Even as the final countdown to D-Day for plain packaging of tobacco products approached, the federal government signalled a crackdown on the last vestiges of branding on cigarettes.
From Saturday 1 December, the government's plain packaging legislation that bans retailers from selling cigarettes and tobacco products in branded packaging came into force. Manufacturers have been barred from producing branded packaging since October.
Just days before the retail deadline, federal health minister, Tanya Plibersek, directed industry giants Imperial Tobacco and British American Tobacco (BAT) to remove batch coding on cigarettes, which she says suggested glamorous travel destinations.
In the absence of branding, the codes are meant as the chief means of product identification in the event of product recalls.
But Plibersek said the codes being used, including such three letter combinations as 'LDN', 'NYC', 'SYD' and 'AUS', breached the new branding laws and were designed to convey the notion of such world travel hot spots as London, New York or, for a more locally patriotic appeal, Sydney and Australia.
“We think those sort of letter tags suggest some meaning to people who are smoking," she told the ABC.
"It's certainly not random as it should be. It's the cigarette companies trying to push the boundaries. We have asked them to change their production."
She also took issue with papers used for the actual cigarettes, saying the watermarked stock used, which includes thin lines across the paper, could also be construed as branding.
"It's a sort of watermark in the paper of some of the cigarettes. We believe that it is a breach. We believe plain paper means plain paper, it doesn't mean watermarked paper, so we've also told the tobacco companies that they need to change that," she said.
A spokesman for BAT said the company has discussed these concerns with the health department, and was happy to work towards a beneficial outcome.
Anti-tobacco lobby group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), meanwhile, has also pointed the finger at what it says are attempts by the tobacco companies to get in last-minute branding before the ban.
It took to task Imperial Tobacco, for example, for selling loose tobacco in heritage tins stamped “Champion”.
It also publicised a number of recent new brand launches of cigarettes, including a peppermint-flavoured brand called “Ice”, which it says was meant to convey the notion of illicit party drugs, as well as the descriptors 'Coral', 'Lagoon' and 'Treasure' on varieties of Reef brand cigarettes.
Imperial Tobacco denied the 'Ice' tag had any connection to illicit drugs such as methamphetamine, saying instead it related simply to it being a menthol cigarette.
Australia's plain cigarette packaging has been nominated by London's Design Museum for the graphics design industry's version of the "Oscars'.
