Australia Fights Tobacco With Taxes and Plain Packs

Australia Fights Tobacco With Taxes and Plain Packs; [Business/Financial Desk]
BETTINA WASSENER and MERAIAH FOLEY. New York Times. (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.: Apr 30, 2010. pg. B.9
link to article
The article I have chosen is about Australia taking control over cigarette companies. The Australian government is going to raise taxes on cigarettes, so more people will stop smoking. In the article it says, "The measures announced on Thursday also include a 25 percent increase in the excise tax on tobacco products, which was to come into force as of midnight. That will increase the cost of a packet of 30 cigarettes by about 2.16 Australian dollars, to around 16.70 Australian dollars ($15.40)." The extra tax money will be used to help their health care plan, as it says in the article, "The additional tax revenue, estimated to total 5 billion Australian dollars over four years, would be invested in the nation's health system, the government said." This article points out the governments side and the cigarette companies side. The government tells cigarette companies that they have to use plain packaging. The cigarette companies doesn't want to use plain packaging, as they tell the authors of the article, "Plain packaging would seriously harm our brands and infringe the intellectual property rights in which both Imperial Tobacco and its shareholders have invested."
This article has many quotes from the government and the cigarette companies. The authors do a good job at getting both sides of the issue. The article is recent and provides specific examples on time, like when they say "...announced on Thursday..." The article i choose seems to be more in the favor of the Australian government then the cigarette companies.
In my opinion the Australian government are taking good and helpful steps to reduce the amount of people that smoke and helping their health plan at the same time. This article helped me realize that our government would be able to make more laws for cigarette companies if they wanted to. I think our government should put more taxes on tobacco as well, it would help our economy and the health of everyone.