Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to make a contribution to the debate on the Excise Tariff Amendment (Tobacco) Bill 2016 and the Customs Tariff Amendment (Tobacco) Bill 2016. These will increase tobacco excise charged on domestic production and equivalent customs duties, which are of course charged on imports, by way of four annual increases of 12.5 per cent a year from 2017 through to 2020. Certainly, in listening to the address that was just given by my colleague Senator Scullion, the

The increase in excise and duty will move Australia towards the World Health Organiz ation's recommendation that exc ise should comprise 70 per cent of the price of a cigarette. There are very, very good evidentiary reasons for this. You see this in advertising and you see it on the cigarette packets themselves, but it is a fact that each year smoking kills an estimated 15,000 Australians. If that was not bad enough, you also have the cost to the Australian economy. Each year smoking costs the Australian economy approximately $31.5 billion in social costs, and economic costs. Those costs include the huge impact of smoking on our health system. So these bills are very much aimed at reducing the prevalence of smoking in society and thus, of course, minimising the harm to the Australian community of cigarette smoking. It is a fact that increasing the price of cigarettes via taxation is one of the most effective ways of reducing tobacco consumption.

Debate interrupted.