Tobacco-funded lobby group begins attack ads
A tobacco industry-funded group claiming to represent small businesses today launched an advertising campaign targeting Labor’s policy of plain packaging for cigarettes.
The Alliance of Australian Retailers – whose website is registered to Melbourne-based PR company The Civic Group – today began running full page newspaper ads.
The new organisation describes the government’s policy on plain packaging as “the last straw” for small business owners with the ad claiming: “The government should support hard-working Australians instead of pursuing an untested and unproven policy.”
The ad discloses that the group is “supported” by British American Tobacco, Philip Morris and Imperial Tobacco.
According to their LinkedIn profiles, Jason Aldworth and Andres Puig, who both previously worked in senior roles at PR company CPR – are the two directors of The Civic Group.
The tactic of lobby groups attacking Government policies ostensibly for the good of ordinary Australians was recently successfully used by mining companies to overturn tax plans. After the ads began to run, prime minister Kevin Rudd’s popularity fell and he was ousted by Julia Gillard who changed the policy.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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daft. Firstly regulation is going to affect the tobaco copany not the retailer – there is no change for the retailer. Also, if products are not displayed, what does the retailer care if the package is plain.
next, if they are for reducing smoking in the community won’t this affect their business but on the other hand, if there is no ‘evidence’ that plain packaging reduces smoking, why do they care?
Finally, it’s paid for by the tobbacco companies.
Oh and lastly, the website has no comment, sharing or feedback loop so we know what sort of conversation they don’t want to have.
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Makes you proud to work in the communications industry, doesn’t it?
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“A group representing 15,000 mostly small business owners” and “we are supported by BAT, Phillip Morris and Imperial Tobacco Australia” HA!
The title and introductory paragraph are too word heavy. “As Owners of Australian Corner Stores, Convenience Stores blah blah blah”
The fear of plain packaging just reinforces their own fears that their own products lack differentiation among their own consumers.
Just for the record though, i don’t support plain packaging. If you’re old enough to smoke, you should be given the freedom to spend copious amounts of money destroying your health and dying before the taxpayer funded system is obligated to look after you.
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Can the government please stop dancing around serious issues like this. Smoking costs us all billions of dollars every year and it ultimately kills thousands of people. If it is that bad then ban it.
It’s simple.
Plain Packaging, increasing taxes, not displaying them in stores – these are all half measures and cop outs.
Someone needs to make a hard decision….it’s time for a politician to stand up and be counted.
So too the cigarette companies – this type of “hiding behind small business” behaviour is appalling. We all know what is happening here – don’t hide behind the battlers of Australia…..
The whole thing is sordid and terrible – clean it up Government – its why we vote for you.
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“If it is that bad then ban it.”
Right, well while we’re banning things let’s ban.. I don’t know .. kittens.
They kill native animals, cost the economy billions in Whiskas and Snappy Tom, and molt. Let’s outlaw them for the good of humanity.
I smoke and I vote. Hands off, commies.
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Well if you’re going to put all bad things in plain packaging to make them less attractive, why don’t we have plain packaged alcohol, plain packaged junk food, plain packaged poker machines and plain packaged petrol for our plain packaged cars?
This dumb law sets a precedent for all of these dumb things to happen in the future.
And won’t that be just awesome for the advertising and marketing industry.
So before you start throwing rocks and thinking you’re all brilliantly clever for unmasking the ‘real’ supporter of this campaign, think about the ramifications it could have to you and your job.
Just saying…
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I don’t know about “the last straw” but they’re certainly grasping (gasping?) for them.
“How will plain packaging make any difference?”
Well let’s see… maybe in the reverse way that fancy packaging makes them attractive? If packaging is so unimportant then cigarette companies wouldn’t go to so much trouble to make them look so pretty.
“…it will make it harder for us to run our business”
Why? Can’t your shop assistants read? You choose to sell products that attract regulation – lottery tickets, scratchie cards, nudie mags and cigarettes – but you wait for something as innocuous as plain packaging to make a stand? What about those “excessive” excise increases you mention that makes your business a target for theft? Isn’t the safety of your employees more important than plain, little white cardboard boxes? Where were you when all this thieving was going on?
“We believe that reducing smoking is good for our community”
Well stop selling them then!
It’s plain to see that a bucket load of cash has been thrown at an otherwise dormant industry body by companies desperate to maintain profits.
A dumb campaign indeed.
The Alliance of Australian Retailers should be rejoicing – think of who much money they can make selling sparkly plastic boxes for people to put their smokes in!
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Chairman as long as you pay for all your health bills when it takes your toll – go right ahead, but don’t ask me to.
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If plain packaging was going to have no impact on sales then it’s pretty obvious that the likes of Phillip Morris and BAT wouldn’t be spending money trying to block the legislation.
Everyone involved in this campaign, including the Liberal Party who accept hundreds of thousands of pounds from tobacco companies, should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.
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I love the irony that they hate plain packaging and yet the ad is really plain!
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For anyone seeking clarification about this somewhat inscrutable campaign, this is how we imagine an interview with a tobacco industry bigwig might go…
http://www.cutyourcancerrisk.o.....npackaging
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Australia must be one of the most brainwashed, dumbed-down nations on earth.
Anti-smoking has a 400-year, sordid history. Most of the anti-smoking crusades pre-date even the pretense of scientific credibility. Anti-smoking always proceeds in the same manner. A very small group of fanatics install themselves as “heroes”, the good battling the “evil” tobacco empire. They then manufacture a plethora of inflammatory lies that go far beyond the implication of facts. The lies are a constant play on emotions – on fear and hatred, particularly in non-smokers. Whenever anti-smoking has been allowed to flourish, it promotes irrational belief, fear/hatred, and social division. By manipulating non-smokers into bigotry, restrictions on tobacco-use will go unopposed, and even demanded. By demonizing tobacco companies and users, any questioning of wayward anti-smoking conduct is quickly trivialized and dismissed as tobacco-industry “conspiracy”. This produces a closed propaganda loop – one-sided information. There are now many non-smokers that can parrot the standard anti-smoking propaganda slogans such as “dirty, filthy habit”, “nicotine addict”, “smelly”, “number one killer”, etc., etc. Those that parrot the slogans have no idea that these were not “in vogue” thirty years ago, where they originated, and how easily they have been “implanted” in their minds.
Worse still is that the three anti-smoking crusades of the last century have been aligned to dangerous eugenic ideology. So the current anti-smoking crusade, with is tricks and tactics, is nothing new. It’s all been seen before with destructive consequences. What is new is its globality.
Disturbing, then, is the shallowness of many of the posts. Australians in particular do not have a clue what has been occurring over the last 30 years. That’s why Australia is “leading the way” in the madness.
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so John B – smoking doesn’t cause death?
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No. Many factors “cause” death.
Causality is an ugly thing.
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Anonymous,
You sound like one of the brainwashed folk alluded to. Having not considered any of the points made, you run to the refuge of the slogan. Smoking is a statistical risk factor in a number of diseases, just like numerous other factors, many of them cross-correlated. Anti-smoking is extremism, fanaticism. It is not interested in the dissemination of accurate information. It is ideologically driven. Therefore, it produces self-serving slogans (propaganda) that go far beyond the facts.
If you are interested in the actual “number one” cause of death and disability, that can be defined in coherent causal terms, then google “iatrogenesis” (e.g., medical errors, adverse drug reactions): Google “Null et al.” specifically. The medical establishment is the number one cause. And you do not hear too much of this in the closed propaganda loop dominated by the medical establishment. The medical establishment also figured highly in the last two anti-smoking crusades that were eugenics-driven (i.e., early-1900s USA and Nazi Germany). People don’t seem to comprehend that the medical establishment and Public Health can have a very dark side, demonstrated only recently. When the medical establishment drifts away from its primary function of treatment of the sick and ventures into social domination and deranged ideology, it becomes a dangerous entity. The ideology in question does not run on the honest dissemination of information to autonomous individuals for their own decision-making. It runs on propaganda and coercion to compliance, i.e., the individual serves the State. Sad, then, is that one-time relatively free societies such as Australia are being transformed into socialist societies where the State dictates all. It is sad that Australians cannot recognize the language of fanatics and bigots and, therefore, fall into the same fanaticism and bigotry.
Here’s a very brief history of anti-tobacco. Unfortunately, Dillow (1981) does not indicate that the anti-smoking crusade of early-1900s USA was eugenics-driven. What you will notice is that anti-tobacco has been advanced on a myriad of inflammatory lies and it is anti-tobacco that has demonstrated horrendous conduct – even murder, e.g., King Murad. Much of this conduct pre-dates even the appearance of scientific study. It was simply people, usually dictators, that hate smoking and demonstrate crazed conduct in the obsession with exterminating it. Yet the fanatics will always promote themselves as “heroes”.
http://www.americanheritage.co.....rint.shtml
The current anti-smoking crusade is no different in its fraud. It is simply dressed up in much statisticalism to give the appearance of scientific credibility. Google “tobacco control manuals” and you will find that they are propaganda manuals. They are not interested in disseminating accurate information. Their interest is in attention-grabbing slogans which are attention-grabbing because they are inflammatory, false, and misleading. It’s these sorts of outrageous slogans that produce outrage in particularly non-smokers. That’s the intention.
For a history on the current anti-smoking crusade, see the Godber Blueprint http://www.rampant-antismoking.com
Anonymous, why has it never dawned on you to scrutinize the anti-smoking mentality? Why would anyone believe that anti-smoking is honest and infallible simply because it says so? Only read if you want to be informed. If you want to stick with the slogans you’ve been pounded with – if you want to believe that any questioning of anti-smoking conduct is “tobacco industry conspiracy” – then, obviously, don’t bother.
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JohnB’s smoking crack
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yes I agree with my irish friend. JohnB is indeed smoking crack. I suspect he may have even purchased it despite it’s plain packaging.
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Is it just me – or does anyone else think JohnB is on the payroll at Big Tobacco?
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Three minds and not one coherent thought between you – just parroting of the standard one-line smears that anti-tobacco (and those brainwashed by anti-tobacco) is renown for. You are so easily demonstrating the point that was made that it’s not even amusing. It’s actually quite sad. You guys are about thirty years behind in information. You have a lot of catching up to do.
Now to get back to the point of the earlier posts, if you can get past the thick, dulling layer of anti-tobacco rhetoric that’s obviously going on in your minds. Have any of you read any of the information indicated? Or is this asking too much? Are facts too problematic for the barely-standing bigoted soapbox you’ve grown accustomed to? Do you understand what bigotry means? Why is any questioning of the standard propaganda so fearful to you? Maybe you don’t even know what’s going on in your minds.
If you guys are interested in developing informed opinions – even for your own integrity’s sake – that are tempered, balanced, considered, and reasoned, then you’re going to need a lot more information than you are currently using. Do you see any reason to make the effort or will you just go with what you’re fed by officialdom? I’m just asking some questions for you to consider in your own time.
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JohnB – I really don’t know where to start, but attempting to connect anti smoking campaigns with Nazi Germany was a master stroke – you really couldn’t discredit your position anymore.
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Trolls should never be rubbed, like certain parts of the male anatomy they tend to spew lots if they are.
Hank, Ivan, Danny, Anon stop giving JohnB a rub
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Dear franksting, Understand your point……but it’s just so much fun. Reading JohnB is like watching Eddie Mcguire. No one knows what he will say next, we all hold our breath knowing it will be just amazingly strange.
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“I really don’t know where to start, but attempting to connect anti smoking campaigns with Nazi Germany was a master stroke – you really couldn’t discredit your position anymore.”
Hank, I’m not “attempting” to connect (Godwin’s Law?). There ACTUALLY WAS a major anti-smoking campaign in Nazi Germany. Anti-smoking (and anti-alcohol) is a critical aspect of the eugenics framework. The anti-smoking (and anti-alcohol) of Nazi eugenics was a continuation of American eugenics of the early-1900s. Anti-smoking was also prominent in America at that time. The sale of tobacco was banned in numerous American states just before WWI, but was repealed shortly thereafter. The sale of alcohol (Prohibition) was banned immediately after WWI. There was another attempt, albeit unsuccessful, to ban the sale of tobacco post WWI.
Concerning Nazi anti-tobacco, here is a British Medical Journal article from 1996:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm.....1-0040.pdf
There are other articles in medical journals exploring Nazi anti-tobacco. If you go and do a little research you’ll find that Hitler was a student of American eugenics and there was a strong relationship between American and Nazi eugenicists.
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John B, for me personaly, the goings on in the past 30 years makes not an ounce of difference to your argument.
“Whenever anti-smoking has been allowed to flourish, it promotes irrational belief, fear/hatred, and social division.” Really? Irrational belief? You mean the fear mongerers have no medical evidence to support their claims? Could you be any more probaganistic yourself? Fear/Hatred? I dont fear or hate anyone who smokes, I myself have smoked a joint or two in my lifetime (with and without tobacco). At the end of the day its a decision Ive made having researched a little bit about it. Social division. Lets break this down… Who gives a toss about the divisions of views of smokers vs non smokers, I tell you who does….the tobacco companies. Physical divisions…one of the best things that has happened in the last few years is the removal of smoking from restaurants and bars. I rejoice in this divisional exercise! I can now breathe a lot easier knowing that my food intake is not interfered with the disgusting smell of smoke. Its not all bad though, one could argue that smoking outside of a bar is a good opportunity to speak to a complete stranger, check out the movie New York I love You, I myself was a little bit envious of the opportunities that present themselves to smokers who linger outside for a choof.
“There are now many non-smokers that can parrot the standard anti-smoking propaganda slogans such as “dirty, filthy habit” John B you really are dellusional arent you? Everytime I step outside my apartment, the stairwell reaks of disgusting smoke from my neighbours below me. I used to live with a smoker and my apartment reaked of smoke.
“A very small group of fanatics install themselves as “heroes”, the good battling the “evil” tobacco empire.” John B, there is no good or evil in the world. Just consequences. You side with the Tobacco Companies and the consequences of doing so leave yourself open to criticism.
You seem very well researched on the “propaganda” of anti smoking groups. One can only imagine how wonderfully useful your arguments could be for the Tobacco Companies. Have you ever thought about doing this for a living?
John B, next time you decide to enlighten us with your verbal diahrea, please do us a favour and smoke a joint instead, you really need to chill the f***k out.
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