Jail smoke ban necessary: Vic opposition

Victoria's former coalition government introduced the prison smoking ban to address passive smoking and says it's still needed even though Labor bungled the implementation.

"From a health point of view ... we need to make sure that prisoners aren't exposed to passive smoking," Liberal treasury spokesman Michael O'Brien says.

"This has been a ban that has been implemented effectively in other states - it just appears in Victoria under Labor its wound up in a riot."