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Australia’s Preventative Health Taskforce recommends plain packaging & a raft of other TC measures

General Messages
by Ms. Kylie Lindorff

The Australian Government’s Preventative Health Taskforce’s ‘National Preventative Health Strategy’ was released on Tuesday 1st September and contains recommendations on tobacco, alcohol and obestity.

Highlights of the tobacco section include:
– Increasing the price of cigarettes to $20AUS a pack by 2013
– Introducing plain packaging for tobacco products
– Continuing social marketing campaigns
– Further restrictions on promotion of tobacco products such as point of sale bans and use of new media
– Expanding Quitline services
– Expanding health professional training
– Expanding programs for those with mental illness, Indigenous peoples and low SES groups

The summary and full report can be found at:
http://www.yourhealth.gov.au/internet/yourhealth/publishing….

The Government has not yet responded to the strategy’s recommendations and isn’t expected to until the end of 2009. Until then, they are simply recommendations to which the government has not committed and are not legally binding.

Health groups will be lobbying hard to encourage the government to implement all the recommendations in the report.

Congratulations to the Taskforce’s tobacco working group for their very hard work in producing a comprehensive, progressive set of recommendations.

Kylie Lindorff
Policy Manager
VicHealth Centre for Tobacco Control
and Quit Victoria
100 Drummond Street
Carlton Victoria Australia 3053
Ph: 61.3.9635 5518 Fax: 61.3.9635 5030
Mobile: 61 (0)409 974 547
kylie.lindorff@cancervic.org.au

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