I’m an Australian advocate who believes compassion, evidence, and honesty should sit at the heart of public policy. I speak out on tobacco harm reduction, mental health, and the real-world consequences of prohibition.
Mark Brooke’s defence of Australian tobacco policy has a credibility problem: the standard of evidence changes depending on whose proposal is being examined.
14 September 2026
The Parliamentary Budget Office’s nicotine analysis raises an uncomfortable question: how much of the decline in legal tobacco sales represents quitting, and how much represents shopping elsewhere?
12 September 2026
On uncertainty, self-trust, and being human inside a daily routine.
12 September 2026
Something strange has happened in New Zealand’s tobacco debate.
10 September 2026
There is something rather revealing buried in this Australian adolescent nicotine study.
9 September 2026
Article 5.3 should protect evidence-based policymaking. It should never become a substitute for it.
9 September 2026
Australians deserve an honest account of vaping, smoking and policy failure. Hill’s remarks offer selective science and a demand to double down.
8 September 2026
The government demands evidence before changing nicotine policy. Its own documents make the case for applying that standard to the policy already in place.
7 September 2026
Selective evidence, unexplained comparisons and a refusal to discuss price incentives make a weak case for preserving Australia’s tobacco settings.
5 September 2026
The Coalition has proposed a fundamental reset of Australia’s failed nicotine policy. The response from the public health establishment was entirely predictable.
3 September 2026
Australia and New Zealand are separated by a few thousand kilometres of ocean, yet we share medical research, similar health systems and decades of tobacco-control history.
31 August 2026
There is something deeply appealing about a plan.
30 August 2026
Some conversations end when people say goodbye, and others follow me home.
30 August 2026
The United States, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand are not merely interpreting evidence differently. They are answering different moral questions about commerce, autonomy and acceptable risk
29 August 2026
There is a remarkable sentence buried near the end of this ABC analysis of Australia’s illicit tobacco crisis:
29 August 2026
Senator Dorinda Cox and the Government Senators had an extraordinary body of evidence placed before them during the Senate inquiry into Australia’s illegal tobacco crisis.
28 August 2026
There are numbers that should change a public policy debate, and three hundred firebombings are surely one of them.
27 August 2026
Simon Chapman’s latest attack on tobacco excise reform is certainly colourful.
26 August 2026
Australia should study what worked, then improve it with legal access to safer nicotine products.
25 August 2026
Australia’s tobacco tax is collapsing, the illicit market is flourishing, and moral certainty is no substitute for policy that works.
22 August 2026
I have spent a lot of time fighting.
21 August 2026
For years, Australians have been told that the explosion of illicit tobacco and vaping is primarily an enforcement problem.
20 August 2026
One Nation has proposed a 75 per cent reduction in tobacco excise, and you could almost write the responses before they arrived: public health progress is threatened, Big Tobacco will benefit, smoking could increase, we need stronger enforcement, tougher penalties and more quitting support, and above all we must protect decades of tobacco control achievement.
18 August 2026
Lung Foundation Australia is right to demand equity in screening and care, but equity also requires an honest conversation about tobacco harm reduction.
17 August 2026
Tobacco causes immense harm. That does not excuse the use of selective evidence, false binaries and policy advocacy presented as neutral fact
14 August 2026
I’ve been sitting with the news that Filter is closing, trying to understand why it feels like such a personal loss.
12 August 2026
There is a sentence near the end of the ABC investigation into Australia’s illicit tobacco crisis that, for me, captures the central problem with the Australian debate.
10 August 2026
Subject: To the Scientists Who Never Got the Memo
9 August 2026
When most people read the latest investigation into the collapse of the Australian Border Force’s secret intelligence unit, they will probably focus on one individual.
8 August 2026
Ecological momentary assessment is an impressive research method because, instead of asking participants to reconstruct their behaviour days or weeks later, researchers contact them in real time to ask what they are doing, where they are, how they are feeling and what happened immediately before they vaped.
5 August 2026
Every so often, a paper appears that calls for a “balanced perspective.” It is a phrase that sounds reassuring because science should be balanced, public policy should be balanced, and decisions that affect millions of lives should certainly be balanced.
3 August 2026
Watching James Martin’s presentation alongside Cheneal Puljević’s is fascinating because they are not really arguing about whether Australia has an illicit tobacco crisis.
31 July 2026
Imagine writing the history of civilisation not through kings, wars, borders, revolutions or empires, but through something much simpler: the history of safer.
30 July 2026
Simon’s latest argument is revealing because, underneath all the rhetoric, he actually concedes much of the problem his critics are describing.
29 July 2026
There is a convenient story often told about tobacco harm reduction.
29 July 2026
Every day we ask questions.
26 July 2026
Australia’s illicit tobacco crisis has reached a remarkable point.
25 July 2026
There are moments in public policy when the conversation itself becomes more important than the conclusions.
22 July 2026
Lately, I have found myself thinking less about winning the battles in front of me and more about what will remain when those battles are no longer mine to fight.
19 July 2026
The latest National Drug Strategy Household Survey should have been an opportunity to give Australians a clear and honest account of what has happened to smoking, vaping and nicotine use since the federal government overturned the legal vaping market and forced lawful supply into participating pharmacies.
17 July 2026
One of political economy’s most revealing ideas is the Bootleggers and Baptists paradox.
15 July 2026
This is the final instalment of the series and continues directly from Part 2.
12 July 2026
This Substack continues from Part 1, where I explored how institutional incentives, path dependence and organisational structures can shape public policy.
11 July 2026
Public health debates are often presented as contests between evidence and vested interests.
10 July 2026
