This week eleven Tasmanians will die of a tobacco related illness, and our public service pension fund, for which you are responsible, is giving aid and comfort to this disreputable industry, by investing $27.9 million of our money.
I would like you to think about the grieving Tasmanian families who are sitting right now at the bedside of a family member dying of a smoking related illness. There are many. Our hospitals have cancer, cardiac and emergency wards full of our friends, family, fellow workers, and colleagues. Many are suffering quietly at home from emphysema, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), heart failure, kidney disease, multiple organ failure and various cancers. They are not visible to the general public, they rarely leave the house, but their anguish is great.
We all know someone in Tasmania who has died from a smoking related illness.
The most recent ABS data shows that Tasmania now has the highest smoking rates among states. While the Australian average for current smokers as a proportion of the total population is 18.1%, the rate for Tasmania is 23.2%. The difference in percentage points between Tasmania and Australia now stands at 5.1 percentage points. Eight years ago this difference was only 2.2 percentage points. In other words while the rest of the country has improved significantly in its performance, Tasmania has not.
Within this total population view it is even more disturbing to observe smoking prevalence among males aged 25-34 of 45.8% – almost double the national rate. Smoking prevalence for young pregnant women is 46.8% for those under 20 and 35.5% for those aged 20-24; among the highest levels for the country.
I have urged all RBF contributors and pensioners, public servants to write to you, to ask you to cease and desist from propping up the rogue tobacco industry.
The tobacco industry kills off our fellow Tasmanians at a rate ofover 570 plus people every year. That means that this week eleven Tasmanians will die from the use of tobacco products, and many more are suffering right now.
The following Board members should be ashamed of providing financial aid to the tobacco industry.
• Damian Egan
• Don Challen
• John Wilcox
• Lindsay Jones
• Neroli Ellis
• John Harman
• Elizabeth Thomas
Do any of you smoke? I doubt it. Do you encourage your children and grandchildren to smoke? I doubt it. So why do you support the mass murder of your fellow Tasmanians?Do you support child labour? Smuggling?Misleading and deceptive conduct?Racketeering? I doubt it – yet these are all practices which the global tobacco industry has engaged in.
Tobacco is not even a good investment.
Tobacco is a sunset industry. It is at high risk of litigation. According to UniSuper it has an “uncertain regulatory future”. Tobacco stocks “had delivered minimal outperformance”. In my view this is an understatement. It has a very certain regulatory future, a downward spiral of permitted activity, and it doesn’t take a tea leaf reader or a first year economics student to tell you that big tobacco is doomed. http://www.unisuper.com.au/investments/investments-faqs
David Gonski AC, Chairman of the Future Fund Board, said that the Board had noted tobacco’s damaging health effects, addictive properties and that there is no safe level of consumption, and the Board considered its investment policies and approach to environmental, social and governance issues. The Future Fund has disinvested in tobacco and removed $222 million from the clutches of the tobacco industry brigands.
One of the companies in which you invest, Japan Tobacco, was only last week found to be engaging in misleading advertising, in order to dissuade another government from introducing plain packaging.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/mar/13/ash-cancer-research-gallaher-cigarette-packs
On Saturday 16 March the Mercury printed an article I wrote with the help of Anne Jones (ASH) the Simon Barnsley, (CEO, Tasmanian Cancer Council), Tom Baxter (Greens candidate for Nelson), Paul O’Halloran (Greens) and Caroline Wootton (Greens), which can be found at http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2013/03/16/374749_opinion.html
In peace
Kathryn Barnsley
Those who believe that their superannuation scheme should behave ethically with the best interests of Tasmanians at heart, and invest in genuinely sound investments, can write to:
The Chief Executive Officer
Retirement Benefits Fund Board
GPO Box 446
Hobart TAS 7001
Or telephone between the hours of 8am and 7pm on 1800 622 631
More information about why no superannuation scheme should invest in tobacco can be found at:
http://www.ashaust.org.au/lv4/Lv4action_investment.htm#THE%20CASE%20FOR%20TOBACCO%20DIVESTMENT
