Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I know I have hit the mark because of these interjections. This bill deals with an important issue. There is no doubt that tobacco is still the single biggest preventable cause of death and disease in Australia. The truth is that more than 15,000 Australians die prematurely each year due to the effects of tobacco. The direct cost of this is $31.5 billion. While that figure is enormous, the real cost—the part that is unacceptable—is the unnecessary premature death of so many Australians year after year.

There are still over 3.3 million Australians who smoke. That is more than 16 per cent of people over 14. Men are slightly more likely to smoke than women. While these figures have been slowly declining over past decades, there is no room for complacency. We all know that the tobacco companies have been targeting the young for decades. One classic example that illustrates how unscrupulous these companies are comes from Taiwan. Remember, these are global companies who see all parts of the world's population as targets. This is just one example. Young people could not purchase tickets to a rock concert unless they could produce two empty cigarette packages. This was not uncommon, especially in Taiwan and Hong Kong. It is standard tobacco company behaviour in many developing countries—but more about the tobacco companies later.

Men in their 20s, 30s and 40s and women in their 40s are the heaviest smokers. Unfortunately, the smoking rate amongst Indigenous Australians is twice the rate of the general population—close to 40 per cent of those over 14 smoke. Smoking is responsible for 84 per cent of lung cancers in men and 77 per cent in women. Between 20 and 30 per cent of all cancers are the result of smoking, and we know one in five pregnant women smoke.

We have known about the adverse aspects of tobacco since the 1950s. However, if we had to rely on the ethical and caring attitude of the tobacco companies we would still not know how truly harmful tobacco is. To see their dishonest and deceptive behaviour, we only have to look at the process of the adoption of the master settlement agreement. On 14 April 1994 seven executives of tobacco companies testified that they did not believe that tobacco use was addictive. Remember, this was in 1994. They were: William Campbell, President and CEO of Philip Morris USA; James W Johnston, Chairman and CEO of RJR Tobacco Co.; Joseph Taddeo, President of US Tobacco Co.; Andrew H Tisch, Chairman and CEO of Lorillard Tobacco Co.; Edward A Horrigan, Chairman and CEO of Liggett Group Inc.; Thomas E Sandefur, Chairman and CEO of Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corporation; and Donald S Johnston, President and CEO of American Tobacco Co.

I will refer to four documents that contributed to the preparation of the master settlement agreement and show that tobacco companies had had sound evidence for nearly three decades that tobacco use was addictive and caused cancer in laboratory animals and human beings. From these and many other documents, lawyers in the Medicaid suits had developed various theories to show the tobacco industry committed a fraud against the American public. This legal process occurred in the USA, but the consequences of the behaviour of tobacco companies were not limited to that country. People around the world died due to this deliberate concealment. These documents contributed to the finding that tobacco industry lawyers controlled scientific research in an attempt to hide data that was damaging to the industry. In other words, they covered up evidence that smoking is addictive and causes death and disease.

The first is a document relating to the Auerbach dog study which showed that as early as 1970 cigarette companies had medical evidence that smoking caused lung cancer in animals. Second is the Addison Yeaman memo. This document, written by Brown and Williamson's general counsel, was critically important because it indicated that tobacco industry executives knew about the dangers of smoking in the early 1960s but continued to deny them for over 30 years. Third is the youth smoking document, a 1981 document from Philip Morris. It clearly shows that Philip Morris knew that teenagers used their product, that the company had studied this rather extensively and that they were worried about the decrease in youth smoking since it would affect their future customers. Lastly, there are the notes from a 1981 meeting of the Committee of Counsel, a group of tobacco industry lawyers who met regularly to discuss legal issues of interest to the tobacco industry. According to a federal prosecutor, the group controlled industry and scientific research. The notes clearly show the group discussed scientific projects—'special projects'—which were designed to promote the idea that smoking did not cause disease.

I will return to the master tobacco settlement. The master settlement agreement is an agreement originally negotiated between the four largest tobacco companies and 46 US states and six US territories, reached in 1998. The negotiations addressed the potential liability of the tobacco industry for an alleged cover-up of tobacco related health problems. Ultimately the state governments exempted the companies from tort liability in exchange for a combination of yearly payments to the states and voluntary restrictions on advertising and marketing of tobacco products. The agreement was meant to provide state governments with compensation for smoking related medical costs and to help reduce smoking in the United States.

The MSA was originally signed in November 1998 by the four largest tobacco companies: Philip Morris USA, RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co., Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corporation and Lorillard Tobacco Co. The agreement was later joined by more than 40 other tobacco companies. Every US state and six US territories signed that agreement. Florida, Minnesota, Texas and Mississippi had already reached individual agreements with the tobacco industry. At $368.5 billion, MSA was the largest civil settlement in United States history. In 2010 the Cancer Council of Victoria estimated that excise from tobacco in Australia was $5.92 billion, whereas health costs alone were $31.5 billion.

The latest estimates of donations to the coalition parties are $140,000 from British American Tobacco and $158,000 from Philip Morris—near enough to $300,000. There has been $1.7 million in donations since 2004, when the ALP ceased accepting donations from tobacco companies. It is time all donations from tobacco companies were refused. Cigarettes kill people. Accepting donations from companies who sell products that kill people and who have knowingly lied about this issue is immoral. Besides, who needs this real and perceived conflict of interest? The Gillard government is strongly committed to taking action to reduce smoking.