Peter Worland was on a beach in Manly in 1987, watching his kids play in the water, when he had the idea.

The political adviser had been sent on holiday by his boss David White, then the health minister in the Victorian Labor government. Overcrowded state hospitals had been dominating the headlines and Worland was ordered to come back with a solution.

While lounging in the sand, Worland realised that rather than focusing on the symptom, they could address one of the root causes of the state’s overburdened health system.

“I thought, why don’t
we pick a fight with tobacco: be the first in the world to ban tobacco ads, and trigger all the tobacco companies, who were absolute bastards, to come to Victoria and attack us,” he says. “When they do that, all the health sector will rally behind us and away we’ll go.”

Attacking Big Tobacco in the 1980s was fraught with peril, and banning ads in particular was liable to upset another sector dependent on cigarette sponsorships: sport. 

Dr Charles Livingstone, an associate professor in Monash University’s School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, says that sponsoring sports teams was a key strategy for tobacco companies to associate smoking with healthy activities.

“It gave a marketing edge, and
was not just about promoting a brand, it was about normalising smoking as a whole — if you smoked you were supporting your team,” says Livingstone.

The plan Worland and others concocted grew into a three-pronged solution to soften some of the potential blowback. The ban on tobacco ads would be complemented by a levy on cigarettes, which in turn would fund an independent health body that sponsored sports teams that lost their tobacco backers, so their guernseys would promote quitting rather than taking up smoking.

“We had to do all three ideas simultaneously. Without an independent board to allocate the money, the public wouldn’t support it as they didn’t trust governments to do the job,” Worland says.

There
was initial resistance within Victorian Labor to the thought of taking on the tobacco lobby, but this was gradually overcome when polls showed strong support for the idea. Objections from the Liberal opposition were in turn nullified via a campaign targeting key party donors.

“It drew a catatonic response from tobacco —  they saw it as the thin edge of the wedge,” Worland says. “The following election they had wall-to-wall advertising, and so overstretched their case … that it just backfired massively. Labor had been struggling in polls but got back in.”

The proposal delivered a lasting legacy — other Australian states and dozens of countries overseas soon followed Victoria’s lead and banned tobacco sponsorships. Quit messaging became a
common sight on sports team guernseys, and the independent health body that was formed, VicHealth, continues advocating for a range of issues today.