At today’s World Cancer Leaders’ Summit in Melbourne, the Hon. Mark Butler MP, Minister for Health and Ageing, reaffirmed the Australian Government’s commitment to advancing tobacco control. This commitment includes ongoing support, such as AUD $1.1 million in funding over two years (until June 2026) for the McCabe Centre for Law & Cancer, enabling it to continue its role as a designated WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) Knowledge Hub.
- Develop and implement stronger tobacco control laws;
- Meet obligations under the WHO FCTC and its Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products; and
- Reduce the health, social, and environmental harms caused by tobacco.
The McCabe Centre will deliver both online and in-person training for government lawyers and policymakers, and develop and share resources through WHO FCTC platforms, aimed at deepening legal knowledge, expertise and skills of government lawyers and policymakers to improve health outcomes in the Western Pacific region and beyond.
“We’re so pleased to be able to strengthen our regional collaborations in the Western Pacific region through these workshops and resources that will build on the successes we’ve made,” McCabe Centre’s Director, Hayley Jones, said.
Tobacco kills more than half of its regular users, totalling seven million people worldwide each year. And with four out of five tobacco users living in low- and middle-income countries - the Western Pacific Region has one of the highest rates of smoking among men.
Tobacco is linked to a range of noncommunicable diseases including cancer, heart disease, stroke, and chronic respiratory disease.
The McCabe Centre’s work is vital to support and train lawyers and policymakers in the region to develop strong laws and defend them against tobacco industry interference and legal challenges, and to provide necessary resources and information that all parties to the WHO FCTC can use.
"We know that tobacco control laws are effective at reducing tobacco use. In Australia, we have more than halved our tobacco use over the last 20 years because of our laws like tobacco advertising bans, smoke-free public places, health warnings and plain packaging. As a result, whenever countries try to bring these laws in, they face fierce opposition from Big Tobacco, including lobbying, lawsuits, and misinformation,” Hayley said.
“Countries including Australia are grappling with new tobacco and nicotine products and illicit trade in tobacco, so sharing strategies about what has worked will strengthen our regulatory response here, and support our neighbours,” she added.
As an important part of Australia’s leadership in tobacco control in the region and beyond, the McCabe Centre is expanding on a proven model that has already successfully supported over 30 countries to adopt laws and policies and 5 more to successfully defend them against litigation by the tobacco industry.
For example:
- In Samoa, the McCabe Centre supported our alumni, government lawyers and policymakers, to introduce laws providing for tobacco licencing, put licencing fees back into health programs, and prevent kids from working as tobacco sellers.
- In Kenya, the McCabe Centre supported the government to defend their tobacco control laws against a court challenge by British American Tobacco (BAT) – the government won in the Supreme Court of Kenya and McCabe Centre alumni were able to also help lawyers in Uganda defend their law from a constitutional challenge by BAT.
To date, we have worked with over 120 countries and trained over 630 professionals.
Our impact: nearly 3 billion people worldwide now benefiting from law and policy changes. See more here. This next edition of training and support builds on the Knowledge Hub’s successes and will also support countries to cooperate on emerging issues including novel and emerging tobacco and nicotine products like vapes and nicotine pouches and develop the next generation of forward-looking tobacco control measures.
About the McCabe Centre for Law and Cancer:
The McCabe Centre for Law and Cancer is the only centre of its kind in the world dedicated to advancing law in cancer control, with lawyers based in Australia, Samoa, The Philippines and Kenya. Our heritage is deeply connected to Rolah McCabe, an Australian woman whose courage in standing up to the tobacco industry before her death continues to inspire our fight for justice, cancer prevention, and the rights of people affected by cancer. Her landmark case demonstrated the powerful role that law can play in cancer prevention and control. We are a unit of Cancer Council Victoria and work closely with our founding partners - the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) and Cancer Council Australia. We are the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Knowledge Hub and a WHO Collaborating Centre on Law and Noncommunicable Disease.
About the World Cancer Leaders’ Summit:
The World Cancer Leaders’ Summit is being held in Melbourne, Australia this year, from 18-20 November, organised by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) and hosted by Cancer Council Victoria - this year’s summit brings together over 400 leaders and high-level participants from more than 80 countries, including senior representatives from government, UN agencies, cancer societies, research institutes, and global health organisations.
The invitation-only event is co-hosted by VCCC Alliance, Monash Partners Comprehensive Cancer Consortium, and the McCabe Centre for Law and Cancer, in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
For further information
Contact Diane Shelton: media@mccabecentre.org.