Combatting Illicit Tobacco Bill 2026

Mr McCORMACK (Riverina) (16:26): Just yesterday, the Sydney Morning Herald, through its reporters Britney Busch and Shane Wright, who, incidentally, I gave his first job back in September 1991 at the Daily Advertiser, had a report talking about the data that destroys the idea that Australians are quitting smoking. As I said earlier, the Australian Bureau of Statistics has, for the first time, according to this report, assessed how the illicit tobacco trade now absolutely dominates the nation's cigarette market by using experimental testing of nicotine concentration in wastewater.

According to the data released just on Wednesday—and this is really compelling—illicit nicotine products, including cigarettes, e-cigarettes, vapes and loose-leaf tobacco, comprised 80 per cent of consumption in Australia in 2025, up from just 12 per cent in 2017. According to this report, nicotine consumption grew 40 per cent in the same period, with most of the jump in the past four years.

The population grew 14 per cent over that period, while tobacco taxes soared by a third. The report stated that the federal government, along with the states and territories, is spending more than $300 million on combating the illicit tobacco trade. Since the turn of the decade, this has just become out of control.

But don't take my word for it. Ask any of the highway patrol officers who pull up vans incessantly on the Hume Highway and find not just illegal vapes and boxes of chop-chop and illegal smokes but bags of cash—hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is now the black market and the means that bikie gangs and other nefarious groups are making their money.

They're doing it at the expense of people who can't afford smokes due to the cost-of-living crisis. They're doing it at the expense of people who run small-businesses tobacconists. Indeed, many of these tobacconists find it hard to get insurance for their shops, let alone their next-door neighbours, who cannot get insurance for their shops because of the Molotov cocktails that are thrown into their stores late at night.

This is a particular problem in Melbourne, as I read and as I understand. Wednesday's data showed that household spending on tobacco dropped back to 2016 levels after peaking at the end of 2020, even as tobacco consumption rose, indicating a shift towards cheaper, illicit sources. The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Claydon ): I'm sorry, Member for Riverina.

I know you've been chopped in a couple of times, but you will be granted leave for continuation when the debate resumes. The debate is interrupted.