"When they're two dollars a packet, I'm giving up!" In my grandparents' bottle shop as a kid, I heard these words from many voices as the price of a packet of fags reached a dollar ninety-five. In those days, when the commercial airwaves still rang with such joyous melodies as "Join the club, join the club, join the Escort club" and the orchestral refrains of the Winfield ads, smoking was an almost-integral part of everyday life.
Of those grumbling about two bucks a pack back then, the ashes of many would be turning in their urns today on hearing of a quickly-announced Government tax of two dollars a packet to come into effect at midnight. The Rudd crew are talking about raising 5 billion dollars this way, and some cynical ciggie-suckers are wondering if Australia's financial recovery might be needing band-aids. Why rush the excise in, unless the Treasury needed to get a bob or two in the kitty pretty puickly?
A forty-five year old smoker, I can still see and hear those different brands of "pleasure" competing for the smoking dollar. No doubt that follow-up campaigns (as laws tightened around the tobacconists) of associating top-level sportsmanship with inhaling particular "cancer-sticks" have added to a Pavlov's Dogs kind of conditioning in smoking society to gravitate towards appropriate brands. It's not that long ago that Grand Prix events were little more that a display of mechanical ciggie-packets competing for eye focus space. What chance did we have?
Weak-willed wannabe quitters like myself will be happy with the brands disappearing- one less stimulus to ignore. However, stiffing us with a two dollar price rise doesn't ring true as a punishment. I like Bob Brown's idea of government-funded nicotine patches being given in return. That would be a sign of support. Some might argue that the money being saved is for our hospital beds? Maybe it would be cheaper to fix the problem now? Oh wait, doing that sort of stuff would cut off the revenue stream...
My personal inclination leans to the Fast Cash Theory.