David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to oppose the Tobacco Plain Packaging Amendment Bill 2018. This bill broadens the range of people who can be authorised to ensure that the government's plain packaging rules are being complied with—more people to measure the font on cigarette packets; more people to check that the dark green colour on cigarette packs is the right dark green; and, of course, more people to make sure that nothing about cigarettes is bright and colourful, in case it stimulates non-smokers into becoming smokers. Nobody has ever met anyone like that, but the government just knows for sure that they are out there, just sitting there, ready to become nicotine addicts at the first sign of colour on a cigarette packet. The fact that the government knows they are out there gives them a reason to go around the world congratulating themselves on their wonderful tobacco control initiatives and encouraging other countries to do the same, because, if the government knows there are such people in Australia, it also knows that they must also be present in other countries.

The bill widens the categories of people who may be appointed as authorised officers under the act. So now they will include Commonwealth officers not appointed under the Public Service Act, state or territory government officers, state and territory police officers and local government officials. All those people will be authorised to run around checking that the plain packaging policy is being complied with.

The problem is: plain packaging is a failed policy. As everyone except the government seems to know, there are no people out there ready to become nicotine addicts at the first sign of colour on a cigarette packet. There never were any. When you think about it, there was never any reason to believe there were. The legislated purpose of plain packaging is to:

(a) to improve public health by:

  (i) discouraging people from taking up smoking, or using tobacco products; and

  (ii) encouraging people to give up smoking, and to stop using tobacco products; and

  (iii) discouraging people who have given up smoking, or who have stopped using tobacco products, from relapsing; and

  (iv) reducing people’s exposure to smoke from tobacco products; …

These are all logical objectives, but has plain packaging improved public health by discouraging smoking and encouraging quitting?

The answer is, clearly, no. The latest data shows there was no statistically significant decline in the smoking rate over the most recent three-year period. This is the first time in years that we haven't seen such a decline, and this during a period when tobacco taxes were raised through the roof. Professor Sinclair Davidson from RMIT University also points out that the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission has reported an increase over a similar time frame in the amount of nicotine in its national wastewater survey, and a paper in the Tobacco Prevention & Cessation journal found no statistically significant reduction in youth smoking in the first year after the introduction of plain packaging. Very simply and plainly, plain packaging has clearly failed to improve public health by discouraging smoking and encouraging quitting.

The government knows this. Its own report on plain packaging studiously avoided the requirement in its terms of reference to analyse whether plain packaging had actually achieved the legislated purpose of improving public health. Instead, the report focuses on perceptions of graphic health warnings, which is a requirement that preceded and is quite separate from plain packaging.

Not only has plain packaging failed to achieve its purpose of improving human health, it has also done considerable damage. Consumers are no longer drawn to high-cost brands but have shifted to lower-cost brands, so the lower cost has helped to sustain their habit. And consumers are no longer drawn by branding and marketing to buy legal cigarettes, so the shift to the far cheaper illegal tobacco has accelerated. This has helped organised crime and cross-subsidised their other operations, such as their trade in illegal drugs and guns.

And, all the while, quoting false information about the cost of smoking: the Collins and Lapsley paper on the costs of smoking has to be the most discredited economic study ever, and yet the Department of Health quotes it on every occasion. Smoking does not cost $31.5 billion. It has never been anywhere close to that. It's not even a tenth of that. It's true, though, that smoking is a leading cause of health problems, and it would be preferable if people stopped smoking. That is not in question. But the government should not be telling lies about its cost and it shouldn't be sticking with policies that are clearly failing. The truth is that government policy is sustaining the smoking habit by denying smokers the much less harmful option of e-cigarettes. In countries where e-cigarettes are available, smoking is declining. And they don't have plain packaging or sky-high taxes on tobacco.

Government tobacco policy is sinking like the Titanic. Yet with the bill before us today the government is merely rearranging the deckchairs by tweaking the administration of the failed plain-packaging rules. Government tax policy is driving smokers deeper into financial hardship, and government tax and plain-packaging policy is putting smokers into contact with organised criminals pushing a range of other drugs. Smoking is a public health issue, but the government's cack-handed policy response is a joke—a farce—and this bill is evidence of that. Indeed, the government is fiddling while Australians continue to burn their cigarettes. This is bill is immoral, and I will not be voting for it.