Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Attorney-General. What is the international community's response to yesterday's High Court decision about the government's world-leading plain packaging legislation? How does this compare with some of the responses here at home?

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Hindmarsh for his question. He, along with many other members on this side of the House, has campaigned hard for this reform and, as a reformed smoker himself, I know that he has had a particular interest in it. I think many people would have been surprised about the enthusiastic response that was received around the world for this measure that Australia is taking as a world leader.

I thought the House might be interested to know that organisations like the World Health Organization, along with the US based Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the South African health minister, the New Zealand health minister, and reporters from the BBC, CNN, the Bangkok Postand the Pretoria News all have welcomed this decision of the High Court because they see that there is an opportunity for them to follow Australia and introduce harsher tobacco control measures themselves. It is obviously good news for those who have been fighting for many years for this change.

I am asked about both the international response and the local response. I fear I do have to report an error that was made yesterday in the House. I need to make an apology to the opposition because I said yesterday that there were some members opposite who welcomed this measure but they were all on the backbench. I have to tell you that following yesterday's decision I received many calls from people on the frontbench and the backbench of the opposition, and they were very welcome. I wanted particularly to share a note with you; I checked that the member for Fairfax was comfortable with me saying this. He sent a lovely note which said that, when he first joined the Public Service nearly 50 years ago, he turned up for his first day of work and presented at the office that issued material for your office. He said: 'I was given three things. I was given an in-tray, I was given an out-tray and I was given an ashtray.' Not many of us can imagine a world where that was the norm for every public servant. I am delighted that there are so many people across both sides of this House who can see that this is an important change.

However, there are three members—the member for Indi, the member for Sturt and the member for Goldstein—whom I have not heard anything from, and I wonder whether this is because each of them has received thousands of dollars in donations from the tobacco companies since this was reported. They have shown no interest in being prepared to support this important public health measure. Donations keep flowing in, and, since we are particularly talking about two-year anniversaries, I thought that people might like to know that today is the two year anniversary of the Leader of the Opposition telling a Q&A audience that he intended to keep on taking those donations for as long as tobacco was legal.