The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 29

68 The Sydney Morning Herald Saturday, December 9, 1989 PECTRUM Sports, the arena of the physically fit, has been a beneficiary of an unhealthy habit tobacco, john huxley examines the contradictions and what may be a move away from a dependence on the lucrative lure of tobacco advertising. CI RY this Rugby League riddle. Question: why did top footballer and role model Peter Sterling put his shorts on back to front? Answer: so he could pose in his series of advertisements featuring soccer's "non-smoking Typical posters proclaim, "Soccer has started using its head. Tobacco's "Australian Socceroos. Fire without smoke." Whether other sports can move so far, so fast is doubtful.

The cost of tobacco sponsorship replacement schemes is prohibitively expensive (South Australia and West Australia have already been forced into embarrassing exemptions, whereby cigarette ads are permitted at certain venues), while a total ban is likely to hit the low-profile, non-televised sports hardest, according to Martin. As Rugby League's John Quayle says: "We receive plenty of approaches from potential corporate sponsors." Even then, Martin's report is expected to question whether such a ban, if desirable, is justifiable. Apart from the "freedom of choice" issue, he says, government policy must take account of other apparent inconsistencies. "Why stop at tobacco? Why not move against alcohol, too?" he asks. "I mean, how serious are we about educating young people not to drink, and our older people not to drink and drive, when we allow television ads showing top sportsmen, such as Phil Blake South Sydney Rugby League star swigging grog?" Martin was probably too polite to point out that The Sydney Morning Herald, especially in its sports pages, has been a major recipient of tobacco advertising.

How long can this continue in NSW? Peter Alexander, industry affairs director of Rothmans, admits: "Things are getting more difficult all the time." The tobacco industry is in retreat in most other States; the NSW anti-tobacco lobby is extremely vocal (it threatened legal action to prevent screening of this year's Rugby League Grand Final), and the new ban on print media advertising, will stop Winfield ads appearing in the game's weekly magazineprogram, Big League. This fills Alexander with outrage. "To ban mentions of a legally sold product in a program is something I thought might happen only in Eastern Europe." But it may be only a matter of time, as soccer bosses concluded last year. The sport has now kicked the habit entirely, due to the intervention of the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, which now sponsors the Australian national team, the Quit (formerly Winfield) Socceroos, the Quit National Soccer League, and the State competitions. "We felt that tobacco sponsorship had a limited life, so we were extremely pleased when the Victorians approached us," says Ian Brusasco, chairman of the Australian Soccer Federation.

Initially, existing sponsors Rothmans huffed and puffed over "contractual but eventually agreed to release the ASF from any surviving commitments. The result: a five-year deal that provides soccer with SI. 5 million, the scrapping of all tobacco-tainted promotions, including the annual Rothmans Medal awards, and a Grand Prix assuring them that there would be no attempt to limit their promotion of tobacco sponsors. A contradiction? "I can't comment," says Dr MacAvoy, "I'm a State employee." The biggest recipient of tobacco money is the NSW Rugby League, which last year negotiated a new five-year deal with Winfield, reported to be worth $14 million. In addition, Winfield supports several country racing clubs, such as Hawkesbury (which last Wednesday staged the annual Winfield Gold Cup), Wagga, Gosford, Newcastle and Coffs Harbour, in addition to sprintcar and greyhound racing.

John Quayle, general manager of the NSW Rugby League, makes no apology for taking the money. "I'm proud to be associated with our sponsor, which has been involved in the game for more than 30 years. I am pleased to say that this State retains the right of sports to choose to be sponsored by a company whose product is legal and provides huge revenue for governments." The sponsorship, he explains, is conducted in a "responsible with no interference from Rothmans or Together, they account for more than 60 percent of all sport sponsorship. Some tobacco spending is nationwide. The Australian Cricket Board, for example, receives an estimated S2.S million a year from Benson Hedges.

And the low-profile Rothmans Foundation, headed by former Test cricketer Alan Davidson, supports a wide range of sports. But almost half of the cigarette money goes directly into NSW, due partly to anti-tobacco initiatives elsewhere. While other State governments follow Victoria's example and begin to replace cigarette company sponsorship, the premier State is still hooked, says ASH's Stephen Woodward. The result is a State Health Department that also does not know whether it is coming or going. According to one of its top officials, Dr Michael MacAvoy, the department recently helped stage the Drug Offensive athletics meeting in Sydney and has introduced an antidrugs (including ciggies) register, signed by leading State sportsmen and women, starting with 400-metre runner Darren Clark.

Yet, only recently the Greiner Government wrote to organisers of the Australian motorcycling Parramatta gear for Quit smoking advertisements, while-hiding the logo of the game's major sponsor Winfield cigarettes. It's no fault of Sterling, who must have wondered whether he was coming or going. For as NSW MP Stephen Martin says: "The debate over tobacco sponsorship of sport is riddled with hypocrisy and double-standards." Just how riddled will be revealed in a report by a House of Representatives inquiry into sponsorship, chaired by Martin and due to be tabled on December 2 1 It will show that despite a decade of frenzied debate over tobacco sponsorship, companies such as Roth-mans (which has the Winfield brand), W. D. H.

O. Wills (Benson Hedges), and Phillip Morris still put about S20 million annually into Australian sport. Only the breweries spent more, an estimated $50 million a year. coaching material is allowed into NSW schools only if the name is removed. Nevertheless, Dr MacAvoy says: "It's not possible to score a try under the posts without falling on the Winfield name." Television viewers trip over it, too.

Winfield, which have naming rights to the game's premier competition. As the Martin inquiry learned, players such as Sterling are allowed to participate in anti-smoking ads, the Winfield name has been painted off grounds staging schoolboy games, and Rothmans CORAZON AQUINO: ONE COUP AWAY A rebel smiles and clasps the hand of a loyalist soldier on Ihursday alter the failure of the coup attempt. From Page 65 The rebels talk in terms of a "scorched earth" policy. By holding out in the financial district, the rebels may manage to inflict damage where it hurts most When President Aquino came to power, she promised the people of the Philippines something called "democratic space" freedom of speech, freedom to organise politically. The so-called leftists the trade unionists, the student leaders, the nationalists came out and spoke.

But the country's leading trade unionist was tortured to death, his twisted body dumped on the city's western fringe. Then came the ambush of the most prominent student leader, shot in the face while driving his car. The list went on and on, scores of victims of the shadowy right-wing assassins squads who thought Mrs Aquino was weak. The assassination squads of the Left hit back, with daylight killings of hundreds of soldiers and police on Manila's streets. Mrs Aquino found herself presiding over and increasingly gruesome war of attrition.

One night four students went missing in Manila while pasting anti-US bases posters. Their horribly maimed bodies were discovered in an empty lot several days later. One student, his skin covered in burns, his back carved up with a scythe, lived long enough to blame President Aquino's own elite security group for the abduction and torture. Which begged the question: had Mrs Aquino already lost control? I lived and worked in the Philip pines for the first three of Mrs Aquino's years. I learnt a lot about guns, death, poverty, pain and greed.

I wrote about high level corruption in Government and was forced to leave when a warrant was issued for my arrest on charges of criminal libel. One afternoon I stood in a cemetery on the edge of the banking belt as workmen exhumed a putrid mass grave of victims of right-wing death squads. The workmen stood in waist deep, sludge, reaching down into the tangle of stiff arms and legs as relatives searched desperately for a familiar piece of clothing or a familiar sunken face. Then lunch was served. The workmen wiped off their hands and offered a sandwich to a stiff corpse, protruding head first from the mud.

The crowd of relatives laughed so hard they were crying. Surely, I thought, here is a society on the brink of collapse. But the fiestas in the streets go on, the mountains of garbage are recycled to make funny little Christmas toys, local movie houses show hopelessly romantic tales of fantastic wealth and fame back to back, people go to church and pray. Can Mrs Aquino make a comeback now? Opinion is split between the pessimists who think that this time she really must fall and that the Philippines requires a new political model all of its own, and those who believe Mrs Aquino can continue to stay in power by muddling through. 0.

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