From the AFR:

Under Labor’s plan, a pack of 25 cigarettes would cost $40.80 in 2020, up from $24.69 today.

Shorten is pointing out, correctly, that other jurisdictions meet the WHO standard of the excise forming 75% of the price.

WHO estimates that Australia’s tobacco taxes are equal to 57 per cent of the retail price, well below Britain, France and New Zealand and 33 other countries that levy at least 75 per cent.

One of his problems politically is that the poor will pay. As the Oz shows in this graph, smoking decreases with wealth:

The tax will generate considerable sums in the longer run:

Parliamentary Budget Office figures say the four more 12.5 per cent excise increases, plus twice yearly indexation, would deliver the federal government $3.8 billion in extra revenue over four years. The measure is forecast to raise $47.7 billion over the decade or medium term.

In the dead tree version of the Oz Stefanie Balogh writes:

Labor calculates its four main revenue-generating policies – cracking down on multinational tax avoidance, curbing high-end superannuation tax concessions, axing the Emissions Reduction Fund, and… ratcheting up the excise on cigarettes – will raise $11.3 billion in the forward estimates. But that represents just 13 per cent of the savings required to wipe out the deficit, even before Labor uses some of the proceeds to underwrite election promises.

So we look forward to more ideas to come.

Meanwhile Newspoll has the LNP vote comfortably ahead on a TPP basis 53-47. Our Bill, though, is having a real shot as least popular Labor leader. In the preferred Prime Minister stakes he is now at 15%, only one clear of Simon Crean’s 14%. Beazley achieved 18% twice, then you go to Latham who scored 24% just before he resigned.

Rudd scored 36% immediately after going the position, but thereafter he never sank below 41% while in the job.

Gillard’s lowest was 33%, ahead of Hawke at 32% and Keating at 27%.

The stunner that matters, though, is the Galaxy poll on federal voting intention in Queensland, which finds a dramatic reversal since the last such poll, which was conducted on Tony Abbott’s watch in late August.

The Coalition is up nine on the primary vote to 50%, with Labor down eight to 29%. A 51-49 lead to Labor on two-party preferred has transformed into a 58-42 to the Coalition. The poll also finds 61% believe Malcolm Turnbull has the “best plan for Queensland”, compared with 14% for Bill Shorten.

The CM reminds us that the LNP already holds 22 of Queensland’s 30 federal seats. This poll would see two more fall to the LNP.

Labor simply can’t win federally unless that changes substantially.