Before we start, I’d like to acknowledge the Wurundjeri people, the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet today, and pay my respects to their elders, past and present.

We have a number of distinguished guests, colleagues and friends of VicHealth[3] who it’s fantastic to see. It’s like getting a band back together! Many of you have travelled from interstate especially for this event and we really do appreciate your attendance.

There are many here today who are very distinguished and I could be here all morning if I went around the table and introduced you all. So I’m just going to welcome you and thank you for your contribution to tobacco control.

But I do want to make two special mentions - to the Honorable John Cain[4] for making time to come and join us today, and also to the Honorable Tom Roper[5] . It’s fantastic to have the level of commitment we’ve seen from you both in terms of tobacco control over a long period of time, and we’re really looking forward to hearing your recollections.

We’re here today to discuss and reflect upon Australia’s role in the development of tobacco control whether it’s been via political leadership, policy development, advocacy, research, education, media campaigns or a combination of the above. Everyone here has made a significant contribution to the important work of tobacco control in this country.

Indeed some of you were involved in the huge collaborative effort to pass the Victorian Tobacco Act 1987 which saw the creation of VicHealth as the world’s first health promotion agency with funding from the state tobacco licence fee. As well as banning tobacco advertising through sponsorship of sports and the arts, which was very significant at the time, this innovative model for funding of health promotion was of course very quickly adopted elsewhere. In South Australia and Western Australia similar legislation was enacted, leading to the establishment of Foundation South Australia and Healthway. And there are certainly lots of people here today, including myself, who were involved in these initiatives.

With thanks to people such as yourselves, Australia has led the way in tobacco control for many decades and continues to demonstrate that leadership on a global level.

We’re not here to talk about plain packaging and the leadership in tobacco control that we’ve shown through progressing it in Australia. That’s off the agenda today. But I don’t think we can bring together a group like this without acknowledging what a significant development this has been for tobacco control at the global level.

Ann (Westmore)[6] is going to facilitate today’s Witness seminar. We’ve all been a bit anxious about what such a seminar involves, but she assures me that by the end of the day we’ll understand the methodology quite well.

We will be producing a transcript of today’s discussion and Ann will collect additional perspectives from people who were unable to attend. And there may well be other key people who come to mind during the day and we will see if we can touch base with them too. The transcript and this additional input will form the basis of a document that will later be made available to the public as a valuable historical record.

So I’ll hand over to you, Ann.

Witness to the History of Australian Medicine