Jury still out a year after Australian law on plain packaging for cigarettes

More than a year after Australia became the first country to introduce plain packaging for cigarettes, there is little hard evidence to prove the trailblazing move is worth emulating.

That is not deterring authorities in Britain, who announced on Thursday that standardised plain packaging would be introduced in England. They said a comprehensive review of the evidence found unbranded packs could cut the number of children starting to smoke.

In Australia, the data is unclear. Cigarette sales in supermarkets, which account for a large portion of the market, shrank 0.9 per cent overall by volume last year, according to the latest data available from Retail World, but there is no clear link to the plain-packaging laws.

At the King of the Pack tobacconist in central Sydney, James Yu shakes his head despondently as he says his cigarette sales volumes have plummeted 30 per cent over the past year.

Yu's sliding sales should be music to the ears of the Australian government, a vindication of the laws introduced in December 2012 that forced tobacco companies to replace logos and branding with graphic images of smoking-related diseases on an olive green background.

For his part, Yu says his business has been slowed not by the new packs but by old-fashioned monetary deterrents, a 12.5 per cent rise in tobacco excise at the end of 2013 that increased pack prices from an average A$17.50 (HK$125) to A$19.70.

"Smokers don't mind plain packaging actually. The critical thing is the price hike," Yu says from his cramped booth, a view that is supported by a rough poll of other sellers.