Big tobacco will lose High Court fight

Julian Drape
AAP
April 17, 2012

HIGH-profile barrister Geoffrey Robertson says the Federal Government’s plain packaging laws will easily withstand a legal challenge from big tobacco.

British American Tobacco, Philip Morris, Imperial Tobacco Australia and Japan Tobacco International will front the High Court today to argue the legislation is unconstitutional, but Mr Robertson says the commonwealth is on solid legal ground.

“You’re going to win it,” he told Attorney-General Nicola Roxon on ABC television’s Q and A program. “I’ve read the brief.”

Mr Robertson said forcing all cigarettes to be sold in drab olive-brown packs from December was a “brilliant Australian idea” and cigarette manufacturers were right to be terrified.

“It does turn people off,” he said last night. “It says: ‘This is a hazardous thing’.”

Big tobacco claims the Government’s legislation is unconstitutional because it acquires their property – in the form of brand names and logos – without just compensation.

But the Government says that’s rubbish because it is not getting any benefit.

Rather than taking over the companies’ brands, it says the legislation simply restricts their use “in a manner appropriate and adapted to reducing harm to members of the public”.

Ms Roxon says the High Court hearing – scheduled to run until Thursday – is going to be a “big battle”.

“(But) we believe we can do something that will reduce the (15,000) deaths in Australia that occur every year from tobacco-related disease,” she told the network last night.

“We do know that tobacco companies use the packets to be more attractive – to get people hooked.”

The Queensland, ACT and the Northern Territory attorneys-general are all intervening – entering into and becoming a party – in the case along with the Cancer Council of Australia.

Labor’s world-first laws will force all cigarettes to be sold in plain packs with large graphic health warnings from December.