The City of Melbourne has a vision to become a smoke-free city where everyone can breathe easy.

We know that smoking is still the biggest contributor to preventable disease and deaths in Australia and there is more work to be done.

As part of the global Partnership for Healthy Cities network — an initiative of Bloomberg Philanthropies, the World Health Organization and Vital Strategies — we have developed a discussion paper and a draft policy to help us achieve our vision. The draft policy will assist in the planning and delivery of more smoke-free areas and other activities to support people to quit and reduce smoking in our city.

We shared our discussion paper and draft policy (MS Word 225 KB) and from November 2020 to April 2021 we invited the community to have their say. We also held focus group workshops with highly interested and impacted stakeholders such as smokers, young people and residents as well as businesses operating in Melbourne’s central city. Feedback we heard was used to shape the final policy.

The final Smoke-free Melbourne Policy was endorsed by Council on 6 July 2021.