobacco and particularly focusing on those populations with a high prevalence of smoking. I think the approach of focusing on all of those nine areas will be the way to get to below 10 per cent.

Reaching the bipartisan target of 10 per cent will require a comprehensive and sustained approach to tobacco control. There is no one solution and we need to continue to look at all of the approaches outlined in the National Tobacco Strategy to reach those 2018 targets.

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be able to speak to this motion that the honourable member for Blair has put before the House, because tobacco fundraising is really not something that we should be making money out of or taking money from. I am also pleased that on 23 June 2011 this House endorsed, without dissent, that all political parties should stop accepting donations from big tobacco. This is one of the current debates in public life and an issue that goes to integrity. There are also these debates going on about superannuation funds and other things like that, about where money is invested and where we put our money. Even though that went through the House, I know that the same cannot be said for the coalition because it seems that the long arm of big tobacco reaches into this chamber.

I say this knowing that over the years political parties have taken donations from all sorts of companies, but there comes a time when you draw a line in the sand and you say, 'Enough.' You refuse it, you withdraw from it and you say, 'I will not be taking any money.' It is really time that everybody in this place, including the coalition, took heed of that as an issue of integrity and also took heed of that motion that actually did go through the House.

New figures from the Australian Electoral Commission show that big tobacco has invested at least $7 million to influence Canberra since 2004. One of the things that has been interesting with the whole debate on plain packaging and all of that was the extent that the big tobacco companies went to in trying to influence and lobby people and the way they used the legal system to try to stop that as well. They talked about it in terms of free trade, which was really just a lot of nonsense. It just shows the extent they will go to.

It is not as if we are talking about something that is benign; we are talking about something that kills and we know that it kills. We are not talking about banning it, even though some people say, 'If you are going to do this, you should.' We should not, because there has to be a way that we can deal with it—but it does kill. Even though it is in decline in a lot of areas of Australia, South-East Asia—our region, our neighbours—is now big tobacco's biggest market, with six million new smokers recruited in 2009 and another 30 million expected to be added by 2014. The World Health Organization calculates that, of the six million people who will die from tobacco use each year, 80 per cent of them will be in the developing world. So, really, it is an industry that has no moral compass at all. There is no responsibility taken for the lives that it affects.

When I was said 'all of us in this place, including the coalition', I did mean the Liberals but also the National Party. When I look at the list of donations that go to the political parties, I see that they go to the National Party as well. I think I have heard people say here that it does not, but it actually does. It is something that should be stopped.

Dr Southcott interjecting—

Look, the Australian Electoral Commission website—

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member will be heard in silence.

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The people on the other side can throw out whatever they like, but the fact is that it is the people I am talking about on the other side who take the donations. You can do something about it. Shame on you as a doctor as well, because you know better.

In addition, what I would like to say in conclusion is that 15,000 Australians die from smoking related diseases every year. That is more than the people who are employed by big tobacco in this country, and big tobacco says that the new laws will cost the industry jobs. What about the industry and smoking costing lives?

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Health Services and Indigenous Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a most serious motion that should have been brought to this place by serious members of this parliament, but in effect what we have is a juvenile attempt—presumably by this Prime Minister—to belittle the issue of smoking and take the most innocent and ill-informed government MPs from Queensland, and a wannabe Queensland MP from the government's side as well, to prosecute this ridiculous debate about donations.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member has just impugned another member and I ask you to call him to order, please.

Ms Anna Burke (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Bowman should address the motion. If he is going to treat this motion seriously, perhaps he could refer to it.

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Health Services and Indigenous Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What we have here is a juvenile approach to a very serious issue. One in five Aboriginal Australians die of a smoking related illness. These three have presumably been sent down into this great chamber with speaking notes from the Prime Minister's office; you can almost hear the advisers giggling away in the Prime Minister's office, saying, 'Yes, go on, make a political point out of smoking.' What a disgrace! We know how serious this is. There has been bipartisan support about this and all you can make is a juvenile point, direct from your own leader's office.

If you were serious about smoking and the 49 per cent of remote Aboriginal Australians who are desperately trying to kick the habit, you would be more worried about what our Indigenous coordinator is doing, you would be more interested in the investment that is going on in small communities right across this nation to kick smoking and you would take the lead from my previous coalition speaker, who gave a dispassionate, well-informed and completely sober analysis of smoking—which we have not had from the government's side. This is one of these 9.25 pm giggles that is not even worthy of being brought into this chamber. There is no mention of the money from alcohol outlets that the other side of the chamber relies on and there is no mention of the gambling money that festoons itself in the ACT through the Workers Club and the Tradesmen's Club which keeps your entire campaign in the ACT afloat.

Ms Anna Burke (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don't think it keeps my campaign afloat. The use of the word 'you' is not appreciated.

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Health Services and Indigenous Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is the fact that so much more money is taken on the areas of gambling, but of course there is no mention of the great social harm that makes: quite prepared to be holier than thou after a 2004 decision but not willing to pay back any of the money the Labor Party took from smoking companies prior to that; just quite happy to make a cheap political point ever since. This is a serious matter, probably the greatest health challenge facing this nation. We had half an hour in this chamber to address this in a sober way, and that is something that has not happened from this government.