And all this time, I’ve been smoking not so harmless tobacco!!!

While the so called “political class” keeps talking about issues that have either been neutralised in terms of their negative electoral impact or up for speculation, the government is shifting the agenda to something people actually care about in their lives: health.

The way the government has gone about doing this is by increasing the tobacco excise by 60% ($5.3 Billion) over the next four years.

If we look at Essential Media Communications polling from  July 23 2013, we can see how important voters consider health as an election issue.

Q.  Which are the three most important issues in deciding how you would vote at a Federal election?

	Total 23 Jul 13		Total 17 Jun 13	11 Feb 13	19 Nov 12	30 Jul 12	5 Dec 11	6 June 11	25 Jan 10
Management of the economy	45%		47%	62%	66%	64%	62%	61%	63%
Ensuring a quality education for all children	25%		25%	29%	35%	26%	22%	26%	23%
Ensuring the quality of Australia’s health system	42%		45%	52%	57%	47%	47%	49%	48%
Protecting the environment	12%		13%	14%	14%	11%	13%	15%	16%
A fair industrial relations system	10%		10%	12%	8%	12%	11%	8%	na
Political leadership	21%		22%	14%	15%	25%	18%	17%	23%
Addressing climate change	11%		11%	9%	9%	9%	10%	15%	16%
Controlling interest rates	13%		11%	9%	11%	9%	11%	13%	15%
Australian jobs and protection of local industries	39%		34%	40%	32%	41%	36%	32%	33%
Ensuring a quality water supply	3%		5%	4%	5%	3%	4%	5%	12%
Housing affordability	17%		14%	11%	14%	13%	13%	16%	14%
Ensuring a fair taxation system	20%		19%	21%	17%	18%	16%	17%	14%
Security and the war on terrorism	8%		8%	6%	5%	5%	4%	8%	9%
Treatment of asylum seekers	14%		11%	6%	6%	10%	8%	5%	na
Managing population growth	9%		11%	9%	7%	8%	8%	12%	na

Ensuring the quality of Australia’s health system is rated second as an important election issue behind management of the economy. This isn’t new information. What is a bit newer is the next bit.

Next, from the same poll, we’ll look at which party is better trusted to handle these election issues.

Q.  Which party would you trust most to handle the following issues?

	Labor	Liberal	Greens	Don’t know		Difference 23 Jul 13	Difference 17 Jun 13
Management of the economy	29%	44%	3%	25%		-15	-18
Ensuring a quality education for all children	40%	31%	4%	25%		+9	+1
Ensuring the quality of Australia’s health system	34%	33%	7%	27%		+1	-5
Protecting the environment	19%	21%	39%	21%		+18	+10
A fair industrial relations system	41%	30%	4%	24%		+11	+3
Political leadership	28%	35%	5%	31%		-7	-19
Addressing climate change	20%	23%	30%	27%		+7	–
Controlling interest rates	26%	40%	2%	32%		-14	-17
Australian jobs and protection of local industries	34%	35%	4%	26%		-1	-7
Ensuring a quality water supply	19%	26%	22%	32%		-7	-14
Housing affordability	26%	28%	6%	39%		-2	-12
Ensuring a fair taxation system	31%	33%	5%	31%		-2	-11
Security and the war on terrorism	23%	38%	4%	36%		-15	-18
Treatment of asylum seekers	22%	33%	13%	31%		-11	-22
Managing population growth	20%	33%	8%	39%		-13	-19

Only a 1% difference between the parties in terms of who’s better at managing the health system!

The rule of thumb is that the Coalition are always stronger on issues such as the economy and national security and the ALP are always stronger on issues such as education and health. For the ALP to be only narrowly in front in terms of the perceptions gap on the issue of health is something that would be major cause for alarm.

So the government now is trying to address their problem on perceptions of the health issue by raising the tobacco excise. Smoking kills people. Lets raise a tax on cigarettes to reduce consumption and death. This is a pretty obvious point. What’s interesting though is the coordinated way the ALP have gone about addressing the issue.

Firstly there was a press conference yesterday in which the Prime Minister said

“Around 30 per cent of cancer is caused by tobacco consumption and it’s estimated this will kill 15,000 Australians each year, that is far too many and it’s also really expensive for the country to deal with. We need to get serious on this major driver of cancer in Australia. There is a limit to the number of taxpayer dollars available to health”

So that’s out there. Then comes the next bit which was released last night in the form of an advertisement (when I typed in Tony Abbott on youtube, this was the first result that came up).

So now it’s become a personal issue for Tony Abbott that he has to deal with. How does he respond to this claim. Will he deny the claims made in the advertisement or will he attack the government for engaging in “negative politics.” If he denies the claims, he accepts tobacco donations (bad). If he attacks the government for engaging in “negative politics” he accepts tobacco donations, is engaging in “negative politics” and giving the ALP a soundbite to use in election material by getting caught in the word game Rudd has established (triple bad).

The immediate response from the Coalition was to point out that Rudd as a backbencher took hospitality whilst on the backbench from a foundation that provides equipment to the smoking industry in Germany. It sounds so tame by the Coalition’s standards. So tit for tat. So boring. So easy to address by someone with their act together.

Already, we have the Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey attempting to make this an economic issue and not a health issue.

Note the use of the words “it’s not a health measure.” When you negate the frame, you evoke the frame.

It should be fascinating to see how this plays out over the coming weeks and months. The ALP have not been this organised in their attacks on the Coalition for years. If the ALP can regain their strength on the issue of health, that will be more positive ammunition for the ALP to use during the election campaign.

It’s early to make this judgement, but finally the ALP seem to have their act together!