The Australian government vowed to repeal efforts by giant tobacco firms to frustrate its aim of further limiting the flow of cigarette products in the country.

These efforts, according to Health Secretary Jane Halton, include the deployment of lawyers by tobacco companies to give out legal assistance to Honduras and Ukraine, two countries that had apparently launched legal challenges on Australia's soon-to-be implemented cigarette plain packaging law.

The two nations, Ms Halton said, have lodged consultation requests before the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which required the federal government to dispatch a negotiating team to meet trade representatives of Honduras and Ukraine.

In an interview with Reuters this week, Ms Halton noted that with the countries opting to drag Australia into a WTO-sponsored discussion, the likelihood of a full-blown legal tiff before the international trade body over the country's anti-smoking policy looms.

She revealed too that during the first round of talk, "some people in the meeting were British American Tobacco lawyers."

"We know that the tobacco companies, because they have admitted it, are providing legal advice to WTO members in order to encourage them to take action against Australia," Ms Halton said.

British American Tobacco Australia (BATA), Imperial Tobacco and Philip Morris have asked the Australian High Court to rule on their legal gripes against the country's cigarette plain packaging law, which starting in December 2012 will prohibit cigarette manufacturers from marketing their products in branded and attractive packs.

In lieu of the normal marketing styles employed by tobacco firms in selling their cigarettes, the products must hit store shelves in drab packets and emblasoned only by explicit health warnings.

However, the new laws, according to the tobacco companies, infringe on their exclusive ownership of the brands that they market in Australia if the government prevents them from using it without just compensation.

The government has previously expressed confidence that the country's High Court will uphold its right to protect Australian citizens from health hazards that medical expert have attributed to smoking.

Media reports have indicated that the cases will be decided as early as October this year.

However, the separate WTO case could compel Prime Minister Julia Gillard to reconfigure some measures on her anti-smoking policy if tobacco firms and countries that challenge the cigarette plain packaging law score a win before the global trade tribunal.

Ms Halton said that direct involvement on the legal fight coming from Honduras and Ukraine was a puzzle for Australia as "we are a long way from both countries and we have very, very little trade with them."

Notwithstanding this, the health official stressed that the federal government was far from being intimated by the development.

"When we negotiate new trade agreements, we need to be very clear that the right to protect health of our community is paramount," Ms Halton said on Tuesday while attending a conference hosted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland.

She reported too that Australia's focused efforts of reducing smoking rates in the country have been achieving significant success.

From the 30.5 per cent seen in 1998, the rate was pushed down to 15.1 pe rcent in 2010 and "our objective in the next few years is to reach 10 per cent and hopefully lower," Ms Halton said.