Public consultation on plain packaging of non-cigarette tobacco products

In April 2010 the Australian Government announced that, in a world first, all tobacco products sold in Australia would be required to be sold in plain packaging by 1 July 2012. Following Government amendments, the Tobacco Plain Packaging Act 2011 will require that all tobacco products sold in Australia are in plain packaging by 1 December 2012.

The Government’s legislation on plain packaging aims to prevent tobacco advertising and/or promotion on tobacco product packaging in order to:

reduce the attractiveness and appeal of tobacco products to consumers, particularly young people;
increase the noticeability and effectiveness of mandated health warnings;
reduce the ability of the tobacco product packaging to mislead consumers about the harms of smoking; and
through the achievement of these objectives in the long term, as part of a comprehensive suite of tobacco control measures, contribute to efforts to reduce smoking rates.

Consultation on draft Regulations incorporating requirements for non-cigarette tobacco products

The Tobacco Plain Packaging Regulations 2011 (Regulations) were approved by the Executive Council on 7 December 2011 and are available at http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/F2011L02644. The Regulations as approved set out requirements for the retail packaging and appearance of cigarettes only. The Regulations are proposed to be amended in early 2012 to incorporate the additional specifications for plain packaging of non-cigarette tobacco products.

To assist stakeholders to understand and comment on the proposed plain packaging specifications for non-cigarette tobacco products, the Australian Government released two documents:

a draft of the Tobacco Plain Packaging Amendment Regulations 2012, showing the amendments that are proposed to be made to the Regulations to incorporate the non-cigarette tobacco product specifications; and
a draft compilation of the Tobacco Plain Packaging Regulations 2011, incorporating the changes described in the Amendment Regulations into the current Regulations (that is, a consolidated draft of the Regulations which includes both cigarette and non-cigarette plain packaging specifications).

Public submissions closed at 5.00pm, 20 January 2012. Submissions will be progressively released on to this website. Whole or parts of submissions which contained information which was requested to be treated as confidential will not be released, unless consent is subsequently received. Details such as personal email addresses, telephone numbers and home addresses will not be published.

Currently available submissions

Consultation on proposed design features for the plain packaging non-cigarette tobacco products

The first Consultation Paper on the Government’s proposal for plain packaging of cigarettes, released in April 2011, noted that the Government would conduct a further consultation on the detail of the proposed design features for the plain packaging of non-cigarette tobacco products in the second half of 2011.

A second Consultation Paper was released for public comment from 30 September 2011 to 28 October 2011. This consultation paper outlined the Government’s proposed approach to implementing plain packaging for non-cigarette tobacco products.

Consultation Paper - Tobacco Plain Packaging: proposed approach to non-cigarette tobacco products

Public submissions closed at 5.00pm, 28 October 2011. Whole or parts of submissions which contained information which was requested to be treated as confidential wasn't released, unless consent was subsequently received.

Currently available submissions