BEN HARVEY: There is no easy solution to explosion in illegal smoke trade

I grew up in an era where everyone smoked.

The late 1970s and early 1980s, for me, was a period cloaked in an eye-watering haze.

Like most parents, mine smoked in the house (Benson and Hedges Extra Mild for Mum, Drum roll-your-own for Dad).

By the end of the night, guests at dinner parties (at which fondue and steak Diane were likely consumed) could barely see each other. They were all dying, but my God they were having fun.

Mum and Dad also smoked when driving, which made an already uncomfortable journey intolerable.

It was uncomfortable because our family car was a Kombi van.

The back seat of a Kombi is about two inches above the carburettor and the insulation afforded by the cube-shaped pieces of foam that served as booster seats for the kids was, at best, wanting.

In winter, the windows were opened barely a crack (just enough for some ash to be flicked from the tip of a cigarette) which meant 90 per cent of the smoke stayed in the car, where it hung in an acrid fog.

In summer, the windows were opened fully (there was no air-conditioning, of course) which meant a funnel of blisteringly hot air mixed with tobacco smoke streamed towards the back seat.

The rear of the car was like a scene from Pompeii.

When not passively inhaling cigarette smoke, we kids were watching Benson and Hedges-sponsored cricket matches or Winfield-backed motor racing.

Nobody thought anything of sending my six-year-old sister up to the corner deli (remember those) to get a pack of fags.

My brother and sister and I would have been seized by the Department of Child Protection had our parents done any of that today, but the 70s and 80s were a very different time.

The first time anyone anywhere in Australia thought twice about lighting up was in 1983 in Perth.

Brian Burke’s freshly elected Labor government included a firebrand health minister named Barry Hodge.

In one of the new administration’s first cabinet meetings, Hodge proposed an immediate ban on any advertising of tobacco products, including sports sponsorship.

“Ministers expressed reservations about moving so quickly with such far-reaching measures,” Burke recalled to The Nightly.

“I spoke in support of the ‘let’s not rush group’ but Barry made it clear that he was simply putting forward Labor policy and, if he couldn’t get agreement then there wasn’t much point in being a minister.”

After spirited debate, the ministers agreed to “hasten slowly”.

The first step taken put this country on a path which, 40 years later, resulted in the first firebombings of illegal tobacco stores.

The WA government increased the tax on cigarettes by 35 per cent. That raised $32 million, $6m of which bankrolled Australia’s first fully government-funded anti-smoking initiative.

“Within 12 months, the Quit Campaign, which was led by the Health Department and the National Heart Foundation, was officially launched introducing mass media strategies,” Burke said.

The memorable 1984 slogan “Only dags need fags” was the headline advertisement. Then came Quitline.

“It wasn’t all plain sailing,” Burke remembered.

“Paul Keating was quickly on the telephone to say the tax on cigarettes was an excise duty which was a Commonwealth, not a State, responsibility.

“The increase we’d imposed on cigarettes was illegal but that objection went up in smoke when it was realised that prosecuting it would be seen as supporting smoking.”

The campaign was successful enough to shame Burke, himself a smoker, into quitting.

Successive Federal treasurers ratcheted up the tobacco excise.

The public’s addiction to nicotine was replaced by the Government’s addiction to revenue.

“I’ve often said that politics spoils things and that’s exactly what’s happened here,” Burke observed.

Organised crime syndicates saw an opportunity (you can’t slide a cigarette paper between a gangster and a wad of dirty cash) and thus the illegal smokes trade exploded.

The raising of tobacco taxes without a commensurate commitment to law enforcement is one of modern Australia’s great public policy failings.

The Libs and One Nation believe that with 80 per cent of tobacco products now illegal, the horse has bolted. The only way to stamp out the illegal trade is to make legal smokes cheaper.

Labor reckons that’s tantamount to letting organised crime kingpins dictate Australian health policy and is determined to enforce its way out of the pickle.

Both solutions are imperfect.

There is no doubt the conservatives’ policy will crush the illegal trade, but that will come at the expense of more Australians smoking more cigarettes.

Angus Taylor and Pauline Hanson probably think the number of smokers (legal and illegal) will stay the same if a legitimate pack price-matches the black market version at $20.

They’re assuming that every Australian who is happy to smoke at the $20 price point is currently doing so.

I don’t believe that’s correct. I think there are many people who aren’t buying illegal packs, not because they don’t want cheap smokes, but because they’re law-abiding citizens.

Those people may well end up buying a $20 pack of legitimate B&H. And you can bet that the people paying top-dollar for legal smokes will smoke more if they know the next dart is costing them less than $1 instead of more than $2.

Labor is kidding itself if it thinks it can enforce its way out of the problem.

How has zero-tolerance gone with meth and cocaine?

And they’re products that organised crime detectives and Border Force agents really want to find. There’s not one cop in this country who wants to open a shipping container and find Chinese-made cigarettes instead of narcotics.

So, we’re going to be in a pickle regardless of which policy lever we pull. Ever more people will be afflicted by tobacco-related illnesses.

On that note, I will give Burke the last word.

“Earlier this year I was diagnosed with emphysema and fibrosis, both serious lung diseases. The first question the specialist asked me was had I smoked? Yes, I replied, but I quit 40 years ago. Not soon enough, he said.”