Taxpayers’ money shouldn’t be invested in cigarette companies

Taxpayers’ money shouldn’t be invested in cigarette companies

Smoking kills 15,000 Australians every year. So why does Australia have $250 million of taxpayer funds invested in cigarette companies?

It’s time for the Future Fund to remove Australian taxpayers’ money from investments in tobacco companies.

The Future Fund was created in 2006 to cover the government's superannuation liabilities. It’s hardly reasonable that, out of its $80 billion investments, a quarter of a billion dollars is invested in tobacco companies which destroy people’s lives.

Using Australian tax dollars to prop up tobacco companies just doesn’t pass the basic test of sense and decency and it has to stop. I’ve been working, both inside the Parliament and outside, to highlight this unethical use of public funds. Now I need your help.

Please join me in sending a strong message to the Future Fund – investment of public funds into tobacco is propping up a killer industry and costing our health system even more.

Cigarettes kill one in two of their long term users and tobacco companies have a history of lying, hiding evidence, exploiting child labour and aggressively marketing their highly addictive products to children in developing countries.

Thanks to Greens' pressure, the Future Fund has just announced a review of its tobacco stock holdings. Use your voice to keep up the pressure – write to the board of the Future Fund today.

Yours sincerely,

Richard

P.S. Did you know that cigarettes cost the country over $30 billion each year, including $600 million in hospital costs? And that’s just the beginning of the burden that tobacco puts on the health system. Tell the Future Fund today that you want taxpayers’ dollars removed from the killer tobacco industry.

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