In July 2021, the City of Melbourne Future Melbourne Committee endorsed the Smoke-free Melbourne Policy.
This policy outlines our vision to reduce the harmful effects of smoking and vaping in our community and maps out how this can be achieved. It will guide the creation of more smoke-free and vape-free areas in the central City of Melbourne, ways to reduce and de-normalise smoking and vaping as well as supporting people to quit.
Since 2013, the City of Melbourne has been a leader in protecting our community from the harmful effects of second-hand smoke, through the introduction of smoke-free areas.
Whilst these are important, evidence from around the world suggests that a more comprehensive and strategic approach is needed.
Hello everyone, it's Lord Mayor Sally Capp here. I am delighted to be endorsing our smoke-free Melbourne Policy. This Policy is the first of its kind in Australia and provides a framework for protecting the air that we breathe. In addition to calling out smoke-free areas around our city, this is a policy that goes much further in promoting good public health outcomes here in Melbourne, both for the individual and across our entire community.
77 percent of you told us that you support our vision of having a smoke-free city, and we all know that we can do more to have good public health outcomes.
We were delighted to work with major partners in delivering our new policy and our very special thanks to Partnerships for Healthy Cities to Bloomberg Philanthropies to the World Health Organization and to Vital Strategies. Thank you to you all for your inputs and support.
The policy has been developed in consultation with local and international public health and tobacco control experts. W e also engaged broadly with our community through a range of activities including pop-up conversations across the city, online workshops, surveys and a deliberative community panel.
Smoke-free environments are important for absolutely everybody right from children through to our elderly citizens. Everybody deserves to breathe healthy air. Tobacco is a really dangerous product not just for people who use it but in terms of second-hand smoke that causes terrible disease and even death. Next steps will include the development of an implementation plan to guide our work across four policy domains; protect, educate, communicate and regulate. We look forward to continuing to partner with key stakeholders to implement the policy. We are proud to be making healthy and safe environments for everyone.
[Music with logos of partners and City of Melbourne shown on screen]
Further information on the community consultation process and outcomes can be found on Participate Melbourne External link.
The development of this policy was supported by the Partnership for Healthy Cities External link – an initiative of Bloomberg Philanthropies, the World Health Organisation and Vital Strategies.
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To find out more about how we’re working to reduce the harmful impacts of smoking and vaping, visit Smoking and vaping.
