Health groups warn: cheaper cigarettes will cost lives, not save them.

There is a particular kind of tragedy in watching a hard-won victory begin to slip away—the slow erosion of progress that took decades to build. For Australia, that victory has been the steady decline of smoking, a public health achievement that has saved countless lives. This week, a coalition of the nation's leading health organizations warned that a proposed policy could reverse that progress and cost thousands of lives.

The warning comes in response to a Coalition plan to cut the tobacco excise by 80 percent, reducing the price of a pack of 20 cigarettes from about $30 to roughly $6, alongside moves to legalize and regulate vapes and nicotine pouches . The policy, announced by Opposition Leader Angus Taylor and Nationals leader Matt Canavan, is framed as a way to combat the illicit tobacco trade, which now accounts for more than half of all cigarette sales in Australia .

Health groups have rejected that framing entirely. The Australian Medical Association, Cancer Council Australia, Quit, and more than 30 other medical bodies have signed letters and issued statements warning that cheaper cigarettes will mean more smoking, more addiction, and more deaths . The Australian Council on Smoking and Health (ACOSH) called the plan "a tax cut for tobacco companies" that "risks fuelling nicotine addiction" .

"The overwhelming majority of cancers caused by smoking are preventable and every policy decision should be judged against one simple question: will it reduce nicotine addiction and smoking, or increase it?" said David Martin of Cancer Council Australia . He noted that 66 Australians die from smoking every day .

The health coalition points to evidence from Canada, where a similar tax cut in the 1990s contributed to an estimated 30,000 additional deaths . They argue that making cigarettes cheaper would disproportionately affect young people and those experiencing socioeconomic disadvantage—groups most sensitive to price . They also note that Australia's smoking rate has fallen to a historic low of 5.6 percent, a result of exactly the kind of taxation the Coalition now proposes to undo .

Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek was blunt: "This is a dangerous product and giving in to the bikies and the organised criminal gangs from overseas is not a solution to the illegal sale of these dangerous products" .

The Coalition argues that cutting the excise would destroy the illicit market's business model, with $200 million pledged for law enforcement . Health groups counter that the illicit trade is driven by sophisticated criminal supply chains that can produce a pack for 28 cents—no tax cut can compete with that . The real answer, they say, is stronger enforcement, tighter licensing, and helping people quit.

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Sources: The Guardian, Australian Council on Smoking & Health, Cancer Council Australia, Quit, News24