More evidence is coming forward that plain packaging of cigarettes has failed here, as new sales figures for tobacco after the first year show sales are up.
As I stated here before it came in, it would cause a switch to cheaper brands, and this is what has happened.
Since the legal price has gone up, I am confident that the illicit trade of tobacco in Australia has increased significantly. This is particularly true because tobacco's packaging is much nicer than the lawful plain packaging, which is a shocker. As a result, Australians are smoking slightly more today.
I think that the people who advised and those who pushed this policy have some explaining to do. Large sums of money were spent on the conversion, and 10,000s of people were and still are forced to do a lot of extra work for what is now a zero or worse. They cannot argue that they did not get proper advice, as many submissions were made before it went live, outlining these problems; the problem is that they did not listen.
