I remember (in Melbourne) when INDOOR smoking was banned, and we all kept lighting up anyhow in bars and clubs and I thought 'Hah! Good luck enforcing this!' - I couldn't imagine lighting up in most indoor environments now, other than the odd sneaky lock-in.
I remember when they banned outdoor smoking at train stations - same thing again, it's pretty well enforced now.
I think they come down heavy with the fines, for a while - like a good year or two really and then after that, it's not so much that people worry about being caught, but the culture around it changes, you start to feel scummy lighting up in places where you shouldn't, people notice and you know they notice and you know they know you know they noticed. It gets awkward. Society is changing anyway when it comes to smoking, as a teenager in the 90s it was all the rage, I speak to a lot of young people now and regardless of whether they smoke or not, they all seem to think it's pretty filthy.. or more to the point, as lame as this sounds - smoking *did* use to be 'cool' - now it's 'cool' not to smoke. or something like that. Things change anyway, people used to smoke on trains, in crowded office buildings, hospitals even (not sure about Aus - but easy to find data in the USA that indicates people were still happily smoking away in shared hospital rooms well into the late 80s).
I'm a smoker myself, but it's not hard to see which way the wind is blowing. I don't think it is a case of needing to enforce it - sure, there'll always be people breaking outdoor smoking bans, but it only needs to be enforced long enough for people to stop thinking of these places as areas we can smoke, just like all the other places.
Also, as a smoker - I've always supported all the smoking restrictions, as much as they annoy me, I don't smoke (any more) inside my own home either. I'd support the ban on tobacco sales too, though - I wouldn't support making it illegal to smoke.
