Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Minister. You said, 'seek to measure,' implying in future. I asked for the past data on which this is based—current data. A literature review conducted by my staff has found many papers show a link between scary images and smokers being more scared. So far, so good.

They find that nonsmokers react to the images as expected while smokers filter the message, reducing the fear factor in whole or in part. This proves that selective perception is at least in play if not undermining the whole concept of scary pictures. In other words, smokers don't see the scariness in the scary pictures.

None of these studies show a direct causation between scary photos and smoking reduction. Minister, is this measure something that sounds good in theory but actually doesn't work in practice? Or hasn't anyone bothered to do the work to prove that it works?