Regulation of products

Cigarettes

In Victoria, cigarettes are not subject to any specific legal requirements in relation to their ingredients or design, the process by which they are manufactured, or the information that manufacturers or retailers must disclose about them, either to the public or to any regulatory authority.

Since December 2000, pursuant to a voluntary arrangement with the Australian Government, Philip Morris Limited, British American Tobacco Australia Limited and Imperial Tobacco Australia Limited have each made annual disclosures of limited information in relation to their products, which is published on the website of the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing. This information is of limited, if any, value in understanding how tobacco products are manufactured and designed.

The Trade Practices (Consumer Product Information Standards)(Tobacco) Regulations 2004 (Cth) formerly required information about the average quantities of tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide in the smoke from each cigarette to be printed on cigarette packs.  However, in relation to cigarette packs manufactured or imported after 1 March 2006, this requirement has been removed, because of flaws in the measuring process used, and clear evidence that the information bears little relation to, and is likely to mislead consumers as to, the health effects of smoking different "strength" cigarettes.

Other tobacco products

Under section 15(1) of the Tobacco Act 1987 (Vic), the manufacture and sale in Victoria of tobacco products other than products prepared for smoking is prohibited.  Examples of tobacco products to which the ban applies include chewing tobacco, oral or nasal snuff and other smokeless tobacco products.

Under sections 65C(1)(b) and (c) of the Trade Practices Act (Cth), corporations may not supply goods intended or likely to be used by consumers if they have been declared unsafe or permanently banned.  Chewing tobacco and snuff have been declared unsafe and banned from supply in Australia by corporations under these provisions.

Australian customs regulations also prohibit the importation, without special Ministerial permission, of more than 1.5kg of chewing tobacco and snuffs intended for oral use.  (Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations 1956 (Cth), regulation 4U and Schedule 12 ).