Public Health Needs to be Prioritised Over Big Tobacco Profits
The Tasmanian Greens today have called for both State Labor and Liberal parties to lobby their Federal counterparts to support the Greens’ proposed floor price on cigarettes in response to big tobacco threats to slash prices should the Federal government successfully legislate for plain packaging.
Greens Shadow Health spokesperson Paul ‘Basil’ O’Halloran MP said the tobacco industry’s threats were clearly designed to flood the market with cheap cigarettes which he described as a desperate and irresponsible move.
Mr O’Halloran also said that the one of the tobacco companies driving the threat to slash cigarette prices is British American Tobacco Australia (BATA), from which the Tasmanian Liberal Party accepted political donations of $7600. The Liberals also received a further $6, 625 from Philip Morris Ltd. [1]
“Big tobacco is clearly running scared by moves at the federal arena to implement public health policies, and clearly the introduction of a fixed floor price on cigarettes would counter their threat to slash prices,” Mr O’Halloran said.
“The Greens are calling for both the Tasmanian Labor and Liberal parties to urge their federal counterparts to support the introduction of a floor price on cigarettes, to counter big tobacco’s attempts to undermine the plain packaging reforms.”
“We all know that Tasmania has the highest smoking rate of all Australian states, and Braddon in particular has a smoking rate of 29.7% which is 9.7% higher than the national average.”
“All three parties must pull together and advocate strongly for good public policy to be prioritised over the vested interests of the smoking corporations.”
“In particular the challenge faces Liberal Health spokesperson, Jeremy Rockliff, to demonstrate that big tobacco money received by his Party as political donations does not talk louder than good public policy imperatives, and to publicly commit to lobbying Tony Abbott to support the Australian Greens’ proposal to introduce floor prices on cigarettes,” Mr O’Halloran said.
Reference [1]: 2009-2010 Australian Electoral Commission returns.
Paul ‘Basil’ O’Halloran MP Greens Shadow Health spokesperson
