CIGARETTE PACKAGING

Adjourned debate on motion of Mr Sibbons:

That this house expresses its support for the federal government's move to introduce plain label packaging for cigarettes across Australia by 1 July 2012.

(Continued from 9 June 2011.)

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (12:48): I have spoken with the mover of this motion, the member for Mitchell, and because the opposition is supporting this motion I would like to amend his motion so that it reads:

That this house expresses its support for the federal government's move to introduce plain label packaging for cigarettes across Australia by 1 July 2012 and notes that this move will not be opposed by the federal opposition.

This is an extremely important motion. The move to put cigarettes in plain packaging is one that I was asked about 18 months ago. I was initially sceptical. I said, 'This is policy looking for evidence.' I should put on the record that I have never smoked. I cannot even stand second-hand smoke when walking behind smokers on wonderful Jetty Road down at the Bay. It is just atrocious. You try to hold your breath while you get past them. I do not understand why people would want to smoke.

Even representatives of tobacco companies who have been to see me openly admit to me that they and their companies know that smoking is the highest cause of preventable deaths. I do not think it is over-exaggerating to call them merchants of death. Why people would spend the money that they do now on cigarettes is unbelievable. How can they afford to do that? I do not know. I think some of the biggest addicts of smoking in the past have been in governments. The tobacco excise has been a huge part of the tax take for governments of all persuasions, both state and federal.

I remember the school fete when I was a kid in grade 3 at Elizabeth South Primary School. I cannot remember what the actual game was—it was a board game, I think—and I won a packet of Craven A 10s. This was when I was in grade 3, and I was given a packet of Craven A 10s! I admit that my brothers and I smoked them on the way home, between Elizabeth South Primary School and Hogarth Road, and we were all sick as dogs. Perhaps that is what put me off cigarettes. How attitudes have changed.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Point of order, Madam Speaker. A minute ago, the member for Morphett said he had never smoked in his life, and now he has just told the house that he smoked cigarettes when he was in grade 3.

The SPEAKER: Thank you, minister. Sit down; we will not acknowledge that point of order. Member for Morphett.

An honourable member: He didn't inhale.

Dr McFETRIDGE: I did inhale. I meant as a regular smoker. I understand the member for West Torrens' point of order. There are a lot of things in life you try, member for West Torrens, but you never become a regular participant. I will continue.

This is an extremely important motion and, as I said, my attitude was that this was policy looking for evidence. If you want to see that evidence now, just look at the advertising on television. You have a lady who is portrayed to be like something out of the SS in Germany telling you what you will do. That impression is draconian. The impression is that this is the end of the world, all your freedoms are going. To me, that is pretty clear evidence that tobacco companies know this is going to work. If for no other reason, I am more than happy to support this motion and the plain packaging of cigarettes.

As a Liberal, I would like to see people who are selling legal products able to advertise and sell those products in a way that can enhance their business. However, when you have a product such as this—that tobacco company representatives tell me they know is the largest cause of preventable deaths, yet they still want to keep pushing it to not only older people but also young people—we need to do something about it. This may be one way of reducing the impact of cigarette smoking on our population and on our health system. The burden on our health system is phenomenal. I forget the actual number of people who die from cigarette smoking every year, but it is huge.

I would still like to see the evidence that moving to plain-label packaging will reduce the total amount of smoking in the population. I have read some information about this, and I understand that the big concern of tobacco companies is not the total amount of tobacco they are going to sell but the profits they are going to lose, because the range of cigarettes that are marketed across the nation vary from top-end brands—and I do not know these brands, but they are in flash cigarette boxes, gold colours, and things like that—right down to fairly plain packaging.

The cigarettes, as I understand it, are identical. I am being assured by some of the smokers in the house they are not identical but, to me, they taste identical. They still cause a lot of health issues. The profit is in the top end and the plain packaging will reduce consumer demand for that top end where all the profit is. So the consumption of tobacco may not decrease significantly—I hope it does, but it may not—but the profit margin will go from the top end range of cigarettes, the really expensive cigarettes. If it dents their profit margins, that may make them think of coming up with other ways of advertising and marketing their products, but we should do anything we can to reduce smoking.

Putting the price up or doubling the price is not going to work. People will just divert their income from other areas and kids and families may suffer because people are spending money on cigarettes and not on food, clothes, rent, power and that sort of thing. We cannot have a simple solution for this. It is a very complex problem. This packaging change will go a long way to addressing that. If it stops some people smoking, that is great.

We need to continue the fight against smoking: we cannot just stop at this. I am very pleased to see that there is support across both sides of the house. Some people do not agree with it, I know that. As I said, Liberal policy would be to allow people selling a legal product to market it in ways they choose, but there is a special reason we are looking at this and that is that people die and have lots of disease and ill health. The federal opposition certainly is not opposing this.

It is good that we are getting this going and it will be interesting to see the results we get from the changes. I hope there is evidence of this policy working 12 months after it is introduced in 2012. The evidence should be there and if the policy is not working perhaps we have to look at it again, and we will be back in this place talking about other policies. I look forward to seeing that evidence.

Mr PISONI (Unley) (12:58): I think we need to remember that 1,200 South Australians die every year of smoking-related diseases. I was very pleased to hear an interjection from the minister for corrections that he has given up smoking. I congratulate him on doing so. I will sleep better at night knowing that his health will be better in years to come.

I think we have to look at the fact that, if tobacco companies had come to the government in this day and age and said, 'We have got this great new product. You are going to earn billions of dollars a year in tax. We are going to make a lot of money, employ a lot of people, grow tobacco farms, set up manufacturing plants in your country and advertising companies will make a lot of money promoting our product, but the only catch is thousands of people will die every year using this product,' I do not think we would see cigarettes introduced into the marketplace here in South Australia, or any civilised western country. As a matter of fact, the only countries where we are seeing a rise in the use of cigarettes are those where there is still strong branding and less education about the outcome of cigarettes.

I think it is important that, as community leaders—although it grinds against the libertarian views that we have about making laws about the way people run their lives—I think we have a social responsibility to destroy the advantage that cigarette companies have gained over the years in building up their brands and addicting people to this product. We all know how important branding is in selling products and making money.

That is why we see more and more 'home brands', if you like, in supermarkets. We have our two large supermarket chains grabbing nearly 80 per cent of the market and what we are seeing over time is that they are destroying brands so they can have more control over the price they pay suppliers for those products because they know how powerful brands are for the consumer. What this legislation will do, of course, is diminish that ability for branding. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debated adjourned.

[Sitting suspended from 13:01 to 14:00]