Arguably, any plan of any government to raise prices of commodities automatically creates pandemonium on its voting populace. But in Australia, the proposal to increase the prices of cigarettes has been considered a welcome move. Apart from the end goal of increasing the national government's coffers, the plan could help severe the rising number of lung cancer deaths in the country brought by excessive smoking.

Just this December, Australia became the first country in the world to mandate and enact into law that all tobacco products must be in standardised olive-brown plain packaging, which at the same time should prominently display dying cancer sufferers, diseased feet and ill babies.

To notch up the country's campaign against anti-smoking, the Gillard-led federal government mulls to implement a 25 per cent jump in tobacco excise, effectively aiding the national coffers to gather as much as $5 billion over four years.

Translation? A single pack of cigarettes in Australia will likely cost more than $20 by the time the year 2018 hits in, sans doomsday predictions.

Simon Chapman, a professor of public health at the University of Sydney, in his column at The Age, very much welcomed the cigarette price increase proposal, owing up to the high number of lung cancer deaths in the country, despite the fact that Australia has one of the lowest smoking rates worldwide.

According to Medical Daily, citing data from unidentified sources, evidence culled from international research showed that smoking rates dive by 4 per cent for every 10 per cent increase in the prices of cigarettes.

Australia, according to Mr Chapman, has 2.8 million smokers.

"Anyone who takes the trouble to go to the expense of hiding their eyes from the pack warnings is engaging in pretty obvious denial," Mr Chapman said, on the effectiveness of the tobacco plain packaging law.

"Price increases encourage existing smokers to quit and raise the barrier for people considering taking up smoking, especially young people," according to the National Tobacco Strategy.