Australia should consider suing Big Tobacco to recover the tens of billions spent each year on smoking-related illnesses, health researchers say.

More than $30 billion is estimated to be spent each year on the health, social and economic costs related to smoking as one of the country's preventable causes of death.

Health researchers have called on Australia to consider suing tobacco companies for healthcare costs. Credit:Nikita Sobolkov

Writing in the Medical Journal of Australia, three health researchers have argued that launching multi-billion-dollar lawsuits should be the next tactic used here to drive down smoking rates, considering the country's recent success in defending its plain packaging laws.

"Unless the momentum of tobacco control is maintained with further innovative approaches, the industry will inevitably develop new strategies to undermine measures in place, and public health gains will be at risk," wrote the authors, led by Dr Ross MacKenzie, a health researcher at Macquarie University.