Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, Marlon Brando. I can remember the announcement of the assassination of John F Kennedy. Walter Cronkite paused before he came to the punchline to take a draw on his cigarette as he announced that that prominent American president had been assassinated.

But this 11 per cent reduction is not just due to excise increases, although evidence was given on this to public hearings held here in August 2011 by our House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing as part of its inquiry into the plain packaging legislation. The then Chief Executive Officer of British American Tobacco Australia, a very, very large player in the field of tobacco products, gave evidence where—and I will quote him so that there is no chance of confusion—he said:

We understand that the price going up when the excise goes up reduces consumption.

That is worth repeating because you would think that the CEO of British American Tobacco Australia may well have been more inclined to try to diminish the impact of such a policy measure and, in fact, try to indicate to the government that it was not working so that it did not impact on them and their market share of tobacco. But he said:

We understand that the price going up when the excise goes up reduces consumption.

He went on to say—and this refers to the efficacy of the increase that occurred in 2010:

We saw that last year very effectively with the increase in excise.

So he attributed the double-digit reduction in consumption specifically to the introduction of the excise. He said:

There was a 25 per cent increase in the excise and we saw the volumes go down …

In his view, there was a 10.2 per cent reduction in the industry. That is not that inconsistent with the figures of the review that was eventually conducted consequent to that inquiry to determine just what impact the increase in excise had had.

This bill is quite specific. It is continuing a trend of governments and it does not matter what the persuasion of the governments are. What it has done is look back and seen a measure—in this case, a fiscal measure by a Labor government—that was successful. So the introduction of these increases, particularly after 2017 and onwards, I think, is based on sound thinking. As I said earlier in my contribution, I imagine that this measure will be supported by everyone here in the Senate because the results are in. The evidence that this works is in.

But, again, the measure needs to go hand-in-hand with an increase in advertising efforts to not only reduce tobacco consumption but create within society arrangements where people do not start smoking in the first place. They have to go to the key element, to the root source of this terrible addiction to try and help young people as they come through to avoid the pitfalls.

We all need to recognise that this is a very significant addiction in society. Those who have smoked and who have been able to give smoking away will tell you it is a lifelong addiction. We have to increase measures by government in advertising and education not only to increase the awareness of the impacts the abuse of tobacco products have on individuals but also to try and prevent or dissuade young people from taking up the habit in the first instance.

Support services require funding, and I can say our government proudly continues in our tradition as set by former governments and Labor governments in making sure that we fund all sorts of support services in our community, where people can readily access information to help them to determine what potential impacts their behaviour may have, not just with tobacco but across the abuse of both legal and illicit products, including alcohol and drugs. The increase in support services has been on an appropriate trajectory for governments. That needs to remain on the current trajectory so that we can increase the places people can go to gather the awareness they need.

The previous speaker spoke about making sure that we clamp down on illicit tobacco trade. Up until the end of the last parliament, I was a member of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee that visited on this issue on a number of occasions. I think there were inquiries conducted but I did not participate in them. And I know there was a lot of time and energy expended on Border Force during estimates for us to track just what efforts they were putting in place to see that we do not have illicit, cheaper tobacco in Australia that would offset, I suppose, the benefits that we are seeing from measures such as these increases in excises.

Plain packaging had another impact. You could take the plain packaging and put it in the same category as a reduction in advertising. I think that took away a bit of a trendy attraction to cigarettes. For those who smoked in earlier days, you will remember you may have been Craven A man or a Rothmans man or a Camel-without-a-filter man. I still have not got over the first Camel I had without a filter—I think I am still suffering from that 30 years on. I thank the plain packaging initiative. Again, I want to pay credit to the Australian Labor Party, who led the way on this. It was a great initiative and there is evidence that it had a significant impact on the trade also.

Society is playing its bit, playing a very important role. I remember as a young fellow that if you wanted a breath of fresh air, you went outside and everyone stayed inside smoking but of course that is now reversed. Smokers are often very socially conscious, I am told, and will find themselves trying to find a quiet spot in the car park behind a bush to have a cigarette rather than be seen. Most people now accept it is not a very socially acceptable practice to smoke in or about someone's home or at sporting events, particularly the school sporting events that I often go to with my grandchildren. At a stadium or some other sporting event, there is nobody lighting up in the vicinity of thousands of people.

Socially smoking has become a less accepted practice to the point that where anyone can regulate where you can smoke, they have done that. I remember travelling a lot internationally some years ago with work and probably still within a decade of today—may be a little bit longer—if you were travelling particularly on an Asian airline, the practice was still available. Then they started to shift the smokers down the back—I do not know what they thought that was going to achieve. Indeed, socially, communities and societies have taken whatever steps they can to reduce the consumption of tobacco.

I want to commend this measure to the Senate. I think it is a good measure. I think it is a measure that can be supported by all sides of politics. I think it is important to remind people that when it was introduced by the Labor government, it had an immediate, within 12 months, reduction in the consumption of tobacco products by double digits. If we can achieve that sort of result from each of these excise increases, we will have done our duty for our society. (Time expired)