I'm genuinely surprised.

The Australian Government's long-awaited Post-Implementation Review of plain packaging was finally published yesterday (see previous post).

We expected significant media coverage but there's barely been a squeak despite some extravagant claims by tobacco control (Tobacco plain packaging a winner – saving lives).

Google 'plain packaging, Australia' as I did a moment ago and see what comes up.

I got Plain packaging works: report (Australian Journal of Pharmacy) and Federal Government’s cigarette plain packaging policy is helping the drop in smokers’ numbers (GeelongAdvertiser) and, er, that's it.

As I write the leading Australian newspapers have completely ignored it.

ASH tried to whip up interest the UK (Australian government report confirms standardised plain packaging works) but no-one has bitten, not even the Guardian or the BBC.

I'd like to think it's because journalists can see the review for what it is – a transparent exercise in spin with very little evidence to support its conclusions – but that hasn't stopped them running similar stories in the past.

I put it down to the fact that the Australian Government itself has taken a very low key approach and although the Department of Health was responsible for the review it was released quietly and without fanfare or even a press release that would have given journalists something 'official' to work with.

There could be two reasons for this.

One, as we anticipated, there is very little in the review to excite advocates of plain packaging so there's little by way of a 'story' (although, to repeat, that doesn't normally deter journalists, health correspondents in particular).

Two, plain packaging in Australia was a Labor initiative therefore the current Liberal government may be less inclined to 'celebrate' its alleged impact. (Or perhaps they too read the report and concluded, 'Nothing to see here, move along.'

In the UK that wouldn't stop the Department of Health because the DH seems to be a law unto itself, waging war on tobacco regardless of the party in power, but Australia may be different.

Anyway it's a bit of a mystery and although it's good news in the sense that silence speaks volumes about the content of the review, I feel a bit deflated. I was looking forward to a scrap (see Forest's response here)!