Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Excise Tariff Amendment (Tobacco) Bill 2010 and Customs Tariff Amendment (Tobacco) Bill 2010. These bills will see a 25 per cent increase in the cost of cigarettes and tobacco products aimed at reducing the number of people who smoke. This is the first increase above inflation in the taxation on tobacco in over a decade. Given that the total cost to Australian society of tobacco is estimated at $31.5 billion each year, reducing the number of people who smoke and the quantities that people smoke is vital. The decline in smoking rates in Australia—a fall of 40 per cent for men and 44 per cent for women between 1989 and 2007—has been amongst the largest in the OECD. It is a fact that the fall in tobacco smoking in the population aged 14 years and over, from 23.9 per cent in 1995 to 17.4 per cent in 2004, saw Australia with rates amongst the lowest in the world.

The coalition government made significant inroads into smoking prevalence and tobacco control. In 2004, Australia formally ratified the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which provides a global policy framework for strong measures against the death and disease caused by smoking. Tobacco advertising was banned at all sporting events in Australia from 1 October 2006. Since March 2006, all Australian manufactured and imported tobacco product packaging has been printed with graphic coloured health warnings and the Quitline number and web address. Under the coalition government, pharmaceuticals to assist with quitting smoking were listed under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and nicotine replacement therapies, patches, gum and lozenges were designated GST free.

The legislation proposed responds to some of the recommendations of the National Preventative Health Task Force, which handed down its findings last September and which the government finally responded to in full on budget night. The bills also respond to Mr Rudd’s cash splash to the Labor premiers at the COAG health meeting on 20 April to ensure that his mates around the country signed up to his grand plan for health. The ‘local’ does not mean ‘local health plan’ that Kevin Rudd announced on 3 March and then conveniently used the Preventative Health Task Force as cover to help pay for his plan by raising excise on tobacco on 29 April. I quote:

The Rudd government today announced a comprehensive package targeting smoking and its harmful effects, including an increase in the tobacco excise of 25 per cent. This increase in tobacco excise will provide an extra $5 billion over four years which, along with existing revenues from tobacco, will be directly invested in better health and hospitals through the National Health and Hospital Network Fund.

It is a pity that the Prime Minister is searching for golden dollars for a hurried and doomed health and hospital plan that is more about spin than substance.

I would like to focus on this if I may. The health reform plan advertising campaign says:

Run locally, the new network will give local senior doctors and health experts a greater say …

We saw the Prime Minister at the National Press Club waxing lyrical about how his grand plan, where doctors were going to run these hospital networks locally. What a load of spin that was, because, like most things the Prime Minister says these days, sooner or later it will all come unravelled.

It is specifically stated at page 14 of the agreement that the Prime Minister drew up with the states in relation to health that the clinical expertise in relation to the local hospital networks will come from outside the local hospital network. Indeed, it says that wherever practical that is the starting point. So-called local doctors who will supposedly run these local hospital networks will come from outside—I stress: that is the starting point—the local hospital network. All this drivel we hear about a hospital network that is going to be run locally is just that: absolute, unadulterated drivel. This Prime Minister has once again—

Senator Stephens—I rise on a point of order, Madam Acting Deputy President. We are here debating the Excise Tariff Amendment (Tobacco) Bill 2010. I think that Senator Fierravanti-Wells has lost her way.