"I first thought it was just going too far, and was too difficult to sell," the Tasmanian proponent, independent MP Ivan Dean, told Fairfax Media. "But handled properly, the Smoke Free Generation could work. It's not the case that it would be immediate," Mr Dean said. "There's a lead time to this." Mr Dean said its success would depend on getting young people on side, as well as tobacco producers and retailers. One in four young Tasmanians smokes, compared with one in five nationally, and Health Minister Michelle O'Byrne today confirmed her support. "I met with one of the chief proponents of the tobacco-free generation idea earlier this year, Professor Jon Berrick from the University of Singapore," Ms O'Byrne said.

"I have asked the Commissioner for Children to conduct an analysis of the proposal, which I believe is worthy of serious consideration." The campaign against smoking is gaining pace after the federal government's win on plain packaging in the High Court. After that win Attorney-General Nicola Roxon said that if tobacco was a new product, it probably would not be legal, but she did not have an agenda to ban it. This would mean that we would have a generation of people not exposed to tobacco products "But I must say I'm cheered by the fact that I - when I was Health Minister - had primary school students writing to me all the time, saying: 'Why don't we do this?'" Ms Roxon said.

"And I would write back and say well, that may well be something that the next generation will take on." Tasmanian Liberal health spokesman Jeremy Rockliff is reported to have dismissed the idea. "What's next, 50 lashes for people who break the rules?" Australia would become the first country to ban tobacco sales to some generations and not others if the plan goes ahead. The president of the Australian Council on Smoking and Health, Mike Daube, said many countries were now discussing the "end game" in the battle against tobacco. "There's no question that plain packaging has created a massive momentum and we are now going to see a lot of suggestions about how we are going to get to the end of smoking," he said.

Professor Daube said Dubai had similar rules, with tobacco sales banned within a kilometre of an educational institution. He believed the Tasmanian plan was actually "a bit pessimistic", in that it targeted only young people. He would like to see the number of outlets selling cigarettes cut drastically. In his home state of Western Australia 4000 shops were selling tobacco, or one for every 450 adults. "But should we actually ban cigarettes entirely? I think we should move towards phasing out commercial sale; there should be no place for a commercial tobacco industry in Australia," he said. "But we spend far more money on [trying to enforce a ban on illicit drugs] than we do on tobacco and people are still using them. Banning the behaviour itself is not the way to go."

Mr Dean said the move would stop young people from taking up the habit. "This would mean that we would have a generation of people not exposed to tobacco products," he said. The move comes less than a week after the High Court ruled in favour of the federal government's introduction of plain packaging for cigarettes. Tasmanian Health Minister Michelle O'Byrne has asked the state's Commissioner for Children to look at the proposal, the report said. Loading

- with AAP Correction: It was incorrectly reported in an earlier version that Australia would become the first country to ban tobacco sales if the Tasmanian plan goes ahead. Bhutan is believed to have banned all tobacco sales.