In Australia, a vaping lobby disguises a $44,000 donation to a political party

In Australia, an e-cigarette lobby group donated $44,000 (€29,000) to the Liberal Party. The money was declared by the lobby group's director as a personal donation, without any mention of any connection with the defense of vaping. At the same time, a Liberal Party senator in Australia had distinguished herself for her positions in favor of e-cigarettes.

In Australia, it is illegal to buy, possess or import e-cigarettes and vaping liquids without a prescription, with the aim of restricting access to these products for the sole purpose of supporting smoking cessation.^[1].

'Fight Fund' set up to prevent new regulations in Australia

A year earlier, in mid-May 2020, the lobby group Legalize Vaping Australia (LVA) had set up a “fight fund” to oppose the country’s regulatory changes to vaping. A Four Corners article showed that the Liberal Party had received a total of A$44,000 in several settlements, based on a personal donation from one Brian Marlow, who also heads the Legalize Vaping Australia lobby, itself an offshoot of the libertarian activist group, the Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance.

Very favorable positions on vaping, from a Liberal Party Senator

According to Four Corners, Marlow is friends with Liberal Senator Hollie Hughes. In late 2020, Hughes chaired a Senate inquiry into vaping, stating that e-cigarettes provide “harm reduction” and that vaping helped her personally quit smoking for two months. However, as Four Corners points out, the senator’s conclusions are at odds with those of the National Health and Medical Research Council. At the same time, the advocacy group has hosted a series of roundtable discussions on vaping, bringing together both e-cigarette advocates and elected officials, including Senator Hughes.

Links of interest minimized by those concerned

Contacted by the newspaper, Brian Marlow denied having sought to conceal the non-personal nature of his donation to the Liberal Party, saying he had chosen this route as an easy solution, in order to avoid having to raise such a sum from a large number of small players. Brian Marlow also refused to reveal which other politicians, apart from Senator Hughes, had attended these roundtables on tobacco, likening the Four Corners article to a "smear campaign". Hollie Hughes, for her part, claimed not to have been aware of these donations, emphasizing that she did not see anything wrong with these practices.

Keywords: Australia, Vaping, Lobbying, Liberal Party

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^[1] Four Corners, 'Personal' donations to the Liberal Party came from vaping lobby during debate over policy, 06/27/2022, (accessed 06/28/2022)

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