But the key to me, in the long term, was Nigel Gray.

You needed a champion and Nigel was that person. You need someone who is there regardless of governments and institutions, and regardless of diverse do-gooder organisations.

Nigel just had that calmness and that presence and that acceptance that I think was the key in the long term.

David Hill: I agree with that, of course. But picking up on what Terry was saying, he needed to be brought into the tent. And I absolutely acknowledge that when Tom came into government as Health Minister, that’s exactly what he did.

First he got one thing off his chest. When Nigel first saw him he said, ‘Nigel you weren’t talking to us when we were in opposition, were you?’ Do you remember that, Tom?

But having got that off his chest it was amazing to us, having been out in the non-government world, to suddenly have Linda Stephens brought in and she relished the idea of working with the Cancer Council. And we naturally felt we knew something about smoking and health.

It could have easily gone the other way, in my opinion, because we kind of expected that government money might have been siloed in the Health Department and we won’t see any of it, and we might have been excluded. But that did not happen.

John Cain: Tobacco control had not been in our detailed policy in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Meredith Carter:[87] I would say the state {Labor} government clearly came in with an agenda for change and a desire to leave a legacy. Politicians do generally want to leave a legacy and this offered a clear legacy.

Ann Westmore: So where were the Quit Campaigns located in the different states relative to state cancer councils and government health departments? Did this affect their ability to perform their roles in public education?

Terry Slevin: The interesting thing about that was, and we often had these conversations, that in some places they {Quit Campaigns} were within government and in others they weren’t. It was important to understand the advantages of being within government and advantages of being outside.

And the challenge we often talked about was how to make the best of those different circumstances and share that intelligence.

One of the fundamentals we agreed on early was to share our resources. So, for example, the Yul Brynner campaign[88] first came out of Western Australia in 1986 or so, and then it was quickly adopted in NSW and then Victoria picked it up as well. So that sharing of resources was a fundamental building block.

Mike Daube: To be fair, the Yul Brynner advert came out of the US and it was the cheapest ad I ever ‘made’ because it cost me $20 in postage. It was one of those absolute gifts that you get by sheer good fortune – and it also brought home to me that, however much we may think we know about campaigning, we also have a lot to learn from politicians.

So we got the ad, which was immensely powerful – this great film star with lung cancer, looking into the camera saying ‘whatever you do, just don’t smoke’. We remade it a bit, because of course we can do anything better than the Americans. We got the approvals and it was ready to go.

Then at the last minute we were called by the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal and told that it was not to be shown because it wasn’t made by Australian camera operators. They said, ‘Can you remake it.?’ We said. ‘No, because he’s dead.’ (Laughter)

Ian Taylor,[89] who was the WA Health Minister, and I went across to see the chair of the Broadcasting Tribunal in Sydney. When she said we couldn’t show it I was absolutely depressed. Ian put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Press conference first thing in the morning.’ There and then I learned a lot about how politicians handle those things. The ad became a sensation and as Terry said, it was shared by all the states. Then the Cancer Councils and the Heart Foundation got things moving.

Tom’s quite right about how bloody hard it was. It was hard. Some of us have had personal attacks (from the tobacco industry), too. But we shouldn’t forget it was also an enormous amount of fun. We’ve all got these great stories to tell. Simon’s talked about how we have our act together. And there’s something about people in tobacco, they just seem to have these bright ideas and seem to enjoy running with them. They come up with more and more new approaches.

Let’s not forget the fun we’ve had with the industry, which is really powerful but has also done some silly things. For instance this comment by Ron Berryman from the Tobacco Institute in 1989; (Cigarettes are harmful but) ... ‘so are potatoes. Tobacco is in the same family. You inhale the fumes of potatoes when you’re cooking them.’

And so we see the power of the industry. But there are some things they get amazingly wrong.

Witness to the History of Australian Medicine