Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Medicare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with pleasure that I rise to speak on the Tobacco Plain Packaging Amendment Bill 2018. Labor has a proud record when it comes to tobacco control. Worldwide, tobacco is the leading cause of preventable death and kills at least five million people a year. In Australia, smoking kills between 15,000 and 20,000 people every single year. The economic and social cost of smoking is estimated at $31.5 billion a year. By any measure, and despite all of the progress we have achieved over many decades, it remains a massive public health issue. It is an issue that requires political leadership and eternal vigilance.

Labor has shown consistent leadership on this issue, even when it has been politically very difficult to achieve. We've stood up to big tobacco, despite their formidable resources and significant campaign abilities. Despite their willingness to use dirty tricks to take legal action, we took them on. It was Labor that introduced and fought for the world-leading plain packaging legislation that, alongside other policies, has helped to drive smoking rates in this country to record lows. We are very proud that many other countries across the world have followed suit.

This legislation before us today makes some minor technical changes to Labor's laws, and we will, of course, support it. Put simply, the amendments expand the range of people who can be authorised to undertake plain-packaging compliance activities. There will be no objection from us on that. But we do know that, deep down, many on the other side would actually like to tear up this legislation altogether. On this, as on so many other things, they are divided. Despite the clear evidence that our legislation for plain packaging has worked and has clearly saved lives, many on the other side still think that this is 'nanny state' policy. It shows that they don't understand public health policy or evidence based health policy. But, as we know, that is what the Liberals and the Nationals so often do; they put big business before the wellbeing of the Australian people.

Let's talk about how successful not just this policy but also tobacco mitigation policies have been. We introduced plain packaging for tobacco in December 2012 to help Australians quit smoking. Under the laws, tobacco products have no branding and feature health warnings with graphic images. It works by reducing the appeal and brand identification of smoking, particularly for young people.

In 2016 the Commonwealth's post-implementation review of Labor's laws found:

… plain packaging is achieving its aim of improving public health in Australia and is expected to have substantial public health outcomes into the future.

In the three years after our laws came into effect, total tobacco consumption rates fell by 18.3 per cent. Not all of this decline was due to plain packaging, of course, but some of it definitely was. The report said:

… the 2012 packaging changes resulted in a "statistically significant decline in smoking prevalence …

We never sought to claim that plain packaging was a silver bullet. It was always meant to be one of a suite of measures necessary to continue to drive down smoking rates. It reflected the removal of the last form of advertising for tobacco, in line with the World Health Organization's tobacco convention, to which we are a signatory.

The British Medical Journal stated:

The evidence suggests that plain packaging is severely restricting the ability of the pack to communicate and create appeal with young people and adults.

One of the world's most respected medical journals declared Labor's world-leading plain-packaging laws to be a casebook example of effective tobacco control.

A report led by the ANU last year also confirmed that plain packaging had helped many smokers to quit. It led to a decline in the way that smokers identified with their brand, resulting in a reduction in smoking and an increase in the number of smoker attempts to quit the habit. We know that the more attempts people make to quit, the more likely they are to actually quit. It led to a decline in the way smokers identify their brand. The ANU found that, during the phase-in of the reforms, calls to quit smoking helplines increased by up to 78 per cent and were above average for about 10 months after the reforms began.

Studies have shown plain packaging has had a particular impact in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities as well. Smoking contributes to one in five Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths. Public health researchers found Indigenous people were better informed about the risks of smoking as a result of the policy. Before the policy's introduction, they were significantly more likely to mistakenly think that some brands of cigarettes were less harmful than others. The World Health Organization is calling on all countries in the world to follow Australia's lead and to introduce plain packaging. The countries that have already done so include France, the United Kingdom and Ireland. Many countries will undoubtedly follow.

The Heart Foundation said that tobacco plain packaging had contributed to around 25 per cent of the total decline in the prevalence of smoking since it was introduced in 2012. That's tens of thousands of people quitting thanks to the Labor Party's efforts. Crucially, we've seen adolescent smoking rates drop to a record low. The tobacco industry tried to fight it, taking Australia all the way to the WTO to try and kill off these reforms. They failed, of course, but the fact that they tried might be the best evidence anyone needs that our policy was the right one and that our policy was, in fact, effective; otherwise, why would these companies have attempted to kill it off?

Thanks in part to Labor's groundbreaking policy work, the prevalence of daily smoking in Australia is now at just 12 per cent and continuing to decline. That is a good public health achievement. However, it has to be said that the rate of the decline has unfortunately slowed. That's because, for the last five years, we have had a government that has done nothing about tobacco control. No single measure will drive rates of smoking down forever. As one prominent public health expert noted recently, each new measure magnifies the effects of what has gone before but only if action is continually reinforced and properly resourced.

Tobacco control is one of Australia's best public health successes, but there is absolutely no room for complacency. That's because big tobacco companies are relentless. They never stop. They're always looking for new ways to hook new customers, even while they're publicly claiming that they're cleaning up their business—or even making plans to get out of smoking altogether—particularly in the guise of harm minimisation. They are morally bankrupt and cannot be believed. Here at home, they are still lobbying and using front groups. They are still using astroturfing campaigns. They are still walking the corridors of this place, taking any opportunity they can to meet with and influence members here; they do not meet with me. They're more likely than ever to use litigation to fight public health measures against governments and against other public institutions like universities. They are still buying and co-opting some so-called health experts. They're still trying to buy off journalists with expensive junkets and with hospitality. Overseas, in many less-developed and less-regulated markets, they are still advertising and selling their products with total immunity, even to primary school children. They are ruthless.

But, wherever you look, this government has zero credibility when it comes to tackling smoking related deaths. For five years, they have been absolutely missing in action. As Professor Mike Daube from Curtin University wrote recently:

For those who worked long and hard to make Australia a world leader in tobacco control, it is deeply disappointing that political complacency in recent years has both led to lack of action and allowed distractions to dominate the public and policy arenas.

He goes on:

We should have reinforced and capitalised on the early impact of plain packaging and reinforced the impacts of tax increases … but action over the past 6 years has stalled, at a time when it should have accelerated. … … …

First, crucially and inexplicably, there have been no national media campaigns since 2012. The federal government gets more than $11 billion a year in revenue from tobacco taxes. Spending $40 million on media campaigns would be less than 0.4% of this.

That is correct. For its entire time in office, this government has not bothered to launch any antitobacco campaigns, even though we know they are highly successful. We all remember the many successful campaigns, like, 'Every cigarette is doing you damage.' All of those campaigns have actually had a significant impact. There has not been one in the term of this government. We need more major, hard-hitting media campaigns, one of the most effective weapons that we have in our arsenal.

Professor Daube goes on to point out that over the last five years there has been a complete absence of new evidence-based measures to tackle smoking—nothing at all. He also talks about how there have been no curbs on tobacco industry efforts to influence public policy. He mentions lobbying and, of course, political donations. It's now been 14 years since Labor announced we would no longer take political donations from Big Tobacco. It took nearly 10 years for the Liberals to match us on that. But, shamefully, the National Party still have not done the right thing and ceased taking donations from Big Tobacco. As recently as last year, they took $15,700 from Big Tobacco companies. That is disgraceful.

The Prime Minister needs to explain why he thinks it's okay that his coalition partners can fill their coffers with money from companies that profit from putting Australians in coffins. How can he in good conscience keep a Nationals senator with responsibility for rural health while her party is happy to accept this blood money? People in rural and remote areas of Australia are twice as likely to be daily smokers as those in the cities, meaning the burden of disease falls most heavily on our rural Australians. If the Nationals really cared about the health of people in the bush they would reject these donations outright.

Malcolm Turnbull has gone from this place now, but he never explained his failure to divest from three share market funds that invest in tobacco. It was important that he did so. Again, I think it's important that we absolutely back in the work of people like Bronwyn King, a wonderful woman who I think is in the parliament at the moment. She has been doing fantastic work in getting superannuation portfolios to divest themselves of tobacco shares. She has slowly taken that work across Australia, and there are more and more super funds that are divesting themselves of tobacco shares. She has now taken that effort globally. Under her terrific leadership and the work that she has done, there will soon be very few superannuation funds left that will invest in tobacco at all. This is another example of the great work of public health people. Bronwyn is an oncologist who took the decision to leave her oncology in order to pursue that particular work.

The coalition, frankly, have done very little. While they've taken their eye off the ball, tobacco companies have been coming up with new ways to advertise and hook our children on these deadly products. Just last week we saw a series of reports about how tobacco companies are using social media influencers to advertise cigarettes, circumventing our strict anti-advertising laws. Our antismoking advertising laws threaten companies with fines of up to $126,000 if they advertise their products. But thanks to this social media loophole they can do it with virtual impunity. They're using the same marketing playbook they have always used to attract kids and teens to their products. It is insidious and something needs to be done about it. There are glamorous ads of attractive people in exotic locations sucking back on cigarettes on Instagram, a platform that reaches millions of people worldwide with virtually no regulation. They use celebrities and models and seek to associate smoking with fast cars, yachts, fancy clothes and expensive champagne. It is exactly the sort of thing previous generations of policymakers fought to outlaw and, unfortunately, in this medium it is making a comeback. Tobacco control experts have called these campaigns the greatest threat to how young people perceive tobacco products today. They say the tobacco companies are targeting young people in at least 40 countries, including here in Australia. Researchers say those campaigns generated over 25 billion views by individuals. Twenty-five billion views is a serious problem. Sadly, you can't rely on this government to do anything. Only Labor takes these issues of tobacco control seriously.

The big tobacco companies have also been trying to push new nicotine vaping and e-cigarette products onto the market. They try to claim it is some sort of public good and they are contributing to cessation. In fact, they're using every tactic they can to try and push to market more addictive products that have not been properly studied for their long-term health effects. The most authoritative report on this issue, from the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, concluded that the evidence for cessation benefits is limited and the evidence for concern about their impact is, in fact, substantial. Let's be clear: the tobacco companies see that the writing is on the wall for their industry, so they are trying to diversify in order to survive, but they don't care the slightest bit about the health or wellbeing of a single one of their customers. Big tobacco has long sought to use new alternative products in a bid to renormalise their industry, and no-one in this place should fall for it.

This job is not over. We absolutely need to do more. We need more evidence based activity and policies to maintain the momentum of the tobacco fight. The tobacco companies will not rest, so we, as a parliament, need to not rest either. The Liberals should restore Australia's global leadership on this issue. They should restore funding that they cut from important Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander smoking cessation programs. They should engage in a national advertising campaign to ensure that smoking rates fall again. They need to vigorously pursue any other forms of advertising for tobacco that have emerged since we were able to remove the last form—the actual pack—with plain packaging. They need to make sure that the National Tobacco Strategy is now not just a document that sits on a shelf, but is, in fact, reinvigorated. The Liberals should restore Australia's global leadership on this issue. If they don't, Labor certainly will. To this end, I move the second reading amendment that has been circulated in my name:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1) notes that progress on lowering smoking rates has stalled following the Government's cuts to tobacco control measures; and

(2) calls on the Government to re-invest in lowering smoking rates".

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this, the honourable member for Ballarat has moved as an amendment that all words after 'that' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. If it suits the House I will state the question in the form that the amendment be agreed to. The question now is that the amendment be agreed to.

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If you are concerned about the stabilisation of tobacco cessation, you really should look at why—why it is that life-long smokers struggle to get off such an insidious product and why it is that they are addicted. You should also ask: what are the alternatives? This is where the false outrage of the member for Ballarat falls short, because, in the end, she already rules out and discounts alternatives that can help people to reduce their consumption, to engage in harm minimisation and, in the context, improve their health overall. I will remind other members of the choices that people have.

At the moment, if you are addicted to nicotine and you smoke tobacco products, your choice is to continue smoking or to give up, and, yes, there are some cessation aids, but they do not work for everyone. And yet there are harm minimisation pathways denied by those on both sides of the chamber—of which I am not one. In the end, having sat on committees inquiring into the legal access towards vaping, I cannot, in good conscience, oppose legalisation—my view has been on the public record, so this is not new—even more so after I went to the UK on a parliamentary delegation and met with officials from the National Health Service, who took a similar view to me. That's because what they saw was, amongst many of their patient groups, particularly in parts of Manchester, people who simply couldn't quit, and they saw the consequences, the harm and the damage that was done to people's health from enduring tobacco consumption.

They then looked at the alternatives and said that vaping provided a harm minimisation pathway that they could not ignore. When it was raised with them, 'Should Australia follow the same pathway,' of course they rightly said it was up to us, but they acknowledged that it was enormously beneficial to the people they were there to serve. That is my view, and it is a view I am very comfortable expressing in public because what we know, as somebody who had three out of their four grandparents die prematurely as a consequence of tobacco consumption, is that tobacco causes enormous harm. Tobacco is responsible for tremendous damage to the lives of Australians, our community and, if you want to count it up in dollars and cents, our economy as well. Of Australians aged 14 years or older, 12.8 per cent still smoke daily. Every year smoking kills or is a contributing factor to an estimated 19,000 Australian deaths. And, in addition to the morbidity and mortality, $31.5 billion is drained from the economy annually for something that provides, let's say, little benefit beyond the choices that people have.

This bill appropriately allows more flexibility to noncompliance with the tobacco plain-packaging legislation, and any improvements that allow for the adherence, respect and implementation of the rule of law as a principle, I will always support. But we also should take account of our obligation to the Australian people seriously and have effective policy measures to combat smoking rates, as I addressed at the start of my speech. With this in mind, we do have to look seriously at the efficacy of plain packaging from 2013 to 2016. Let's remember what happened: the Gillard government introduced plain packaging and contestably there was an influence on smoking rates, so they banged a massive tax on top of it to make sure the rates went down—I never disputed that increasing taxes can have an influence on reducing smoking rates. But even then, from 2013 to 2016, Australia's smoking rate fell by a dismal 0.6 per cent despite an increase in tobacco excise and the introduction of plain packaging. Expenditure on cigarettes increased in Australia while smoking rates sharply declined in the United States and in the United Kingdom.

Plain packaging has failed to reduce smoking significantly. Instead, what it has actually done, and this is the bit that the opposition never likes to pay attention to, is it has driven tobacco sales underground, because this is what the policy actually does. It takes a product with a brand and makes it generic, and then, as the tax rates increase, the consumer surplus goes up, so the cost increases, and it is a generic product.

So what happens? Criminal gangs move in. They, not just the tobacco companies, see the economic benefit and the potential to take advantage of Australians who are addicted—and some who aren't, to get them there—and to make huge profits. Those profits are then used not just to deny the taxpayer the money they need to deal with the consequences of tobacco consumption—the costs that are passed through to the health system—but also of course to fund and finance their nefarious agenda. So, rather than looking at this policy simply on the basis of its intent, perhaps we should look also at its consequences.

As branding has been lost, competition now focuses predominantly on price, boosting sales of cheaper products. KPMG has found that illicit tobacco consumption has grown from 11.5 per cent to 14 per cent in Australia since plain packaging was introduced. Illicit tobacco is immune from taxation, immune from regulation and immune from oversight—kind of like other illicit products in the marketplace. Not only is there a revenue loss for the government but it also deprives hardworking Australian small businesses of revenue, because of cheap, unbranded, illegal competition.

I think we should stand up against criminal gangs. I don't think we should fuel their business models, because of what they will do with the revenue as a consequence—and of course the human toll they put on Australians by engaging in their nefarious agenda. This revenue is then diverted to organised crime syndicates and serves to line the pockets of those undertaking illegal behaviour. Let's just say that it is putting the incentives around the wrong way. This encourages other criminal actions associated with organised crime, such as smuggling, violence and gang activity.

We must focus on assisting people who are motivated to quit smoking through education, support services, harm minimisation and—I will say, resolutely—preferably cessation. When people are allowed to exercise their free will, they are still better off choosing a healthy life. If they struggle with that, I would have thought the job of the people in this place is to provide them with the clearest and simplest pathway to do so. It's time to empower those who want to quit and to help reduce the stagnant smoking rates in this country by properly looking at not just the intent but also the consequences of the policies and the legislation we are passing through this parliament.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I start my prepared speech, I'd just like to say a few things about the efforts of the member for Goldstein—

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Stein.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, the pronunciation depends on where you come from, and I'm well aware of Vida Goldstein and her reputation as a wonderful woman. With respect to the member, the issue of vaporised nicotine substitutions for smoking is certainly not as clear as he would say. There is absolutely no evidence that vaporised nicotine solutions (1) reduce the harm and (2) reduce the cost and the social cost of nicotine addiction.

It's important to note that the tobacco industry continues to promote the use of so-called vaping solutions as an alternative to smoking with absolutely no research into its long-term effects. We know that nicotine is a highly addictive drug. We really don't have the evidence and the research that suggest that vaporised solutions are any solution to cigarette smoking in terms of long-term effects.

We recently had a parliamentary House of Representatives committee inquiry into this, and all the experts—including the AMA, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the association of respiratory physicians and the Public Health Association—say that we should not be allowing free access to vaporised nicotine solutions. So, as with many things to do with science, it's important that the government really respects the experts and acts on their advice. The member for Goldstein is not doing that and I'm unsure as to his motives for his broad lack of restraint in supporting vaporised nicotine solutions.

Worldwide there are about 1.2 billion smokers. I was one of them until about 10 years ago. Eighty per cent of smokers are men. There are, indeed, smokers in this chamber. According to the World Health Organization, smoking accounts for around six million avoidable deaths every year. About 70 per cent of those deaths are in developing countries. In Australia, about 19,000 or 20,000 people still die every year from avoidable deaths due to smoking. The cost to our community is around $30 billion. The annual cost worldwide is in the trillions of dollars. It's important to note that, worldwide, the major tobacco companies are still promoting their products and it's only when their products are restricted that they resort to promoting alternatives like vaporised nicotine solutions.

Smoking rates throughout much of the OECD are continuing to decline, but rates of smoking in less developed countries are as high as ever and there is some evidence in some countries that they may be increasing. In most developed countries like Australia, the rate of smoking amongst men is in decline and amongst women it is flat or falling slowly. From the early 1980s, Australia has progressively tightened laws covering the advertising, sale and distribution of cigarettes and tobacco. There have been numerous antismoking health campaigns, government assistance for those wanting to quit for life has increased and excise duties have been substantially increased.

I'm proud to be a member of the Labor Party, which has promoted cessation of smoking activities and support for people to try to stop smoking. Laws have been enacted to prohibit smoking in the workplace and in public places, mostly promoted by the Labor Party. Each of those reforms was resisted by vested interests, but each now seems a sensible and totally uncontentious proposition. It's the same for laws requiring the plain or standardised packaging of cigarettes. I support any bill that strengthens this.

The unambiguously good news is that smoking rates are in decline across the board. Less encouraging is the more limited impact on some demographics—principally older established smokers and those living in the poorest neighbourhoods and in regional and remote Australia. Indigenous Australians have fairly static smoking rates and unfortunately are at increased risk of the harm that smoking causes. Those with mental health issues also have smoking rates that are very static.

Fifty-seven per cent of daily smokers are now aged over 40. Fifteen years ago, the majority of smokers were between the ages of 14 and 39. Fifty years ago, about two in every five adults were smokers. Now it's one in eight. The National Drug Strategy Household Survey showed that smoking rates halved between 1991 and 2016, from 24 per cent to 12 per cent, mostly because of government initiatives. There's been significant success in the last three to five years in reducing the take-up of smoking amongst the young, and the proportion of teenagers who are current smokers declined from five per cent in 2013 to 2.1 per cent in 2016. There have been similar significant declines in the number of people exposed in the home to cigarette smoke, down from about 31 per cent in 1995 to 3.7 per cent in 2013 and down again to 2.8 per cent in 2016.

These are significant changes. Whilst our smoking rates have only slowly declined, people exposed to smoking in the workplace and in the home has decreased significantly, which will lead to much less risk of harm for my patients, children and particularly young children. They are much less frequently exposed to environmental cigarette smoking than they were previously. This will lead to much lower rates of respiratory illness and much less long-term harm.

The messages in all these policies, for policymakers and legislators, are that change is possible, that governments have to lead, that governments must persist and that governments must persist against very strong, very financially able vested interests. Australia was the first country to enact laws to insist on the plain packaging of cigarettes. I remember this time very well. It's important to note the courage, persistence and intelligence of people like Julia Gillard and Nicola Roxon, the then health minister, who first introduced plain tobacco packaging. There was so much effort put in by those with vested interests against the Labor Party's policies for plain packaging, including from those on the other side. Yet Nicola Roxon and Julia Gillard persisted and were able to get these changes, which now seem to all of us to be completely sensible and the right thing to do.

In November 2011, the legislation was first introduced and, by December 2012, the laws had survived a High Court challenge by those with vested interests, including Big Tobacco. By 1 December 2012 plain packaging was introduced and has stayed the norm in Australia. This legislation will strengthen the ability to monitor this. Years later, it is impossible to imagine why it took us so long to get there.

The previous speaker mentioned underground smoking as a consequence of the plain tobacco packaging. There is no evidence for this whatsoever. It's a claim without basis and without evidence. There may well be underground tobacco available, but this is a financial issue that has no relation to plain tobacco packaging.

Australia's lead on mandatory plain and standardised packaging is now being emulated and followed to varying degrees in many other countries, including the United Kingdom, France, New Zealand, Norway, Hungary and Ireland. As is usual, it's Big Tobacco who are fighting this battle, and we can only hope they continue to lose. As of February this year another 16 countries plan to take action on plain tobacco packaging. The European Union has issued a directive allowing member states the option of implementing plain packaging that survived a concerted legal challenge from Big Tobacco.

I imagine that the only people left in Australia opposed to plain packaging are those with a financial stake in the tobacco industry, or, I'm ashamed to say, politicians who take money from Big Tobacco. Nicotine addiction is not a matter of choice. I like to think that even a majority of those pathologically opposed to any form of government regulation and intervention recognise that nicotine is a special case. It's a drug of addiction and it's one of the most potent. There are only two commonly available illegal drugs that are more addictive than nicotine and that's heroin and cocaine.

Nicotine is a poison and there's no such thing as a safe cigarette. Cigarettes, of course, come with other dangers from the smoke inhalation, but it's important to note that nicotine is primarily a drug of addiction and not without major side effects. One cigarette, unfortunately, can be enough to kill you. It kills indiscriminately and it kills even those who don't smoke, and we've seen increasing evidence of this, particularly in the workplace. There's no such thing as safe smoking in the way that there can perhaps be low levels of safe drinking if done in moderation and in a safe environment—the same is not true for smoking.

There is not much weight in the argument still advanced by some ultra-libertarians that smoking is legal and that we should therefore not try to control or restrict it. Lots of things are legal that we don't encourage or want to condone. Many activities, products, services and substances are regulated. There is nothing odd or peculiar in regulating things that may be misused, that may poorly understood or which are inherently dangerous. There is no question that cigarette smoking is inherently dangerous. It's just common sense that some goods and services are subject to advertising controls and point of sale restrictions. There are lots of legal drugs less lethal than nicotine that we rightly do not let people access at will or use without a doctor's prescription or accompanying health warnings. Smoking only continues to be legal because it's nigh on impossible to prohibit its use outright, while millions of Australians can't give it up, even though as many as three in 10 try to every year.

If this bill, one that makes very minor administrative changes to the law enacted by the Gillard government in 2011, is significant, it's because it marks something of a new dawn for the coalition. At long last the coalition, while in office, seems unambiguously to be saying that it is not for turning in the fight to rid our country of its leading cause of preventable death and disease. I do congratulate the health minister, particularly for his comments about the use of nicotine solutions.

What would make this an even better day would be if the Nationals and other smaller political parties joined Labor, the Greens and the Liberals in refusing to accept donations from big tobacco. The Hawke government enacted laws in the 1980s to provide public funding for election campaigns to reduce the influence of private and corporate donors. That funding is not just a taxpayer funded freebie; it's there to allow all parties and all candidates to exercise a freer hand in accepting and rejecting political donations. Labor stopped taking blood money from the tobacco industry 14 years ago. The Liberals followed 10 years after that, thank God. However, the Nationals and Senator Leyonhjelm's Liberal Democrats have in the last five years continued to accept direct donations in the tens of thousands of dollars annually from one tobacco company, Philip Morris. More shame to them. The level of indirect support they have taken is, of course, unknown.

In accepting such donations, the Nationals and the Liberal Democrats are the most conspicuous of the remaining outliers. They're steadfastly opposed to the community sentiment and the mountains of evidence and analysis on the effects of tobacco. They are small in number, but there are still probably enough of them to apply the handbrake to further much-needed work in reducing the incidence of smoking. Indeed, there are still measures that we should be enacting that will help reduce cigarette smoking rates in Australia. We should also be cognisant of the effect of smoking in the developing world and on our near neighbours, and we should not hold back from support for reducing smoking rates in those countries. As we all know, with this government, it's the minority that sets the rules, unfortunately, while the rest only ever seem to assert their authority ineffectively or when it's too late—just ask Malcolm Turnbull. That wasn't always the case. Not all governments are afraid of their own shadow.

The reforms to cigarette packaging proposed by the Rudd opposition and enacted by the Gillard government and its health minister, Nicola Roxon, were trenchantly opposed at the time for all sorts of spurious and self-serving reasons. True to form, some of the Liberals and Nationals—the usual suspects—wanted to either duck the issue or play both sides of the fence. Others just wanted to make life difficult for those supporting plain packaging, because they saw political advantage in it. The Abbott opposition finally went along with Labor's plain packaging law, but only after some principled members of the coalition threatened to cross the floor to support it.

The public was warned that mandatory plain packaging was unconstitutional. What a silly reason to bring up! It clearly wasn't, and the High Court supported that. They were told the scheme was costly and impractical, which was wrong again. There were even claims from the tobacco industry that plain packaging would lead to increased levels of smoking. What a joke! It was quite silly, and archly and narrowly political to the nth degree. I support this bill. I'm proud, as I've said, to be a member of the Labor Party, which has done all it can to reduce smoking rates in Australia and elsewhere. I commend the bill.

Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you to the member for Macarthur. It's always somewhat intimidating to follow him on an issue of public health. There's one thing I would take exception to or disagree on with the member of Macarthur. The previous member, the member for Goldstein—gosh, I hope I've said that properly!

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He'll pull you up on it!

Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He will! I'll never hear the end of it; you're quite right. He said that plain packaging doesn't assist in unlawful or illicit trade in tobacco. While I absolutely agree with the measures we've taken, I think we also have to recognise that there are negative impacts that need to be managed. Certainly, at the very least, we need to adjust our policies, where possible, to remove the impacts. The fact is that plain packaging tobacco has made it easier for the illicit tobacco trade. The increases in the taxes on tobacco and cigarettes, which were necessary and right to do, have also opened a market for third parties or for a black market in illegal cigarettes to come into the country. There is significant evidence that that trade has increased since some of these measures have been taken. The answer is probably better monitoring and better policing of the tobacco trade, but we can't ignore the negative impacts that these changes have had.

Tobacco use is a leading cause of preventable and premature death in Australia, and this government is committed to reducing the number of deaths from smoking. Of Australians aged 14 years or older, 12.8 per cent smoke daily. Every year smoking kills approximately 19,000 Australians and costs the Australian taxpayer and the health system—the community—$31.5 billion. This government is committed to reducing the number of people addicted to and reliant on tobacco and, by extension, illegal drugs.

We know that Australians living on welfare are some of the most vulnerable in our society to this addiction. They are at more risk of abuse, drug and alcohol addiction and lower life expectancy. That is why this government is not just committed to helping people who earn a salary and buy legal drugs in the form of cigarettes. We are also committed to helping people who find themselves out of work, relying on welfare and addicted to unlawful or illicit drugs. As a government, as I have already outlined, we are committed to reducing the death rate caused by tobacco.

However, I do have to note that some measures taken have led to an increase, as I mentioned before, in criminal activity, and the sale and importation of illegal tobacco products have sky rocketed. Since July 2016 the Australian tax office undertook 37 seizures totalling 231 tonnes of illicit tobacco, with an estimated tobacco duty forgone of $194 million. In the last financial year alone, the Australian Border Force made more than 110,000 detections of illicit tobacco, including almost 241 million cigarettes and 217 tonnes of tobacco worth more than $356 million in evaded duty.

Under the Tobacco Plain Packaging Act 2011, plain package compliance and enforcement activities are undertaken by authorised officers. Authorised officers must be persons appointed under the Public Service Act 1999 or be a member or special member of the Australian Federal Police. The person is appointed as an authorised officer in writing by the secretary of the Department of Health. This bill proposes to expand the range of persons who can be appointed as authorised officers. The bill will allow the secretary to appoint as authorised officers: Commonwealth officers not appointed or engaged under the Public Service Act; state and territory police officers; and state and territory officers and local government officials with responsibilities in relation to health matters or tobacco control, compliance and enforcement. Given the earlier numbers, it is critical that we expand the number of people involved in enforcing this law.

The bill will enable the government to respond more flexibly to noncompliance. The bill will provide the Department of Health and Ageing with access to a wider pool of officers eligible for appointment as authorised officers, providing greater flexibility to respond to any organisational or administrative changes which may occur in the future. This will also provide more opportunities for authorised officers to cooperate and respond to potential noncompliance. The bill does not change the plain packaging requirements and will not impact the obligations of tobacco manufacturers, distributors or retailers.

Consultation with each relevant state and territory agency has been undertaken. At the conclusion of the consultation, no agencies opposed the amendment. Some state and territory agencies emphasised that their support was only on the basis that their officers could only be appointed as authorised officers with a formal agreement in place. These agencies were comfortable with the amendment, due to the inclusion of a clause providing that the appointment will only be by agreement with the relevant state or territory.

I will take a moment to plug a good friend of mine, the former English MP for Enfield North, Nick de Bois. Nick wrote a book, Confessions of a Recovering MP, which he penned after he left office and, which, I believe, is available on Amazon. In this book, he dedicated a chapter to the criminal activity related to tobacco and cigarette sales. He went undercover in his own constituency to see how rife the sale of these products was. He was so eager to go undercover, he dressed down to what he thought the attire of undercover agents must have been—old pair of jeans; tatty, worn sweater; unpolished boots; and uncombed hair. Nick didn't have to go far, as it turned out. The shop right next door to his electorate office was where they would find illicit cigarettes. It is for this reason and the stats I outlined earlier that I support this bill to enhance our enforcement agencies in relation to noncompliance. I commend the bill to the House.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I congratulate you, Deputy Speaker Rob Mitchell, on giving up that filthy habit two years ago. As a result, you're in fine fettle and will have a longer life. For that, we can all be grateful!

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Schools) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hear, hear!

Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Roads and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We want you around for a long time!

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thanks.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We'd like you to be here, son! As other members have outlined the details of the Tobacco Plain Packaging Amendment Bill 2018, I'm not going to do that other than to say that we on this side of the House are supporting it. However, I do want to commend the contribution made by the member for Macarthur in particular, a good friend and someone whose background is as a paediatrician, a doctor, who has had a lot of experience dealing with health matters across the community. He explained in a very detailed way the impacts on the health of individuals and on our community as a result of smoking. As others have said, in 2011 tobacco use was estimated to be responsible for nine per cent of the total burden of disease. That's a significant figure. Eighty per cent of lung cancer burden and 75 per cent of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease burden was attributable to tobacco use. I don't think there'd be many people in this place who wouldn't know either directly or indirectly a person, or persons, who has suffered immense trauma and an early death as a result of tobacco. There'd be very few among us.

The initiatives taken so long ago now for plain packaging were against the protestations of the industry. I remember vividly the remarkable attempts taken by the industry to oppose the legislation championed by the then Minister for Health, Nicola Roxon. The case was taken internationally to try and say that, somehow or another, this was illegal. It wasn't, and it was the best thing we could've done. But the concern I have is that we have to actually maintain our commitment to strategies to bring down tobacco consumption rates. I'm most particularly concerned about those people who have the most prevalent use of tobacco in the community. In this case, it is principally Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander smokers.

The comparisons are huge. The 2014-15 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey found 39 per cent of the combined Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population aged 15 and over were daily smokers compared with 14 per cent in the general population. The proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were daily smokers aged 15 years and older was 39 per cent compared to 45 per cent in 2008 and 49 per cent in 2002. So there has been a reduction—and that's significant—and it's very important that the efforts continue. In 2002, 51 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males aged 15 years and over were daily smokers. That daily smoking rate declined to 46 per cent in 2008 and 41 per cent in 2014-15.

They're good things, and there is other data which demonstrates that tobacco consumption is falling in Aboriginal communities, but when you compare it with the broader population the gap is not closing. It is because, as we've seen, the consumption rates amongst the general population—the non-Aboriginal population—have also fallen dramatically, but the gap has not closed.

When I contemplate this, I remember well the 2014-15 budget. In a previous government I was the minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, and we initiated some measures around tobacco, prevention strategies, and funded them directly to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community health organisations and communities. Sadly, in their first budget after coming into government, the Abbott government, with then Prime Minister Abbott—now the envoy for God knows what—and then Treasurer, Mr Hockey, brought down a budget that cut $500 million out of expenditure for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, and $130 million of that was cut from the program for tackling Indigenous smoking, which was publicly disparaged by the then Treasurer.

Just so we understand the nature of this and the prevalence of tobacco consumption amongst Indigenous Australians: among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians between the ages of 15 and 27 male consumption is 34.4 per cent compared with 3.9 per cent for non-indigenous Australians and for women the figures are 26.5 per cent and 2.3 per cent. That demonstrates the difficulty that we are having in bringing down tobacco consumption rates amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. You wouldn't think that a responsible government, or a government that purported to be responsible, and a Prime Minister who, we were told, would be a Prime Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, would oversee a budget which cut $500 million out of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander programs, $130 million of which went directly to cutting the programs for tackling Indigenous smoking.

Do you reckon that, when the member for Warringah gets on whatever he's getting on to travel around Australia as an envoy and talks to whoever he is going to be talking to—and I don't know who he is going to be talking to—he might explain to them that he was responsible for overseeing a budget cut of over $500 million, which impacted every aspect of the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians? Do you reckon that he might tell them that he himself was responsible for overseeing a cut of $130 million out of the tackling tobacco program? You can imagine what he will do—and it certainly won't be that.

But, having said that, despite the absurdities of the government, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health services around this country have been working diligently to bring down tobacco consumption rates. As the member for Macarthur pointed out, the direct health impacts are obvious to all of us and we have a responsibility to make sure that the funding is available to continue antismoking programs. I'm going to have to give up my position at this dispatch box, at least temporarily, in a very short time, but when I am back here, hopefully tomorrow or whenever else this debate is brought back on—

Government members interjecting—

You can wait in anticipation.

A government member: We're going nowhere.

You'll be here a while. I will talk about a couple of specific programs that have been introduced by Aboriginal communities or organisations around the country which have had a dramatic and positive impact on reducing tobacco consumption in their communities.