Page:JT International SA v Commonwealth of Australia.pdf/94

Crennan J

Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, done at Geneva on 21 May 2003. Improving public health encompasses discouraging people from taking up or resuming smoking or using tobacco products, encouraging people to give up smoking or using tobacco products, and reducing people's exposure to smoke from tobacco products. The stated intention of the Commonwealth Parliament is to contribute to achieving these objects by regulating the retail packaging and appearance of tobacco products to reduce the appeal of such products to consumers, to increase the effectiveness of health warnings on the packaging of such products and to reduce the ability of the retail packaging of the products to mislead consumers about the harmful effects of smoking or using tobacco products.

It is not in contest that smoking tobacco is a cause of serious and fatal diseases such as lung cancer, respiratory disease and heart disease and that the risk of contracting such diseases is reduced by quitting smoking. The use to which tobacco products are generally to be put after retail sale is smoking. The manufacture, distribution, offering for sale and selling of tobacco products in the course of both wholesale and retail trade in Australia is presently lawful.

Part 2 of Ch 2 of the Packaging Act sets out "tobacco product requirements" which cover cigarettes, and provides for regulations to specify further requirements. Chapter 3 contains both civil and criminal penalties for enforcing these requirements Chapter 5 provides that civil sanctions are enforceable by the Secretary of the Department.