The most revealing moment in Laura Hunter’s interview with David Speers came when she declined to discuss the cause of the problem she wanted to solve.
Speers repeatedly asked whether Australia’s rising tobacco excise had helped push smokers towards illegal cigarettes. Hunter discussed cheap overseas manufacturing, organised crime, enforcement and the importance of keeping cigarettes expensive.
Eventually, she said, “I’m not interested in debating narratives around what causes this.”
That is an extraordinary position for a public-health advocate. Understanding causes is essential to evaluating solutions. If a policy helps create incentives that illegal suppliers exploit, examining those incentives is unavoidable.
Hunter, chief executive of the Australian Council on Smoking and Health, repeatedly demanded evidence from those proposing change. Yet her own defence relied on sweeping assertions, inadequately explained statistics and a selective account of the research.
Her concern about smoking is justified. Her confidence in the existing approach requires much more scrutiny.
The price incentive she would not confront
The economic question is straightforward.
The Senate inquiry into illegal tobacco recorded that, under the March 2026 rates, excise alone amounted to approximately $30.57 on a packet of 20 cigarettes. Its report explicitly identified excise and GST evasion as enabling lower illicit prices. That does not establish the ideal tax rate. It establishes why taxation belongs in any serious explanation of the market. Senate inquiry into Australia’s illegal tobacco market.
Hunter’s emphasis on cheap overseas production does not answer this. Cheap manufacturing and tax avoidance work together. One supplies the product cheaply; the other helps illegal sellers undercut their lawful competitors.
Acknowledging that mechanism would not require endorsing the Coalition’s proposed 80% excise cut. It would require answering Speers’s question.
Instead, Hunter argues that legal cigarettes would remain more expensive after a cut, so consumers would continue buying illegally. She even claims consumers will always choose the cheaper product.
Taken literally, that assertion cannot explain why legal cigarettes still have customers.
Using the interview’s illustrative prices, reducing a legal packet from $40 to $20 while an illegal packet remains at $8 reduces the savings from buying illegally from $32 to $12. That arithmetic cannot predict how many customers would switch. It shows why the response deserves investigation.
Hunter treats the continued existence of a price gap as proof that narrowing it would achieve nothing. The conclusion does not follow.
Her discussion of criminal profits is similarly incomplete. She cites a manufacturing cost of approximately 28 US cents per packet, suggesting illegal sellers could charge a dollar or two while retaining an attractive margin.
But factory cost is not the cost of supplying an Australian customer. Transport, distribution, retailing, seizures and the costs of operating illegally also matter. Criminal suppliers may have substantial room to discount, but Hunter does not establish how much or how sustainably.
Nor does their ability to lower prices mean their profits would remain unaffected. Competition that compresses margins, combined with enforcement that raises costs, deserves analysis. Hunter dismisses the possibility without supplying it.
Her quitting claim does not match the national findings
Hunter repeatedly describes 90% of smokers as desperately trying or wanting to quit.
The AIHW’s 2025 survey reports that 66% of people who smoke would like to quit and intend to do so at some point. Another 34% say they do not intend to quit. It also reports that 61% undertook at least one activity to help them quit or cut down. AIHW tobacco-smoking findings.
Wanting to quit eventually, taking action to reduce consumption and desperately trying to quit are different claims.
Hunter may have another source or a narrower population in mind. She identifies neither. As presented, her figure is unsupported and does not fit the national evidence she otherwise invokes.
This matters because policy must account for smokers who are not ready to stop. Describing almost everyone as desperate to quit makes that difficult part of the problem conveniently disappear.
The fivefold gateway claim is less decisive than it sounds
Hunter also tells listeners that young people who vape are five times more likely to go on to regular cigarettes.
The Australian study associated with that figure examined smoking initiation. It analysed retrospectively recalled information from 5,114 adolescents and reported an adjusted association of approximately 4.9 times between prior vaping and subsequent initiation. Egger and colleagues’ study.
That finding deserves attention. But initiating smoking is not equivalent to becoming a regular smoker. And an observational association, even after statistical adjustment, does not establish that vaping caused the entire difference.
The wider evidence further complicates Hunter’s presentation.
A 2025 systematic review by Begh and colleagues examined 126 studies. It found an association between individual youth vaping and subsequent smoking, but concluded that the causal relationship remained unclear. At the population level, the balance of evidence suggested an inverse relationship: greater vaping use or availability was associated with less youth smoking than otherwise expected. The authors rated the evidence as very low certainty. Begh and colleagues, Addiction, 2025.
That uncertainty prevents declaring that vaping protects young people from smoking. It also makes Hunter’s confident gateway narrative difficult to sustain.
If wider vaping access produces a substantial net increase in smoking, we should expect higher smoking rates or slower declines than would otherwise have occurred. An association between two behaviours in individuals cannot establish a population outcome.
In the United States, cigarette smoking among high-school students reached 1.7% in 2024, the lowest recorded by the National Youth Tobacco Survey, despite e-cigarettes remaining the most commonly used tobacco product among young people. CDC, National Youth Tobacco Survey 2024.
That does not prove vaping caused the decline. Other tobacco-control measures could outweigh a gateway effect in some individuals. But it leaves Hunter with a question her fivefold statistic cannot answer: does wider access increase smoking overall, once substitution, quitting, and other influences are considered?
Hunter’s confident gateway argument also overlooks research by Arielle Selya and colleagues. In an analysis of 12,421 US students, Kim and Selya found that, after accounting for 14 shared risk factors, vaping was no longer significantly associated with current cigarette smoking, although an association with having ever tried cigarettes remained. That distinction matters: adolescents predisposed to experiment with both products can generate an apparent gateway association without demonstrating that vaping caused their smoking. The study was cross-sectional, so it cannot establish causation, but it challenges Hunter’s leap from experimentation to regular smoking. Kim and Selya. Separately, Selya and Foxon’s modelling found that observed US youth smoking trends were better explained by allowing vaping to divert some adolescents away from cigarettes, with that effect outweighing any opposing gateway effect within their model. Those results depend on modelling assumptions, but they expose the question Hunter leaves unanswered: does vaping increase smoking overall, or does it sometimes replace it? A fivefold association in individuals cannot settle that population-level question. Selya and Foxon.
The evidence on adult quitting deserves more than a passing acknowledgement
Hunter’s account of vaping concentrates heavily on recruitment, addiction and death.
Yet the August 2026 Cochrane review found high-certainty evidence that nicotine e-cigarettes improve smoking quit rates compared with nicotine replacement therapy. Its pooled estimate indicated approximately 61% higher quit rates, based on 11 studies involving 4,114 participants. Cochrane systematic review.
That does not establish that every commercial model improves public health. It does establish a benefit that a credible policy comparison must weigh.
Hunter acknowledges pharmacy access. She does not adequately examine whether that channel reaches smokers who could benefit or whether a different regulated arrangement could perform better.
Instead, commercial access is repeatedly dismissed as “let it rip”.
Britain imposes nicotine concentration and container-size limits alongside age-verification requirements. New Zealand distinguishes general retailers from approved specialist retailers and restricts which flavours general retailers can sell. These arrangements can be criticised, but they are regulatory systems with specific rules. UK retailer requirements, New Zealand flavour restrictions.
Hunter’s slogan obscures the comparison that matters: which combination of product standards, access restrictions, marketing controls and enforcement best reduces harm?
What does “nine packets of cigarettes” actually mean?
Hunter’s claim that one vape can contain as much nicotine as nine packets of cigarettes is another example of a dramatic comparison doing the work of an explanation.
She does not identify the device, its liquid volume, its nicotine concentration or the calculation behind the claim.
Those omissions matter because nicotine contained in a product, nicotine delivered in smoke or aerosol, and nicotine absorbed into the bloodstream are different measurements.
A pharmacological review by Benowitz and colleagues reports that an average cigarette contains approximately 10–14 milligrams of nicotine, while the smoker typically absorbs about 1–1.5 milligrams. Benowitz and colleagues: nicotine chemistry and pharmacokinetics.
Assuming 20 cigarettes per packet, nine packets contain 180 cigarettes. Using those averages, they contain approximately 1,800–2,520 milligrams of nicotine in the tobacco, compared with approximately 180–270 milligrams absorbed through smoking them.
Which quantity is Hunter comparing with the vape?
For vape liquid, the basic calculation is simple: liquid volume multiplied by nicotine concentration gives the total nicotine contained.
A hypothetical device holding 10 millilitres at 20 milligrams per millilitre contains 200 milligrams of nicotine. That example does not identify Hunter’s device. It illustrates the measurement problem.
Dividing those 200 milligrams by one milligram absorbed per cigarette produces an impressive cigarette-equivalent figure. But it compares nicotine sitting in a reservoir with nicotine already absorbed by a smoker. It assumes a delivery process that the calculation has not established.
Here is what actually happens. A battery powers a heating coil. Liquid supplied to the coil is heated and forms an aerosol. The user draws that aerosol into their mouth and potentially their lungs, and some of its nicotine is absorbed.
Delivery depends on the liquid, device power and puffing behaviour. Longer puffs and higher power can increase nicotine delivery. There is no universal percentage that converts every device’s contents into a reliable bloodstream dose. The National Academies’ review explicitly describes nicotine delivery as a product of device characteristics and user behaviour. National Academies review.
The time period matters too. A device is a reservoir used across multiple sessions. If the hypothetical 200-milligram device were consumed over ten days, that would mean using liquid containing an average of 20 milligrams daily, before accounting for delivery and absorption. Finishing it in five days would double that daily quantity.
Neither example establishes the actual absorbed dose. Both demonstrate why an entire device is not a standard serving.
None of this makes high-nicotine products harmless. It makes Hunter’s comparison incomplete.
Equal nicotine also does not mean equal harm. Most smoking-related harm comes from other chemicals in tobacco smoke. Matching nicotine quantities cannot establish equivalent exposure to the toxic products of burning tobacco. NHS explanation of nicotine and smoking harm.
The nine-packet figure might describe a particular product under particular assumptions. Without those details, it cannot tell us the user’s daily exposure or establish harm equivalent to smoking nine packets.
Her wastewater explanation leaves the central question unanswered
Hunter uses that comparison to suggest that rising wastewater nicotine is unsurprising.
But nicotine remaining in a device contributes nothing to wastewater. The ABS measures metabolites excreted after nicotine has been consumed and processed by the body. Explaining an increase requires evidence about actual consumption across the population, not merely a device’s capacity.
Hunter correctly observes that wastewater nicotine is not a direct count of cigarettes. The ABS’s 80% figure concerns illicit sources of nicotine consumption. But the ABS also combines wastewater measurements with other information to estimate product categories, concluding that substitution towards illicit tobacco has more than offset declining legal tobacco quantities. Its estimates are experimental and require scrutiny. Pointing out that vapes contain nicotine does not answer the analysis. ABS methodology and findings.
Hunter identifies a genuine limitation, then gives it more explanatory power than it can bear.
A legal channel is not the same as effective market control
Her declaration that Australia’s vaping approach is working also demands qualification.
In March 2026, Assistant Minister Julian Hill cited the commissioner’s estimate that 95.7% of e-cigarette products sold in Australia in 2024–25 were illegal. That earlier estimate cannot establish every effect of subsequent enforcement. It nevertheless documents an extraordinary gap between the legal framework and the market people actually use. Government statement citing the commissioner’s estimates.
Hunter points to falling vaping among young adults. That is welcome. But reduced use and control of supply are separate outcomes, and a credible assessment must confront both.
Even her headline figure requires correction. The 3.6% she describes as overall vaping represents daily use. AIHW reports current vaping at 6.0% in 2025, down from 7.0% in 2022–23, while daily use remained broadly stable. The findings support a decline in current use; they do not isolate which intervention caused it. AIHW vaping findings.
Canada is a more complicated story than Hunter allows
Hunter’s appeal to Canada is similarly selective.
Research found that the 1994 tobacco-tax reductions slowed the decline in smoking. That is a legitimate warning that advocates of Australian cuts must address. But Canadian parliamentary analysis also identified the large Canada–US price difference as encouraging illegal cigarette trading and reported that the excise reduction significantly reduced smuggling. Canadian smoking study, Canadian parliamentary analysis.
Canada supplies evidence of a trade-off. It does not justify excluding taxation from consideration.
Nor does the historical record support a simple claim that smuggling immediately returned when taxes increased again. Quebec raised its excise by $1.32 per carton in 1995, followed by coordinated federal and provincial increases in 1996 and 1998. The December 1998 parliamentary review recorded that these comparatively small increases had not, at that point, produced a significant increase in reported smuggling.
The original response also included export measures and enforcement, so the entire improvement cannot be attributed to excise reductions alone. Canadian parliamentary review of tobacco taxation.
Anyone arguing that later tax increases helped revive illegal trade also concedes that taxation can influence the incentives sustaining it. The size of the price gap and the surrounding enforcement conditions matter.
Hunter cannot credibly invoke Canada’s health warning while leaving its evidence about smuggling incentives out of the discussion.
Her preferred policies deserve the scrutiny she demands from others
Hunter’s retailer proposal offers another unsupported leap. She suggests criteria including security and reporting to a board of directors, then describes a resulting model in which licensed retailers will not break the law.
Corporate structure cannot provide that guarantee.
A board does not establish compliance, and its absence does not establish dishonesty. Her claim that 60% of shops under closure orders held licences also needs context: the proportion of all retailers licensed, how inspections were targeted and offending rates across comparable groups.
More enforcement and accessible quitting support may be sensible. But additional funding is an input. The outcomes that matter are reduced illegal supply, reduced criminal profits, less violence and fewer people smoking.
Hunter does not establish how much enforcement would achieve those outcomes or what evidence would persuade her that the existing settings need revision.
The Senate committee recommended an independent review with publicly released modelling to determine an appropriate excise reduction within a broader package. That is a policy recommendation, not proof that a particular cut will work. It nevertheless offers a serious way to examine alternatives. Senate inquiry recommendations.
The Coalition must demonstrate that its proposal would reduce criminal trade without an unacceptable increase in smoking. Hunter must demonstrate why preserving current excise settings and expanding enforcement offers the better outcome.
Her interview did not do that.
Hunter offered certainty where the evidence requires care, slogans where the debate requires comparison, and evasion when Speers asked for an explanation.
Repeatedly demanding evidence is easy. Applying the same standard to your own argument is the real test.
As always, Alan Gor was impeccably polite and respectful as he analysed the recent high profile interview of Laura Hunter of ACOSH on ‘Insiders’ regarding smoking and vaping. But Alan didn’t hold back, nor should he have, in identifying Hunter’s many inconsistencies, contradictions, and her insistent demands of her opponents which she refuses to submit to herself. This is sadly the story of Australian tobacco control for the last decade and a half. Having seen how well shameless dishonesty worked for Big Tobacco and for so long, now international tobacco control has adopted the same tactic. A number of traded tobacco companies have realised that as combustible cigarettes will soon be obsolete, these companies must rapidly transform to different products unless they are happy to risk eventual bankruptcy. The products the major traded tobacco companies have chosen are substantially less risky than combustible cigarettes. Who knows whether their motivation is only commercial, part humane or a mixture of both? And what difference does it make. The fact is that this transformation is rapid, probably accelerating and will inevitably succeed. Tobacco control leaders who dominate our media today will become a mere footnote when the history of this period is written. But people like Alan Gor, who have had the courage to stand up and call a spade a spade when it has been deeply unpopular to do so, will be lauded as they should be.
Cockwombles are gone. The more ON n coalition publicise this the worse for album n bumlet. Bugger bums, na!!