Ah, be careful what you wish for! From Terry McCrann today:
The Kouk accused The Australian of running a “fact-less story with the express intent of undermining a key policy of the previous Labor government.” Then came the inevitable abuse — that it was done deliberately to “sell more tobacco and cigarettes”.
In the usual cocktail of stupidity and dishonesty, the Kouk cited official statistics showing the volume of tobacco consumption in the March 2014 quarter was 5.3 per cent lower than in the December 2012 quarter when the law came into effect.
What he did not point out, and as our graph from the Macrobusiness blog shows, virtually the entire fall came in the March quarter itself — which just happened to follow a thumping 12.5 per cent excise increase. What the Kouk is also unable to comprehend is that the ABS figures he cited are merely a proxy for actual tobacco and cigarette volumes; no one who understands statistics would claim they literally measure actual volumes.
The following week it was taken up by left-media central, Media Watch, which naturally took as gospel truth what Koukoulas and “public health expert” Michael Daube said in their attacks on The Australian.
MW did at least note that Daube had chaired the panel recommending the new law, but it did so in passing and without the slightest scepticism that he would, well gee, deny that his precious legislation might have failed.
…Which brings me back to the graph, reproduced from Macrobusiness, along with the comments from the blog’s David Llewellyn-Smith, who was clearly torn between his lying eyes and his pompous disdain for The Australian.
You don’t have to have any particular knowledge of statistics to pick up the clearest signal from the graph. That over the course of 2013 — after plain packaging, the spend on smokes arguably rose and at worst went sideways. This interrupted an equally unambiguous downward trend in the spend. That trend either resumed this year, or because of the big excise thumping.
Llewellyn-Smith sort of gets this, that it’s the tax, stupid; but just can’t resist backing, well, the stupid, over the hated Australian.
Awesome, Terry. But I’ll note you’re using the seasonally adjusted not trend figure to make your argument. That’s repeating the very cherry-picking you’re accusing the Kouk of doing.
I’ll just add for the record that it’s still absurd to be attacking the policy after so short a period, especially since it’s attack on “cool” is most likely to work over a long period. My original post is here for the interested.
