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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-06-04 Daily Xml
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TOBACCO PRODUCTS REGULATION (PRESCRIBED SMOKING AGE) AMENDMENT BILL

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (11:17): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Tobacco Products Regulation Act 1997. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (11:18): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I should make the point that the preceding bill and this bill are private members' bills and not necessarily the policy of the Liberal Party. I make that clear. This particular bill is somewhat more controversial. I am really putting it out for public discussion, almost like a white paper, if you like. I am doing this because I want to create community debate about the level of smoking.

My theory is this: the public, the press and the parliament spend a lot of time talking about the road toll. The road roll in South Australia is about 100 people a year and, naturally, we all think that is still too high and we have all sorts of policies to reduce that. For every one person who is killed on the roads in South Australia, 12 are dying from smoking and smoking-related diseases. In South Australia, according to the government's own figures, 1,200 people a year die of smoking and smoking-related diseases, and about 14,900 die in Australia every year.

It seems to me that, the way parliaments all around Australia are heading, we are slowly restricting people's capacity to smoke. There was another bill today about whether councils should be able to restrict smoking in public areas like beaches and reserves. What we are heading down the path of is having, essentially, a community that will have no smoking and smoking areas, but I do not think that is going to reduce smoking a lot further than it already has.

I think the parliaments have picked off the low hanging fruit in relation to smoking, through the enclosed areas type legislation where we have prohibited smoking, but the next step has become a lot harder because you are talking about not smoking in public areas—and we see that the government is opposing the matter that the member for MacKillop raised earlier.

It seems to me that if a company came to the government today and said, 'We have a product that you can tax; it will only kill 15,000 people a year but you can tax it,' I do not think that the government would licence it. I do not think that the government today would licence that product for sale. Every year we have product recall because of health reasons: poisoned meats or products that are out of date that are going to cause health issues—they are withdrawn because of the health impact. So, I do not think that a government would licence another type of product that would kill 15,000 a year.

What this bill provides is that if that is the view then it should be phased out. Let us draw a line in the sand and say this: 'All existing smokers can still smoke,' subject to whatever the laws are, as in you cannot smoke in dining areas and those sorts of things. So we are not taking away their right to smoke, but we can say to the next generation: 'We are actually going to have a smoking age that lifts every year so that, in effect, the next generation cannot smoke.' They do not get a criminal conviction, they simply get an expiation notice, and so it is phased out over 70 to 100 years.

In this particular bill I have picked a date so that anyone born after 1 January 1993 cannot smoke. I am not so naive as to say that there would not be a black market, but if we could reduce the level of smoking to the same level of illegal drug use that exists today, then you would reduce the number of deaths by 1,100 a year in South Australia. About 100 people a year die from a drug overdose: heroin, cocaine, amphetamines, etc. If you could reduce smoking to the same level of illegal drug use you would save 1,100 lives a year in South Australia, accepting that there would be a black market.

I know that when the smoking age is, say, 20 the 18 year olds would probably still get away with it to some degree, but when the smoking age is 30 the 18 year olds would not get away with it, when the smoking age is 40 the 25 year olds would not get away with it, and when the smoking age is 60 the 40 year olds would not get away with it. Slowly, over 100 years it could be phased out. I just do not accept that a government would license another product that kills 15,000 people a year.

I think the parliament, over 20 years, has done a great job on the road toll, reducing it from about 370 deaths a year when I was young to about 100. Now, let us say that the level of smoking has reduced and that the level of deaths has dropped by half—it is a long tail of deaths, so the level of deaths will drop over a period of time—from 1,200 a year in South Australia to 600 a year. We still have 600 people being killed by smoking as against 100 being killed in road deaths. The impact is still significant.

Smoking in this country costs Australia about $31.5 billion a year, according to the federal government's 2004 report; the costs of tobacco, alcohol and illicit drug abuse to Australian society costs about $56 billion a year. John Hill, our current health minister, has told the parliament that at the current rate of expansion of the health services—which is 8 or 9 per cent growth in real funding every year—the entire state budget will be sucked up by the health budget by 2032. Clearly, that is unsustainable.

There are three drivers of health costs: the ageing population, obesity and diabetes, and smoking. We cannot do a lot about ageing, and obesity and diabetes are very difficult to deal with because there are so many different issues that cause them, but smoking involves only one aspect, and that is the use of one product. This bill does not take away anyone's existing right to smoke—everyone who currently smokes can still smoke—however, it says to the next generation that we actually got it wrong, and phases it out. Parliaments around the world have phased out all sorts of things because of health impacts—Agent Orange, a whole range of pesticides and other things have been phased out over time because they have been found to have unhealthy impacts. Smoking is the only product I know that, if used to the manufacturer's instructions, will kill you.

This bill is put out really to create discussion. I am not so naive as to expect that it will actually be passed by the parliament, but I put it out in the form, if you like, of a discussion paper or white paper so that the community has the opportunity of greater debate on the issue of smoking and on where we go next on smoking policy. We are killing 1,200 South Australians a year; that is 12 times the road toll. The community is extraordinarily focused on the road toll, and I am trying to apply as much focus in relation to the issue of smoking. With those words, I look forward to hearing comments from the house, and seek leave to have the remainder of my second reading explanation inserted in Hansard without my reading it.

Leave granted.

The 2004 federal government report shows that, interestingly, for Australians alcohol cost $15.3 billion (27.3 per cent) and all illicit drugs combined totalled $8.2 billion (14.6 per cent). Tobacco tax revenue in 2004-05 exceeded tobacco-attributable costs borne by the public sector by more than $3.5 billion. Of this surplus, $2.7 billion went to the commonwealth and around $800 million to the states. This is another reason to phase it out over 100 years as it gives the budget a long time to adjust to the impact.

Some people will argue that prohibition does not work. People will still smoke. To some degree this would be right. However, all illicit drug use combined in total cost Australia in 2004-05 $8.2 billion with 872 deaths nationally or about 70 deaths in South Australia. It took up 199,706 hospital bed days nationally or 16,476 bed days in South Australia. If we achieved a reduction in smoking to the same level as all other illicit drugs combined we would achieve:

a reduction in costs to society of $46 billion per year;

a saving of over 14,000 lives per year nationally or 1,100 lives annually in South Australia;

a freeing up of hospital bed days of 554,000 per year nationally or 44,320 in South Australia.

According to the 'State of Public and Environmental Health Report for South Australia 2007-2008' smoking rates remained stable from 2006 to 2007 among all age groups except the over 60s, which declined significantly. The smoking prevalence rate in 2007 was 20.6 per cent amongst adults.

According to Jane Lomax's press release of 27 March 2009:

'One in two people who start smoking as teenagers will eventually die from tobacco related diseases…23 per cent of young South Australians between 15 and 29 years old smoke…smoking remains the single biggest cause of premature death in our state with about three South Australian's dying each day from tobacco-related illness, or about 1,200 a year.'

According to Kidney Health Australia 'people who smoke are three times more likely to have reduced kidney function and have a 4 to 5 times greater risk of heart attack or stroke.'

Debate adjourned on motion of Mrs Geraghty.

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