CANBERRA STILL PAYS TO PRODUCE BETTER TOBACCO

Despite tobacco's status as Australia's number-one cause of premature
death, taxpayers contributed more than $250,000 last financial year to help
improve the quality of the local product.

The Tobacco Research and Development Corporation's annual report, tabled in
Federal Parliament last week, said the Commonwealth provided $276,667 in
1997-98 for tobacco product development.

In the 1996-97 financial year, Commonwealth contributions to the TRDC, a
statutory research and development corporation, amounted to $351,665.

The organisation's stated highest research and development priority
outlined in the report was ``to increase and sustain the level of tobacco
leaf quality''.

Other objectives of the corporation included the development of
``cost-effective mechanisms to facilitate the dissemination and adoption of
research findings'', and to ``maintain and develop the skills of scientists
and technicians in tobacco research and development''.

The most recent study analysing the effects of smoking in Australia
estimated that in 1992 smoking killed 18,920 people and cost the economy
about $12.7billion.

That compared with 3692 alcohol-related deaths, including road fatalities,
and 2438 breast cancer deaths.

A survey published in The Medical Journal of Australia in March estimated
that in 1995, 27per cent of Australian men and 23per cent of women smoked,
a decrease of only one percentage point since 1992.

Commonwealth funding of the TRDC is established under the 1989 Primary
Industries and Energy Research and Development Act. Statutory levies placed
on growers and manufacturers are matched on a dollar-for-dollar basis up to
a predetermined maximum.

The total amount spent on tobacco research and development, including money
collected from industry levies, was $1.1million.

Most of the money was allocated to research projects in Australia's two
largest tobacco-growing areas - the Ovens, King and Kiewa Valleys in
north-eastern Victoria, and Mareeba-Dimbulah in north Queensland.

Research funded jointly by the Commonwealth and the tobacco industry has
existed since 1955

Checked-by: Joel W. Johnson