Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Regional Communications) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Senator McCarthy, for your question. We know that we lead the world in smoking cessation here in Australia. It was as a result of a campaign that began in my home state of Victoria through VicHealth many, many, many years ago. But, whether we look at the changes that state governments have made, implementation of a variety of tax regimes on the purchase of cigarettes or the plain-packaging legislation introduced by the former Labor government, at every single step of the way state and territory governments and federal governments in this country have been committed to reducing smoking rates in this country.

In my home state of Victoria we had a great tobacco industry. The production of tobacco ceased as a result of decisions taken by state and Commonwealth governments. So reducing smoking rates in Australia is an important task at hand, but I do recognise, Senator McCarthy, that the smoking rates in particular for Indigenous Australians are of a particularly higher rate than is acceptable and that we are doing everything that we can to seek to reduce those.