Kangaroo cigarettes blow smoke at plain pack laws

Winfield cigarette packet featuring the Australian Logo. Photo / Supplied

Australian officials are fuming impotently over the use of the iconic kangaroo and the slogan "an Australian favourite" to sell Winfield cigarettes in Europe.

The blow is all the harder because the brand is marketed by British American Tobacco, at present at war with the Government over the introduction of plain packaging banning the use of company logos and imposing graphic images of death and disease.

Australia has some of the world's toughest anti-smoking laws, from blanket federal bans to the outlawing of cigarettes at beaches and parks.

Infuriated by increasing legislation, BAT has drawn a line at plain packaging and is challenging the move in the High Court.

BAT claims the Government is acting unconstitutionally by usurping the company's intellectual property, without compensation.

Australian consular officials discovered BAT's latest move in a shop in Strasbourg, France.

The pack features a leaping kangaroo on the front and the claim to Australian popularity on the back.

Attorney-General Nicola Roxon said many Australians would be outraged.

"I'm very critical because what it shows is that tobacco companies will stoop to any levels to try to mislead people to buy their products," she told Sky TV.

"They're using this sort of a packet in Europe with a kangaroo, with an Australian map, playing on our healthy lifestyle and trying to make that attractive to hook Europeans into this very dangerous habit."

But Roxon admitted there was little the Government could do about it: "We don't have control over copyrights and the way products are marketed overseas.

"Of course it does underscore why we are taking this action here in Australia, because we know that this sort of misleading behaviour has been used by tobacco companies for decades."