Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Fielding for his question. As I indicated in my response to his primary question, one of the broad areas that the taskforce will provide recommendations about is how best to prevent illness and stay well, but it also focuses on those three priority areas. One of those, I can confirm, is tobacco because the number of Australians smoking daily is down—and this is good news—from 23.8 per thousand in 1995 to 16.6 per thousand, a fall of more than half a million. That does not mean that we can stop there. We do need to continue to focus our efforts in this area. The election commitment of $15 million to reinvigorate the National Tobacco Strategy, including the National Tobacco Campaign, is one of those areas. I can also say that the COAG $1.6 billion— (Time expired)