British American Tobacco Australia (BATA) has attacked the federal government's cigarette plain packaging plans, saying there's no proof it will reduce smoking rates.
BATA chief executive David Crow said confidential documents the company had obtained under Freedom of Information (FOI) showed there was no evidence to back its experiment.
"What proof does the government have that their plain-packaging experiment will work?" Mr Crow said in a statement on Monday.
"Can the government give a 100 per cent guarantee that taxpayers' dollars won't be wasted on legal fees and compensation."
One of the documents showed there was no evidence to support the government's plain-packaging plan, the company said.
The document was a Senate Estimates Committee question on notice asking the Department of Health what the estimated reduction in smoking rates would be from the plain packaging measure.
The department couldn't answer, the company said.
The department responded: "this figure has not been calculated. As no other countries have implemented plain packaging for tobacco products, the actual impact on smoking behaviour is not able to be calculated at this stage", the company said.
BATA said another confidential briefing note indicated the government had budgeted $4.8 million to implement the legislation, but the figure did not include legal costs, estimated to be more than $10 million.
The note also said the figure did not include possible damages associated with defending a legal challenge to plain packaging from the industry.
"We don't want to see a situation where taxpayer dollars are being wasted," Mr Crow said.
"Unfortunately, this suggests the government has been planning a court case all along and is pushing us down the legal path."
He also warned that organised crime could profit from the plain-packaging plan, especially since the prevalence of illegal tobacco in Australia had grown 150 per cent over the last three years.
"When all cigarette packs look the same and lose their trademarks and distinguishing features, counterfeiters will have a field day mass-producing packets to smuggle into Australia."
Mr Crow said BATA was undertaking a media campaign to "draw attention to the potential unintended consequences plain packaging could have".
On Monday, the federal government clarified the colour of its proposed plain-packaging for cigarettes at the request of olive growers.
"I need to publicly say to the olive growers that we don't think that their products are in any way connected with the very unattractive product of tobacco," federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon told reporters on Monday.
When the legislation was announced earlier this year, the government said the plain packaging would be olive green, but olive growers objected.
The colour rumpus is just one of the issues the government will be taking into consideration before enforcing plain packaging for tobacco products later this year.
"There are lots of things in the legislation that people have views about ... but, ultimately, the fight we face with the tobacco industry is they don't want to see this measure be successful," she said.
"There is fundamentally no good news from the tobacco industry.
"They sell a product that kills people ... We want to make sure that the tobacco industry can't use a package to try to attract new smokers to their product."
British American Tobacco Australia is expected to launch its national media campaign on Tuesday.
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