House debates Questions without Notice
Crime: Illicit Tobacco
Mark Butler Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the House
2:28 pm
Most importantly, we won't be joining the coalition in a policy that didn't even ask the question, 'What will the impact of this be on the public health of our country?' What will the impact be on the public health of our country? It's the most grossly irresponsible act of wilful blindness I've seen in a long time. I think we all know why they didn't ask the question—because they know the answer. They saw it in Canada, where smoking rates, particularly among the young, went up by hundreds and hundreds of thousands. If I'm asked about joining, we are very glad that the coalition now seems to be willing to join us in some enforcement effort, because it's better late than never. As I said yesterday, after increasing tobacco excise by 215 per cent in their time in government, they did nothing extra on enforcement. They trousered every single dollar of that excise into general revenue—not a single dollar into enforcement, not a single dollar into public health programs.
We get that there is a huge challenge here. We recognise Premier Minns' advocacy around this, but we're not going to pluck figures out of the air with wilful blindness about the impact on public health. We're not interested in a bidding war with organised crime. We're interested in shutting down the stores and taking them to court. We're certainly not interested in this pathetic game of follow the leader that the Leader of the Opposition seems committed to with One Nation. (Time expired)
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