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Progress In Tobacco Inquiry

For all the media hype about the uselessness parliamentary inquiries (and committees who produce reports that nobody implements), it must be acknowledged that they provide unparalleled opportunities for the public to get at the facts in any given matter. I am really pleased with the progress of the Inquiry into the Tobacco Industry in NSW, whose true value as a forum to get all the evidence on the table is already being realised.

The committee has been out and about, visiting hospitals and hearing from members of the public, reading submissions and coming to grips with the true state of affairs in NSW. It has been a real eye opener for many of my fellow parliamentarians. Health evidence has been well presented and gives a very clear picture of the current situation. In NSW we have 150 smoking-related hospital admissions per day. Even more frightening is the death toll, which is the equivalent of a jumbo jet per week - 6,000 deaths caused by tobacco every year. This completely unreported group of disease and fatality costs NSW $6 billion a year. Importantly, only a part of this figure is borne by the government - most is borne by the victims or their relatives.

I can already hear some commentators saying “Hear, hear! That will teach them to smoke”, but many people are not dying from their own decision to smoke. Large numbers are being hospitalised and killed by the nicotine stained hands of their fellow man. During our visit to Concord Hospital, where Prof Matthew Peters showed us the human face of smoking, we spoke to a man who had suffered numerous heart attacks, and who was now dying of respiratory failure despite the replacement of his aorta (the biggest artery in the body). Prof Peters estimated about a third of Concord Hospital patients were there because of smoking. People who are persistently exposed to tobacco smoke get more disease, earlier, and stayed longer while in hospital. Their rate of return to hospital was also noteably higher than in other patients.

Our public forum (held appropriately on May Day), attracted a large and varied group, not one of whom was prepared to stand up for the smoking faction. Interestingly no one who was pro-smoking even registered for it. We witnessed a quite extraordinary range of testimonials from members of the public who have been orphaned by their parents habit, and from those whose lives have been threatened or restricted by our governments reluctance to acknowledge that smoking is a subtle brand of assault-murder and suicide. Some of the most interesting were from musicians and advertising industry people.

The testimony of the Australian Hotels Association was also interesting, in that they take no responsibility for the deaths of hotel workers through the AHA’s campaign to avoid the regulation of passive smoking. Their position is that as they ‘own no hotels’ and only lobbied as ‘part of the process’ they were not responsible for the final decision of the government to allow smoking in pubs. As far as they are concerned it was ‘the government’s responsibility’. They have a point here, but this does not let anyone off the hook. Everyone who could have intervened, and did not, is responsible - from the manufacturer who sold a lethal product, to the hotelier who provides a toxic environment, and perhaps even the government, which makes a lot of revenue from the taxes on sales.

Surveys of prevalence (ie how many people are smoking and how much) have shown smoking is going down, but the sales data is far less promising. Customs data suggests that the gap between what people say they smoke and what they actually smoke is increasing. Given that poorer people have less fixed line phones the phone surveys are probably getting middle class people who smoke less anyway. We need to be a bit more critical of the data, but it would seem that government is playing an extraordinary part in the slow death of its constituents.

Here are some examples:
Imperial Tobacco was ‘invited’ to come to Australia by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). Worse still, Rothmans and British-American Tobacco were ordered to sell them some brands to help with ‘competition’!
The Health Dept says there are Quit resources everywhere, but all this mean is that you can phone the Quitline from anywhere- there are few resources on the ground for smokers. The submissions and transcripts are now available on the NSW Parliament's website.

Tobacco companies have put themselves to the trouble of making submissions to the committee, but have decided not to dignify our procedings with their actual presence. Their position can be summed up as follows: Imperial Tobacco does not want any hiding of cigarettes under the counter, as it makes it harder for them to get their smaller brands recognised. Philip Morris wants to license tobacconists, and British-American Tobacco Australia (BATA) just want the status quo of smoking in pubs and clubs to be upheld. But one thing the tobacco companies all have in common is that none of them want to appear before the Committee. No sir! BATA believes that the Committees aims are too different from their own, though they are happy to talk to 'government' at any time.

They are happy to talk to government behind closed doors, but not the committee, where things are out in the open. Their main concern is to be left alone, unscrutinised, and to continue quietly peddle death as they have always done.

The Committee is going to write to ask them to reconsider, but they may have to be subpoenaed, and dragged kicking and screaming to the Committee. It will be interesting to see if they come voluntarily.


Yours,
Dr Arthur Chesterfield-Evans M.L.C. (ACE)