And then the government changed, but the beauty of it was that Michael Wooldridge,[142] who was appointed the next (Federal) Health Minister, was very well briefed on tobacco, courtesy of Steve Woodward. So when he came in, the money was there and he was able to use it.

My second point is about the Ministerial Tobacco Advisory Group[143] and the National Expert Advisory Committee on Tobacco.[144] Apologies to bureaucrats for what I’m about to say. Michael Wooldridge wanted MTAG which consisted of about five people, including Maurice Swanson who’s not here today, to report directly to him.

Eventually the bureaucrats reigned us in a bit. MTAG became NEACT then it became part of the National Drug Strategy. It was still OK, but we didn’t have quite the autonomy to do things. We commissioned the (advertising) agencies and approved all sorts of accelerated methods.

A consequence of new federal money coming into tobacco control was that it became a sole, or at least major, focus of the jobs of many more people. NEACT sponsored the first National Tobacco Conference in Adelaide in 2001 which attracted over 200 people. The conference has been repeated every few years and is now the Oceania Tobacco Control Conference.

Lyn Roberts: Another thing that was really significant was the amount of money committed to services for smokers by the Commonwealth. Some of that funding was used to integrate the Quit lines in various states. Quit Victoria had the best model of running Quit lines, whereas the lines in NSW sat in the drug and alcohol space and WA had something different.

For 1997-98 there was about $500,000 of Commonwealth money that was co-ordinated through SA where the Quit program was actually located within the Anti-Cancer Foundation of SA. They could out-source it to us (Quit SA) and then we were able to bring that culture of collaboration which we built at that stage. The money on the table helped bring people together to get that coordinated approach to the Quit line, to support the National Tobacco Campaign, to be able to look at standardised training and all that sort of thing.

David Hill: And the research budget and evaluation budget.

Lyn Roberts: That was separate again.

David Hill: Mel (Wakefield) did a lot of work in evaluating the campaign.

Maree Davidson:[145] It was a time when all of the strengths of the states and territories were able to be brought together into a multi-faceted campaign.

A lot of external people might have thought the National Tobacco Campaign was basically a national advertising campaign. But it was really as much about the infrastructure, as you’ve said David, about the research and the evaluation, the services to smokers, and the roles of health professionals. And there was an opportunity for everyone to contribute to it and everyone to benefit from it.

Paul Grogan: I was in the (Federal Health) Department at the time, in Michael Wooldridge’s office, and there was a very tight expenditure review committee process under way. It reflects well on Wooldridge that that money (for tobacco control) was quarantined.

The minister’s office wanted absolutely minimal interaction with the bureaucrats on every front. They {the bureaucrats} didn’t trust us {Ministerial staffers} because we were seen as ALP appointments.

We saw so many things in the portfolio of 2006/07 and 2007/08 that were dropped, but that one survived. I think it says a lot about Wooldridge that he saw how important an initiative that was.

Witness to the History of Australian Medicine