BAT launches anti-plain packaging campaign

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Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Broadcast: 17/05/2011

Reporter: Steve Cannane

British American Tobacco has warned plain packaging could lead to a price war and a rise in illegal imports and smoking.


ALI MOORE, PRESENTER: The CEO of Australia's largest tobacco company said the Government's proposal of plain packaging for cigarettes will increase smoking rates.

David Crow from British American Tobacco Australia launched the industry's anti-plain packaging campaign today, warning the proposal could lead to a price war and a rise in illegal tobacco use.

The Government and public health advocates have dismissed the claims.

Steve Cannane reports.

STEVE CANNANE, REPORTER: Big tobacco is back into advertising.

DAVID CROW, BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO: They're going to go up on big billboards, so you can't miss them.

STEVE CANNANE: Today the tobacco industry launched a multi-million-dollar campaign to derail the Government's plain packaging laws, with predictions of more smoking, not less.

DAVID CROW: And so what you'll end up is with us fighting on price, smugglers flooding the market with cheap product, which brings pricing down. Remember these sell for five bucks a pack, not 16 bucks a pack.

Cheaper pricing means more smoking, means more kids smoking.

STEVE CANNANE: But the Health Minister disagrees.

NICOLA ROXON: They've told us firstly that it wouldn't be effective. Now it's so effective that it will damage their profits so much that they're going to slash their own profits themselves to prove this point.

It really just doesn't make sense. The tobacco companies are trying to protect their profits, that's their business. We're trying to protect people's lives.

STEVE CANNANE: And the tobacco industry may not be alone in fighting the legislation.

TONY ABBOTT, OPPOSITION LEADER: The Coalition in principle supports all reasonable measures to get smoking rates down. My anxiety with this is that it might end up being counterproductive in practice.

STEVE CANNANE: The tobacco industry says that plain packaging will encourage more illegal tobacco, a market they say already accounts for 16 per cent of all tobacco sales.

STEVE CROW: Sixteen per cent comes from a report that's in your media pack. It's been built by Deloittes, a piece of independent research. Let me just point out that...

REPORTER: Was that funded by the tobacco industry?

DAVID CROW: Absolutely, and proudly funded, by the way.

PROFESSOR SIMON CHAPMAN, UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY: BAT is exaggerating extremely on this. Independent household survey, an Australian Government one, found that 0.2 per cent of Australian adults - not just smokers - used illegal product more than half the time. That's only about 33,000 people.

STEVE CANNANE: But the tobacco industry says illegal tobacco sales have increased by 150 per cent in the last three years.

DAVID CROW: It's driven by crime syndicates, it's driven by the Triads, it's driven by the underbelly of the smuggling world. These are the guys we know, Interpol knows them, Customs and Excise, the federal agencies in Australia know them, and they fight this war continually.

STEVE CANNANE: But customs authorities have released figures to Lateline that show illegal tobacco seizures have actually decreased in the last three years, from 284 tonnes in 2007 to 279 tonnes in 2010.

And from 94 million sticks in 2007 to 66 million in 2010.

If the tobacco industry's advertising campaign doesn't work, the next step is almost certain to be a legal challenge.

DAVID CROW: I think the issue of legal process is down to the Government removing brands and intellectual property from the packs. And obviously, if you remove something from the packs...

REPORTER: So a constitutional challenge?

DAVID CROW: I think it would be, at the end. The issue is we don't have a bill at the moment so I can't actually answer that question.

What we have is a view from the Government. As it forms into legislation we'll make those judgments, and at the end of the day that will be something that happens right at the very end.

STEVE CANNANE: The Government is due to introduce the bill into Parliament in the winter session.

Steve Cannane, Lateline.


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BAT launches anti-plain packaging campaign

BAT launches anti-plain packaging campaign

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