Country Overview
Key Facts
Number of Employees: Approximately 700
Welcome to Philip Morris Australia. Established in 1954 and based in Melbourne, we were the first affiliate in the world to produce Philip Morris International brands outside of the United States. Today we manufacture many leading tobacco brands in our factory in Moorabbin. We also produce products for New Zealand and throughout the Pacific Islands. We employ approximately 700 employees in Australia, including more than 200 in our Moorabbin factory.
We are committed to protecting the environment where we operate and have made substantial progress in reducing our environmental footprint. Since 2004 we have successfully reduced our water usage by nearly 50%. Our factory improvements also helped us reduce our energy use by over 50% in the last six years.
Smoking and Health
Tobacco products, including cigarettes, are dangerous and addictive. There is overwhelming medical and scientific evidence that smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and other serious diseases.
Addiction
All tobacco products are addictive. It can be very difficult to quit smoking, but this should not deter smokers who want to quit from trying to do so.
Secondhand Smoke
Public health officials have concluded that secondhand smoke from cigarettes causes serious diseases in non-smokers, including lung cancer and heart disease. We believe the public health conclusions on secondhand smoke are sufficient to support smoking restrictions in public places.
Effective Regulation
Philip Morris International (PMI) supports comprehensive regulation of tobacco products based on the principle of harm reduction.
To be effective, tobacco regulatory policy must be evidence-based, apply to all tobacco products, and should take into account the views of all legitimate stakeholders including public health authorities, government finance authorities, tobacco manufacturers, and other members of the tobacco supply chain. Regulatory policy must consider the potential to trigger adverse consequences which undermine public health objectives, such as increasing the demand for illicit cigarettes. While we support comprehensive, effective tobacco regulation, we do not support regulation that prevents adults from buying and using tobacco products or that imposes unnecessary impediments to the operation of the legitimate tobacco market. In that regard, we oppose measures such as generic packaging, point of sale display bans, total bans on communications to adult consumers, and bans on the use of all ingredients in tobacco products.