The Roy Morgan Saga Continues: How Australia’s Youth Smoking Crisis Was Buried, Edited, and Ignored
- Alan Gor
- 12 hours ago
- 7 min read
Alan Gore 09 July 2025
For years, Australia was hailed as a global success story in the war against tobacco. Bold policies like plain packaging, public education, and taxation helped push smoking rates steadily downward, especially among young people. But something has gone terribly wrong.
Recent data from Roy Morgan reveals a devastating reversal. Among Australians aged 18–24, smoking and vaping have surged to 27.8%, compared to 20.7% a decade ago. That’s a staggering 34% rise in nicotine use among young adults, a demographic that should’ve been safeguarded by decades of public health progress.
This is not a blip. It’s a warning bell. And yet… silence.
A Damning Report — Then a Disappearance
The spike in smoking was first detailed in Roy Morgan Finding No. 9936, published July 1, 2025. But within days, the report mysteriously vanished from the company’s website.
No announcement. No media release. No explanation.
Then, after public backlash and mounting pressure from harm reduction advocates, Roy Morgan quietly reinstated a revised version. But key changes were made:
The original headline, which plainly stated that nicotine use had increased among young adults, was softened.
Critical smoking data, particularly the surge in factory-made cigarette use, were removed.
The language was reframed to suggest a “complex and changing landscape,” masking the urgency and direction of the trend.
From @jkelovuori on X
>>The "New" Report<<
Then Becky Freeman Stepped In
After widespread backlash over the silent removal of Finding No. 9936, public health "academic" Becky Freeman offered a curious defence on behalf of Roy Morgan.
This X post from BradK highlights the major contradiction between Becky Freeman and Roy Morgan.
“Roy Morgan realised that there were some serious issues with how they analysed and presented the tables and the data in this report.”
This admission raises more questions than it answers:
If the issues were truly technical or methodological, why wasn’t a public correction or retraction issued transparently?
Why did the data disappear completely from Roy Morgan’s website?
Why was the re-uploaded version altered, with the headline softened and key smoking data removed?
These are not the actions of an organisation simply fixing a spreadsheet error, they look more like an attempt to control a narrative. OR THEY WERE TOLD TO. This was a response to @by_deane on X from Roy Morgan.
Roy Morgan’s Explanation Conflicts With Becky Freeman’s Claim
Becky Freeman claimed:
“Roy Morgan realised that there were some serious issues with how they analysed and presented the tables and the data in this report.”
This suggests a technical or methodological flaw, something fundamentally wrong with the original report.
But here’s what Roy Morgan themselves said (see image above):
“We decided that providing a broader context on smoking and vaping trends in Australia would be of greater value than was initially provided…”
They go on to say:
“…we have done this by looking at smoking and vaping trends over the past decade and including data on illicit tobacco…”
In other words:
They did not admit to any error in the original tables or findings.
They reframed the report to include broader historical data and illicit tobacco use.
They offered a subjective judgment about “greater value,” not a correction of mistakes.
So, which is it?
If there were serious analytical errors, Roy Morgan needs to clearly state that.
If there weren’t, then Freeman’s claim looks like damage control, not fact. To me it looks like Freeman is trying to downplay the uncomfortable implications of the data by framing it as flawed or misleading, rather than politically inconvenient. That’s not transparency it’s spin.
Either way, this contradiction deserves scrutiny. Australians deserve truthful, transparent reporting, not shifting stories that excuse the quiet suppression of politically inconvenient data.
This image clearly highlights the suspicious alignment between Roy Morgan’s revision and the government’s talking points, raising even more serious questions about independence and integrity.
Initially, Roy Morgan’s July 1 article plainly concluded that the vape bans had “demonstrably failed” — based on 17 months of post-ban data. But just days later, after a government spokesperson publicly dismissed the report for its “narrowly defined period,” Roy Morgan backtracked, re-releasing a watered-down version that not only removed the strongest conclusions but also echoed the government’s excuse: we need more time.
This isn’t just a revision. It’s a reversal — one that mirrors government messaging almost word-for-word.
This is not just poor communication. It reeks of deliberate obfuscation.
The two contrasting statements from Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine raise serious concerns about consistency, credibility, and political influence.
Side-by-Side Comparison:
In the first statement, Levine finally admits:
“The legislation… has demonstrably failed to reduce overall rates of smoking and vaping, which are higher now than during the second half of last year… driven almost entirely by younger Australians aged 18–24.”
This is an unambiguous and data-backed admission that the Albanese government’s vaping crackdown has not only failed, but it’s made things worse. Smoking and vaping rates among young Australians have spiked, and that increase is quantified and explicit in Roy Morgan’s own research.
But then, in the second statement, she retreats:
“A complex and changing landscape… a plethora of new product development… changing make-up of the population… deeper analysis is being undertaken…”
Suddenly, we’re no longer dealing with hard facts. Instead, it’s vague language and academic hand-waving. There’s no mention of failure, no accountability, no urgency. Just an invitation to “wait and see.”
Why This Is a Problem:
When a research organisation openly states that youth nicotine use is surging, and then in the same breath tries to soften or obscure those findings, it undermines the integrity of the entire enterprise.
The reality is:
• Vaping and smoking among 18–24-year-olds are both up.
• Government policy is clearly not working.
• And yet, Roy Morgan’s leadership seems more interested in managing optics than plainly communicating the implications of its data.
A Negative Response:
Michele Levine can’t have it both ways. Either the government’s crackdown is failing, or the “landscape” is too complex to judge, but the data doesn’t support both narratives.
What we’re seeing is an alarming shift from research to reputation management, where language is tailored not to inform the public, but to avoid embarrassing powerful actors.
Suppose Roy Morgan wants to maintain its standing as an independent and trusted source of insight. In that case, it must stop downplaying its findings and speak plainly about the consequences of misguided public health policy, especially when the lives and behaviours of Australians are at stake.
The concerning edits don’t stop at the written report.
Roy Morgan also quietly altered the original video presentation accompanying Finding No. 9936.
• The current version on YouTube is 4 minutes and 35 seconds, cut from 6 minutes and 9 seconds
• At the 4:15 mark, a visible cut suggests the entire section discussing the spike in smoking among young adults has been removed.
This isn’t just a matter of trimming for clarity; it’s an edit that removes critical context from the public record. The section cut is precisely the part most damaging to the government’s vape crackdown narrative.
Once again, no explanation has been provided. No update, no disclosure, no disclaimer. Just a shorter video, edited post-publication, with politically sensitive data gone.
In any credible research environment, transparency is paramount. Edits to published material especially when that material informs public health policy should be clearly disclosed, timestamped, and explained. Here, none of that occurred.
This is now a pattern, not an isolated oversight.
The Timeline
The Impact of the Vape Ban - A Policy Failure in Plain Sight
Let’s be clear: these figures come in the aftermath of the Albanese Government’s full-scale crackdown on nicotine vaping a ban that promised to reduce access, protect youth, and ultimately drive down usage.
Instead, it has had the opposite effect:
Cigarette smoking is surging among young people for the first time in decades.
Black markets are thriving, with illicit tobacco and unregulated disposable vapes now widely available.
Access to safer, regulated nicotine products for adult smokers has been all but destroyed.
Roy Morgan’s own figures show:
9.1% of young Australians now use illicit tobacco — more than double the 2020 level.
Smoking of factory-made cigarettes among 18–24-year-olds rose by 2.9 percentage points in just 9 months.
Vaping has also increased, despite the ban, suggesting enforcement is failing or, worse, backfiring.
These aren’t just numbers. They represent the real lives of young people pushed back toward deadly products, adults struggling to quit left without options, and entire communities left exposed to criminal profiteering.
“World-Leading” or World-Denying?
Despite all this, Health Minister Mark Butler continues to call the policy “world-leading.” It’s a phrase that now sounds more like political branding than evidence-based leadership.
Despite the significance of the data, and the subsequent deletion and quiet revision of the original report (Finding No. 9936), no major outlet has questioned Roy Morgan. No journalist has asked why the smoking figures vanished, or why the reuploaded version removed key smoking stats while softening the headline.
This is not just a media oversight it’s a failure of accountability. Roy Morgan played a central role in publishing data that directly challenges the government’s narrative, then promptly altered that same data under unclear circumstances. Yet while Minister Butler gets a free ride on policy failure, Roy Morgan gets a free ride on transparency.
The story was half-told. The real question - why was it censored at all? remains untouched.
In any healthy democracy, that should trigger alarm bells.
A Great Big Bust’: The Media Covered the Failure - Briefly
What’s Really at Stake?
This goes far beyond Roy Morgan’s reputation or one flawed policy. It speaks to the integrity of science, the independence of research, and the accountability of government.
If public health data can be silenced, softened, or spun, especially data that undermines a key policy, how can we trust the system? If journalists don’t ask why, who will?
The vaping crackdown was never just about health. It was about politics, optics, and control. But that house of cards is crumbling — and young Australians are paying the price.
What Needs to Happen Now
Roy Morgan must issue a full, transparent statement explaining:
Why Finding 9936 was removed
Who made the decision
Why was smoking data redacted from the reposted version
The Health Minister must front up and explain why, after nearly 18 months of restrictions, youth nicotine use is climbing, not falling.
Journalists and editors must dig deeper. This is not just a health story. It’s about truth, trust, and government accountability.
Public health advocates must demand a new approach. Australia needs regulated access to safer alternatives, not criminalisation, not chaos, and certainly not censorship.
The Bottom Line
You cannot legislate nicotine out of existence. You cannot wish away human behaviour. And you cannot pretend that prohibition works when the evidence shows otherwise.
The rise in smoking is real. The black market is real. And the silence surrounding it is deafening.
It’s time to break it.