Tag: Australia

  • Diggers reject mine sites smoking ban

    A call by the Cancer Council for smoking to be banned at all West Australian (WA) mines sites has been rejected, according to an Australian Associated Press report.

    The Chamber of Minerals and Energy (CME) has said that a ban would cause resentment.

    WA’s Department of Mines and Petroleum data show smoking rates in the mining sector are almost double the national average.

    The CME’s manager of occupational health and safety, Richard Wilson, was quoted as saying that public health campaigners needed to design strategies to improve the health of the whole population, not target specific industries.

    “Singling out one sector above others just causes resentment amongst people in that industry and fails to improve health outcomes across the population,” Wilson said.

  • Cuba joins fight over Aussie plain packaging rules

    Cuba has become the latest country to launch a legal attack on Australia’s landmark plain packaging rules for tobacco at the World Trade Organization (WTO).

    The laws came into effect last December and mean cigarettes can only be sold in brown packages with graphic health warnings. The WTO says Cuba has requested consultations with Australia on the legislation, which covers all tobacco products, not just cigarettes. Under the 159-nation WTO’s rules, requesting consultations is the first step in an often complex trade dispute settlement process which can last for several years.

    The laws have already been challenged at the WTO by Cuba’s fellow cigar-producing nations Honduras and the Dominican Republic. In addition, the Ukraine has filed a suit at the Geneva-based body, which oversees its member nations’ respect for the rules of global commerce, according to the Australian news company ABC.

    All the plaintiff countries maintain that Australia’s packaging law breaches international trade rules and intellectual property rights.

    In the event that the WTO’s disputes settlement body finds in their favor, it would have the power to authorize retaliatory trade measures against Australia if the country failed to fall into line. The dispute with Australia marks the first-ever challenge by Cuba against a fellow member since it joined the global body in April 1995, four months after the WTO was founded in its current form.

    The plain packaging laws have won wide praise from health organizations which are trying to curb smoking. But the government has faced a string of court challenges from tobacco firms.

    Besides trade and intellectual property concerns, tobacco companies say there is no proof that plain packaging reduces smoking and have warned that the law sets a precedent that could spread to products such as alcohol.

  • Australian fund gets tough on TOMRA’s tobacco ties

    An Australian superannuation and investment fund is leading an international effort to pressure a Norwegian machinery maker to leave the tobacco  industry.

    In what amounts to a new front in the war against tobacco, Australian Ethical will put forward a resolution on Monday at the annual general meeting of Norwegian company TOMRA, demanding it stop selling tobacco sorting machines.

    Australian Ethical, which manages more than $600 million on behalf of about 18,000 investors, has long invested in TOMRA, which makes machinery used in recycling.

    Last year, when TOMRA bought Best Sorting, a Belgian company that makes tobacco sorting machines, Australian Ethical wrote to TOMRA, asking it to get out of the area. When it refused, Australian Ethical approached other investors in the company for support.

    The resolution calls on the company to stop selling tobacco sorting machines to the tobacco industry within six months. If the resolution received majority support, it would be binding on the company. If it fails, Australian Ethical will sell its stake in TOMRA.

    In February the Future Fund announced it would sell its tobacco investments – valued then at about $222 million – citing the damaging health effects and addictive properties of tobacco.

  • Less drinking, smoking causes Aussies more problems

    A major research project has found that Australians have cut down on smoking and drinking, but they’ve gained weight and become more anxious.

    A survey by Roy Morgan Research of 50,000 Australians every year, over five years, has found 1.1 million fewer glasses of alcoholic drinks are being consumed a week and 134,000 fewer people smoke compared with 2007, according to a story posted on the Sky News website.

    But CEO Michele Levine says the bad news is that 736,000 more adults are obese and the number of people with anxiety has increased by 1.3 million.

    Roy Morgan Research collaborated with Alere healthcare company to establish the Alere Wellness Index.

    The results are based on 1,800 questions put to 50,000 people a year, every year, for the past five years.

  • Smoking causes more than “just death”

    Australia was due yesterday to start a new anti-tobacco propaganda campaign aimed at preventing the suffering caused by smoking.

    According to an Australian Associated Press story, the campaign, called “Stop before the suffering starts”, will use television and radio, and the print, online and social media.

    The campaign is said to highlight the toll taken by smoking-related illnesses and the impact on smokers and their families.

    “Many medical conditions caused by smoking can result in not just death, but in living for years of suffering with disabling health problems,” said Health Minister Tanya Plibersek.

    The story claimed the “goal was to reduce smoking rates from around 25 percent of the population to 10 percent by 2018.”

  • Plain packaging a £5 billion gorilla for UK taxpayer?

    U.K. taxpayers could face a £5 billion ($7.67 billion) bill if ministers insist cigarettes are sold in plain packages.

    The money would be awarded by courts to tobacco companies in recognition of the fact that the government had destroyed their brand equity, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research, as reported on the This is Money website.

    Legal challenges under the Human Rights Act or EU law could claim that requiring plain packages meant the industry had been unfairly deprived of its trademark rights, says a report by the think-tank.

    The Australian government, which has introduced plain packaging, is being sued by companies for the loss of their brands.

    The think-tank’s chief executive, Douglas McWilliams, said the use of plain packaging would lead to cheaper cigarettes as smokers became less aware of costlier brands and new entrants were spared the expense of marketing.

    This would mean less money for the treasury with “a reduction in tobacco’s aggregate annual contribution to the Exchequer of between £219 million and £348 million.”

  • Australia’s plain packaging an “anomaly”

    Morgan Stanley analysts believe the spread of plain packaging beyond Australia may be “very slow.”

    Capital markets have been concerned that Australia’s plain tobacco packaging law–the world’s first–could spread to other nations, ultimately commoditizing the tobacco category by hurting brand equity and reducing manufacturers’ pricing power.

    The analysts base their optimism on the facts that there is no evidence that the measure will reduce tobacco use or youth initiation and that such legislation appears both “extreme and disproportionate.”

    They also point out that plain packaging will “almost certainly” fuel the black market, thus reducing tax revenues, and that the legislation arguably violates various international trade rules.

    The analysts suggested that the nation’s geographic positioning may have led policy makers to believe that the country would be largely immune to contraband.

    Although the Commonwealth still faces strong legal challenges under a Bilateral Investment Treaty with Hong Kong and the World Trade Organization, the failure of the industry’s constitutional challenge in the country’s High Court “reflects the unique nature of Australia’s ‘protection’ of trademarks and intellectual property,” the analysts said.