Australia’s innovative new policies are designed to cut smoking rates – here are 6 ideas NZ could borrow
- Written by The Conversation
At the start of this month, when denicotinisation would have been due to come into effect in Aotearoa New Zealand (had the government not repealed smokefree laws), Australia introduced innovative smokefree policies to change the look, ingredients and packaging of tobacco products.
New Zealand’s current goal is to reduce smoking prevalence to no more than 5% (and as close to zero as possible) among all population groups. However, realising this goal now seems very unlikely.
Latest figures show 6.9% of the general population smoke daily, but smoking places a much heavier burden on Māori and Pacific peoples, where 14.7% and 12.3% smoke, respectively.
New Zealand could borrow measures from Australia’s new regulations, or even go beyond, to begin salvaging its reputation as a country that develops progressive, evidence-based smokefree policy. Here are six ideas New Zealand should consider implementing.
1. Refresh and diversify on-pack warnings
New Zealand introduced plain packaging in 2018. This policy replaced vibrant on-pack branding with dissuasive colours and much larger health warnings. However, despite annual warning rotation, recent work suggests on-pack warnings have “worn out”.
Our work with people who smoke suggests we need two responses: refresh existing health warnings and create more diverse warnings that illustrate other risks, such as the financial burden smoking imposes and its inter-generational harms.
2. Offer hope that quitting is possible
On-pack warnings aim to ensure people who smoke understand the many health risks smoking causes.
However, few countries (with the exception of Canada) also provide advice to increase people’s confidence they can quit or promote the benefits of becoming smokefree. Australia has now followed Canada’s lead and will introduce “health promotion inserts that encourage and empower people to quit smoking”.
The ASPIRE Aotearoa Centre’s recent work shows that by promoting positive outcomes and offering practical advice, health promotion inserts foster hope and help motivate people who smoke to think about quitting.
New Zealand should complement external pack warnings with inserts that increase people’s agency and support smoking cessation.
3. Change the experience of smoking
Tobacco companies use cigarette stick design to shape how people experience smoking. It is no coincidence that cigarette sticks are white. The colour has connotations of cleanliness and deflects attention from the harms smoking causes.
Until Canada introduced on-stick warnings in 2023, no country had changed the design of cigarette sticks.
Australia has now followed suit and will require health warnings on cigarette filters. New Zealand could both adopt and go beyond this measure.
Our earlier work examined the effects of dissuasive colours and designs on cigarette sticks. People who smoke found colours such as murky green and mustard yellow aversive. They also reacted strongly against graphics, such as a chart showing the minutes of life lost with each cigarette, which could be printed on sticks.
4. Eliminate additives
Tobacco companies use several ingredients to make smoking more palatable and enhance nicotine delivery. For example, many cigarettes contain menthol, even those without a characterising menthol flavour. These ingredients ease harshness and make the initial, sometimes disagreeable, experience of smoking much smoother.
Other additives enhance nicotine delivery. For example, tobacco companies may add sugars to tobacco that, once combusted, create acetaldehyde, which may increase the addictiveness of nicotine.
Disallowing these additives could further reduce smoking uptake. By making smoking a harsher experience, this measure could also encourage people who smoke to quit.
5. Get rid of gimmicks that appeal to young people
Tobacco companies have developed product features that enable people who smoke to experience different flavours. Brands such as Dunhill Switch contain a flavour capsule within the filter. When squeezed, the capsule releases a flavouring agent, thus creating a more varied and novel smoking experience.
Our study of young people’s responses to capsule cigarettes found these appealed more to those who did not smoke than to those who did. New Zealand should follow Australia by closing loopholes and disallowing products likely to increase interest in smoking among young people who do not smoke.
6. Disallow filters
There is one measure New Zealand could implement to go beyond Australia’s new policies.
The draft Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 action plan proposed disallowing filters in cigarettes, but this measure was not part of the final action plan. Described by renowned Stanford University historian Robert Proctor as “the deadliest fraud in the history of human civilization”, filters may mislead people who smoke into believing they have reduced the risks smoking presents.
In addition, filters do not biodegrade and studies report they cause considerable harm to the environment and impose substantial clean-up costs on local authorities.
Australia has made important changes that will increase knowledge of smoking’s risks, reduce tobacco companies’ ability to develop cigarette features likely to appeal to young people, and support smoking cessation.
Meanwhile New Zealand, once a leader in tobacco control policy, is very unlikely to reach the government’s smokefree 2025 goal. Adopting Australia’s policies could support smoking cessation. But there are opportunities to go beyond Australia’s approach; disallowing filters could bring comprehensive health as well as environmental benefits.
