Sheryle Moon sold out? Alliance of Australian Retailers (aka Cigarette Sprukers)

ha. i used to look after her kids. I wondered what she was up to now. looks like she is still a workaholic.

lets plain package beer wine and spirits as well

Reprobate said :

colourful sydney racing identity said :

It was over regulation by the nanny state that forced me to shut down my very successful heroin, stolen goods and surface to air missile business.

Which Cash Converters store was that CSRI?

Hmmm, so that’s why their Civic store closed a few years ago. I wonder where that young guy with the big pot belly who offered me $5.00 for a Harmon Kardan cassette deck which I later sold on eBay for $350.00 is now?

colourful sydney racing identity said :

It was over regulation by the nanny state that forced me to shut down my very successful heroin, stolen goods and surface to air missile business.

Which Cash Converters store was that CSRI?

Pommy bastard said :

The lie reason for them opposing the labour government on tobacco is that “Small retailers will be spending more time stacking shelves and making sales if plain packets for cigarettes are introduced.”

If they all look then same, then can’t they just jive the addict customer any old packet?

I love that it is socially acceptable to pick on smokers. 🙂

The lie reason for them opposing the labour government on tobacco is that “Small retailers will be spending more time stacking shelves and making sales if plain packets for cigarettes are introduced.”

Which just goes to show their contempt for the Australian public’s intelligence.

philbyau said :

Does anyone actually know who the supposed Alliance’s members are?

They claim 19,000 individual members, but Philip Morris and British American Tobacco are named by AAP here.
Philip Morris have confirmed it themselves.

AAR only registered with ASIC just under a fortnightago and spent all of 6 days being known as Small Retailers Australia Pty Ltd before a name change.
They have no web presence, so I am having issues finding more than a whole lot of news coverage.
If I knew their physical presence I could probably find more for you, but I’m kind of busy.

Anyone have a spare $20-30 they want to spend on getting copies of their ASIC registrations?

By the way, in the interests of not singling out BATA Ltd, here are Philip Morris’ returns.
At first glance Imperial Tobacco appears to be happy with letting the other two narrow government decisionmaking into the confines of supporting industrial profit growth support the electoral process.

But then you realise that the Alliance of Australian Retailers exists on the same tactic as Imperial Tobacco used in New Zealand, in creating and supporting the New Zealand based Association of Community Retailers.

Astroturf organisation lives off smell of an oily rag, hires a world-class PR firm somehow, world-class PR firm coincidentally has a client\staffing overlap with a major corporate interest (such as Big Tobacco).

New Zealand’s ACR officially receives no support from tobacco companies

However, they lied.
Quote from Imperial Tobacco NZ’s Sales & Marketing Director, Tony Meirs, to New Zealand’s Maori Affairs Select Committee when asked:
Lees-Galloway: Could you give us a little bit more detail about your relationship to the Association of Community Retailers?

Meirs: The issue here is that small retailers are concerned that some of the regulations being considered would damage the viability of their business. Retailers want to speak out to protect their livelihood, and we support retailers in that aim. So we have provided PR resource through Omeka Public Relations company to help small retailers develop the voice that they need to protect their business from unnecessary regulation.
For further quotes, look here.

For mine, if retailers are suddenly concerned that they’re going to go broke from not being able to sell tobacco covered in logos:
1) Retailers are already over-reliant on tobacco sales, this will encourage them to diversify; and
2) This sounds like effective public health policy, in that its achieving its stated outcome.
Downside: Addicts will still buy tobacco from wherever they can find it, probably from specialised tobacconists.

Does anyone actually know who the supposed Alliance’s members are? I heard Sheryle Moon refer to “our members” on the radio driving into work this morning, but not once have I seen reference to who the actual members are. The ‘alliance’ was only registered last week according to ASIC, there is no website to speak of and no apparent members register to confirm, so it just sounds like a front for the tobacco industry, rather than an actual bona fide lobby group who has received funding from the industry such as they are trying to claim… I’d like to see a journo ask for the name of a member and then try to contact that person to confirm their membership…

I cannot think of a better reason for voting labour than the Libs being supported by big tobacco.

I heard this woman on the radio this morning, the sound of someone who has lost their soul.

Skid, this is a little different to declred donations. We have a new Alliance spring up consisting of four small retailer bodies (convenience stores, servos and I can’t remember the other two), bankrolled to the tune of $5 million by the tobacco companies, to run an anti-government campaign during an election. The spokeperson for the Alliance peddles the line that it is all about the cost to small retailers – but when that argument is examined resorts to the tried and true tobacco line of ‘no evidence’. If the Alliance felt so strongly on the matter, why does it need $5 million from the tobacco companies before it does anything? Especially when the plain packaging policy was announced months ago?
That said, I’m not convinced of an overt link to the Liberals – the alleged link was that Crosby-Textor, the Liberals’ pollsters/marketers were running the campaign, but both they and the Alliance deny it.

So, British American Tobacco Australia Limited making an effort on behalf of the Liberal Party is news again?

Smells like a classic example of ‘astroturfing’- where a large organisation ‘assists’ the establishment of artificial grassroots/community pressure groups.

It will be interesting to see if the right-wing (and definitely not Big Tobacco funded) think-tank, the IPA, comes out in concert, given the noises they’ve previously made about plain cigarette packaging.

I can’t believe this. Tony Abbott – who has carefully cultivated an image as a fitness and health fanatic – must be spewing that the tobacco cancer/emphysema lobby is now going to run ads supporting him. It will only backfire on the Libs. Clearly you can pick your relatives but you can’t pick your friends anymore.

I think it is about time that someone stood up for small businesses that get screwed over by government decisions.

It was over regulation by the nanny state that forced me to shut down my very successful heroin, stolen goods and surface to air missile business.

Heard Sheryle on 666 this morning – shockingly unconvincing. A multimillion dollar campaign, during an election, all because it will be slightly more difficult to stock the shelves with plain packaged cigarettes? Bollocks! They’ll still have barcodes! Since when did small retailers suddenly start showing an interest in health policy? Sheryle’s other argument was that there was ‘no evidence’ that plain packaging stopped or reduced smoking – a re-tread of the tobacco companies’ line that there was ‘no evidence’ that smoking caused cancer, or that there was ‘no evidence’ that second hand smoke was dangerous.
Obviously the 1999 Telstra Businesswoman of the Year has hit hard times if she’s taking the tobacco company coin.

Was she on ABC news this morning?

I remember wondering if that was the kind of job you took when you’d been on Centrelink benefits for so long that you were desperate and would take anything.

(I also wondered if Centrelink could/would penalise someone who refused a job with that organisation on moral grounds).

Well, they already can’t sell fireworks and the internet is eating into their porn sales. Without fags to sell all they’ll have is lotto tickets and novelty water pipes.

Personally, I think Conroy’s Great Big Tax On The Internet (Mandatory Filter) is aimed at propping up the local adult magazine and DVD industry.

The cigarette industry is following the mining industry’s lead.

Hehe. One time when our local shop owner was having a whinge to me about having to replace the front doors AGAIN and upgrade security AGAIN due to middle-of-the-night raids on the smokes I just smiled and said “you know, there’s no law saying you HAVE to sell them”…