Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Materiel) Share this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to be able to rise today to speak about this legislation and to indicate, as Senator Fierravanti-Wells has done before me, that the Tobacco Plain Packaging Bill 2011 has the strong support of the coalition. Having said that, I have to express some disappointment at the way in which the legislation has been handled, and in particular the way in which the legislation has been linked to a second, quite late piece of legislation in this package—the Trade Marks Amendment (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Bill 201—and the way that this has been played out so as to permit the minister to attempt to characterise the coalition as being opposed to the measure to introduce plain packaging.

It is clear from the record of the coalition over many years that we fully accept the need for public policy to be strongly couched to defeat the harm done by tobacco in this community. Our record demonstrates very amply that that is the case.