Thread by @TheKouk

Thread:
My experience being shitbagged by The Australian.

On 6 June 2014, The Australian published an article that claimed “tobacco consumption growing during the first full year of the new [plain packaging] laws”.

I had been looking at the issue ...
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and on my blog wrote an article that the article “was wrong”.

Here is the link: thekouk.com/blog/the-austr…

On 16 April 2014, Media Watch picked up the issue here: abc.net.au/mediawatch/epi…

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This was enough to unleash the scum at The Australian to target me in what was, to my mind, an extraordinary run of stories and editorials. They mainly targeted me, but also tried to justify the factual errors in the initial story.

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Here is the list of who wrote on the issue when I was mentioned, many which were on Page 1 with a nice file photo of me, that they had used a year or so before when many of my articles for Business Spectator were good enough to be reproduced in their paper.
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16 Jun Judith Sloan
18 Jun Sinclair Davidson
18 Jun Christian Kerr / Adam Creighton
18 Jun Jack the Insider
19 Jun Editorial
20 Jun Creighton
20 Jun Cut & Paste
21 Jun Editorial
21 Jun Henry Ergas
21 Jun Cut & Paste
24 Jun Creighton
24 Jun Terry McCrann
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Recall, the issue was whether the plain packaging laws which were introduced on 1 Dec 2012 has seen smoking decline.
Before I get into the issue, I note the ABS quarterly data on the volume of tobacco consumed, seasonally adjusted, during 2013 & the Mar qtr 2014.
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Dec 2012-1.3
Mar 2013 0.1
Jun 2013-2.6
Sep 2103 1.5
Dec 2013-1.4
Mar 2014-0.4

The annual change through to Mar 2014 was -2.9%
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for the record, the volume of tobacco consumed has fallen in the subsequent seven years and as of March 2021, it was a staggering 44 per cent lower than when the plain packaging laws were introduced.
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Of course, there are many reasons why tobacco consumption is falling, a point I made ad nauseum when discussing the issue. The early death of smokers is one reason, but so too are the hikes in excise, advertising campaigns, health awareness, among others.
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