Plain packaging battlefield opens up for big tobacco

The government’s cigarette plain-packaging bills were made law this week, opening up the legal battlefield for British American Tobacco Australia (BATA) to launch a High Court challenge with the aim of overturning the decision on constitutional grounds.

Also to be argued in BATA’s challenge to the legislation is the potential loss of billions of dollars worth of intellectual property in the form of packaging artwork and logo rights.

However, the Australian government will have the assistance of US heavyweight anti-smoking lobbyist, Matthew Myers, who has been brought in to outline how US state lawmakers beat big tobacco in that country.

Myers, who has been an anti-smoking campaigner for over 30 years in the US, has worked with both Republicans and Democrats to reduce tobacco use. During an appearance on the ABC’s Lateline programme earlier this year, he said the sort of legal tactics being employed by BATA in Australia are essentially part of a larger intimidation campaign – to the detriment of national health.

“It’s infuriating that the multinational tobacco companies are trying to use their global political muscle to intimidate countries from protecting their citizens,” said Myers (pictured). “This is about using the global economic power of a tobacco industry that always puts profit over health in an effort to intimidate the Australian Government. I hope they won’t fall for it.”

While the public health of the nation is expected to benefit from the plain packaging legislation, the consequences could be dire for Australia’s gravure printers. As packaging companies will be required to produce different packaging for local and overseas markets, print runs may shrink to volumes that eliminate the gravure printing technique as cost-effective.

BATA has previously claimed that the cost of altering its factory operations to replace the existing packaging infrastructure with machinery to make the proposed drab brown packaging would be around $30 million.