The Honorable Nicola Roxon, Attorney-General of Australia to present, “Why Are Plain Packs Making Big Tobacco So Angry? Australia’s World Leading Work to Combat Smoking” on Thursday, May 17, 2012, 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. at Georgetown Law, 600 New Jersey Avenue NW, Washington DC (Hotung Building Room 2000). 

The Issue in Brief: From December 2012, Australian law will require that tobacco products sold in Australia be sold in plain packaging. The law reduces branding on product packaging to the display of brand and variant names in standardized font styles and sizes, with the remainder of a pack’s surface to be taken up by health warnings and a plain background. Tobacco companies have challenged the law under the Australian constitution and under a bilateral investment treaty. Claims have also been initiated at the World Trade Organization.

Biography: The Honorable Nicola Roxon is the Attorney-General in the Australian Government. She has been a member of Federal Parliament since 1998 representing the western suburbs seat of Gellibrand in Melbourne. As the Minister for Health and Ageing from 2007 to 2011, Ms. Roxon undertook major reforms to Australia’s public hospital, primary care and preventative health systems. In 2011, Ms. Roxon was awarded the World Health Organization Director-General’s Special Recognition Certificate for her accomplishments in tobacco control. In 2011 she was appointed Australia’s first female Attorney-General and in March 2012 given the additional portfolio responsibility of Minister for Emergency Management. Ms. Roxon is an honors law graduate, who worked as an industrial lawyer, union organizer and judge’s associate to Justice Mary Gaudron in the High Court of Australia prior to her election to parliament. Ms. Roxon is married with one child.

For more information, please visit www.oneillinstitute.org