Strategies
Our national strategies guide our work to reduce smoking rates in Australia.
The National Tobacco Strategy 2023–2030, endorsed by all Australian Governments, was released in May 2023. It drives priority actions to reduce the daily smoking prevalence and improve health outcomes for Australians. It is a sub-strategy of the National Drug Strategy 2017–2026, which aims to reduce and prevent the harmful effects of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs.
The National Tobacco Strategy also complements the National Preventive Health Strategy 2021–2030. The National Preventive Health Strategy aims to keep people healthy and well by making changes to the health system overall and the environments around us.
Tobacco control
We have an important role in Australia’s work on the policies, programs and laws that reduce tobacco related harm in our community.
The Australian Government is working to reduce rates of tobacco and e-cigarette use. In partnership with states and territories and in line with the National Tobacco Strategy 2023–2030, it is taking a range of actions, including:
- implementing new legislation and regulations
- rolling out new public health information campaigns to prevent and reduce the use of tobacco and e-cigarettes
- expanding specialised programs and services to support Australians to quit smoking and vaping, building on the range of support already available
- extending and widening the Tackling Indigenous Smoking program to reduce both vaping and smoking among First Nations people.
We are also establishing a National Lung Cancer Screening Program, to maximise prevention and early detection of lung cancer.
Campaigns
We develop and implement public health campaigns and other communication tools to:
- discourage Australians from taking up smoking and vaping
- encourage more people to quit.
Read more about the latest national tobacco and vaping cessation public health campaign, Give up for good, that targets adults and young people.
Learn about the developmental research we did to help us develop those campaigns.
Information about the history of the National Tobacco Campaign is available from the National Library of Australia's government web archive.
Stakeholder engagement
We work with various organisations and experts to make sure we get our policies and priorities right. This includes working with government and non-government organisations and experts in Australia and overseas to help us develop and implement tobacco control policies and initiatives.
Engagement with the tobacco industry
There is a conflict of interest between the tobacco industry and public health policy. Research shows that the tobacco industry has tried for decades to undermine the actions that governments take to protect people’s health by combatting the tobacco epidemic.
We only meet when needed to regulate the industry or tobacco products and we publish the details of these meetings in order to be transparent. Find out about meetings held with the tobacco industry.
We have also developed a guidance document for public officials on interacting with the tobacco industry. This protects public health policies from the influence of the tobacco industry.
Vaping and e-cigarettes
The use of e-cigarettes, also known as ‘vapes’, has increased rapidly in recent years. E-cigarettes are not safe and can lead to serious health outcomes. Find out what we’re doing about vaping and e-cigarettes.