Lyn Roberts: As I said, back when I was an advocate, I was working behind the scenes at the Queensland Cancer Fund under the direction of Steve Woodward who was a great ideas person who never ever took ‘no’ for an answer. It would be great to tap into Alan Inglis,[56] a colleague who did a huge amount of work on the campaign at that time.

One day Steve rings up and says that we need Graeme Brien,[57] who was the head of the Queensland Cancer Fund, to have a conversation with the Premier, Mike Ahern, about the tobacco tax.

Steve said, set up some kind of meeting between Brien and Ahern and prime Brien on state tobacco licence fees. Then if Ahern thinks it’s a good idea, we’d run a campaign about it.

So we set up an event at the Gold Coast where Ahern was to give an award to some volunteers with the Queensland Cancer Fund. Steve said to me, ‘Now, we want Graeme Brien in the Premier’s car going down there so they can have the conversation.’

I said, ‘How do I do that’? Steve said, ‘Talk to Alan. I’m sure you can do it.’

We got the message back that the Premier had a really busy day and that he would be travelling by helicopter.

So I rang Steve and said, ‘We can’t do that because Ahern is travelling by helicopter’. He said, ‘Get Brien on the helicopter.’ I said, ‘How do I do that?’ and Steve said, ‘Just do it.’

So Alan asked if Graeme Brien could possibly go with the Premier, and to our surprise his people said of course that would be all right.

We thought, gee wow, now they can have the conversation. But of course they were both wearing headphones the whole way because of the noise. (Laughter)

Anyway there was a five minute opportunity because there was a short car trip to the reception. Ahern could have left Graeme Brien on the tarmac but he didn’t. Brien had five minutes with him in the car. That’s where the conversation happened. Ahern said he was interested and so we ran the campaign and Queensland introduced a state tobacco licence.

John Cain: This discussion is a very good example of the difficulties you experience in a Federation such as we have.

If the idea is strong enough, that’s what you’ve got to develop and nurture. Then you can convince seven or eight state and federal groupings about the politics of it. That’s the key, I think.

When I look back, all these things came together in the mid-80s in a determined campaign built on the notion of preventative health care, and phasing out sports and arts sponsorships and tobacco promotion.

Wasn’t that the key to it? Those duel objects appealed to people across the federation in the end.

Kathy Barnsley: The three states that hypothecated tobacco taxation – Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia – were ahead of the other states forever because even after the tobacco taxes were thrown out those states had a lot of money specifically for tobacco control.

Tasmania never did. The government used those funds for the teachers’ salary pay rise and various other things.

Medley of voices: The ACT also had a hypothecated tobacco tax.

Witness to the History of Australian Medicine