Updated 3.35pm: Every State Government will have to agree to a total ban on smoking within 50 years under a policy proposal from Labor’s youth wing ahead of next week’s national ALP conference.
The Punch understands Young Labor will announce the policy within the next few days, and has it listed for debate at its conference this weekend. However the policy will not be presented to the party’s national conference in Sydney next week for debate.
Under the plan, smoking would not only be banned everywhere in Australia, but the sale of cigarettes and cultivation of tobacco would also be declared illegal.
Young Labor has not yet confirmed the policy but sources within the ALP told The Punch that they were preparing a media statement on the proposal for release over the coming days.
The proposal is believed to have been inspired in part by the generally positive or ambivalent public response to proposed massive price increases in cigarettes, with the Federal Government saying a price rise is now long-overdue, and the Opposition advocating an arbitrary and immediate price hike to a minimum $20 a packet.
But the Young Labor proposal would kill that debate once and for all by treating cigarettes like any illicit drug and making them illegal.
The Punch would like to know what you think about the Young Labor plan.
Our very own Paul Colgan – who doesn’t mind the occasional puff - argued on The Punch a few weeks back that, even as a smoker, maybe it was time to bite the bullet and declare smokes illegal.
You can read Paul’s piece here.
For what it’s worth, I reckon it’s hysterical that a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears branch-stackers should deign to give us a lecture about our choices as consenting adults – and that it would be more heartening to see our future generation of political leaders tackling something to do with jobs or poverty or public schools than going after a cheap pre-conference headline.
Living in NSW, where Young Labor acolytes such as Joe Tripodi and Reba Meagher ended up doing a terrifically unpopular job running the State Government, it might be safer if Young Labor were banned for 50 years – or at the very least covered in large, graphic warnings, telling voters that protracted exposure to desperately ambitious political wannabes can lead to migraines, cost blow-outs and poor service delivery.
Tell us what you think.
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