Combatting Illicit Tobacco Bill 2026
Ms LAWRENCE (Hasluck) (11:01): People who visit my electorate office in Midland know the stretch of Great Eastern Highway very well. We're at 257 Great Eastern Highway, opposite the Midland Junction Arts Centre, in the middle of a busy, growing part of our community. Midland Gate is nearby.
There are cafes like Turquoise and Nellie's where people catch up after school drop offs, where shiftworkers grab coffee and where local business owners know their customers by name. A couple of years ago, just a short walk from my office, there was a cafe called The Robot Bun Factory. It had personality, great coffee, bao buns, bright colours and the cutest collection of robots, like Ollie and C3PO.
Young locals were having a go and building something of their own. But next door was a tobacco store. I'm not making any allegation about that business but, one night in 2024, that shop was ramraided and set alight in a cold, calculated, premeditated act.
The ferocious blaze spread, leaving a trail of destruction of over $2.3 million. The cafe was lost, with three other businesses suffering significant damage. No-one was physically hurt, but the businesses never recovered.
Two years later, those buildings still sit there, largely still vacant, as a reminder that organised crime doesn't stay hidden in dark alleyways or exist somewhere else. When it takes hold, communities feel it. Local businesses pay for it.
Workers pay for it. Neighbours pay for it. And that is why the Combatting Illicit Tobacco Bill 2026 matters: because this isn't really a debate about tobacco; it's a debate about whether organised crime gets to operate in plain sight in our suburbs.
People in places like Midland know what this looks like. They see the shopfronts. They hear about the firebombings.
They see legitimate businesses being undercut and communities being left to pick up the pieces. They understand instinctively that this isn't harmless. Illegal tobacco isn't a victimless shortcut or cheap smokes over the counter.
Behind it are organised criminal networks making enormous profits and reinvesting those profits into intimidation, violence and wider criminal activity. When crime becomes normalised in our local shopping strips, everyone loses. Legitimate retailers have been calling for stronger action.
Public health advocates have warned that illegal tobacco undermines decades of work reducing smoking rates. Law enforcement agencies have made clear that this is becoming more sophisticated and more entrenched. Parliament has a responsibility to respond, and this bill does it in a practical way.
It strengthens penalties for illicit tobacco offences. It expands investigative powers. It strengthens the proceeds-of-crime laws so criminals' profits can be seized.
Organised crime is a business model and, if the risks stay low and the profits stay high, the problem grows. This bill changes that equation, and it doesn't stand alone. In Western Australia, the Cook government has already stepped up enforcement, increased compliance activities, strengthened penalties and given authorities stronger closure powers against illicit operators.
That matters because organised crime doesn't stop at state borders, and governments can't afford to work in silos either. The Albanese government and the Cooke government are approaching this the same way: follow the money, disrupt the networks and back the communities doing the right thing. No-one expects this bill to solve everything, but communities expect us to act.
They expect us to back lawful businesses, they expect us to protect public health, and they expect organised crime to face consequences. People in Hasluck don't want criminal activity becoming part of the background noise of everyday life. They want safe shopping strips, thriving local businesses and confidence that the rules apply equally to everyone.
This is why I support the passage of the Combating Illicit Tobacco Bill 2026. This legislation matters. It's not simply a question of tobacco policy, and it is not simply a question of the integrity of the revenue base.
This is a question of organised crime and, above all, community safety. It is, as we know, a national issue, and we heard from members who spoke earlier about the shops down the road from their electorate offices. They could have easily been describing my office on our street in Western Australia.
Across Australia, people see the visibility of this trade, and they understand that it is not harmless. They understand that, when organised crime establishes itself openly in suburban shopping strips and commercial precincts, the risk does not stop with tax avoidance or unlawful retailing; it spreads to intimidation, violence, fire bombings, arson and fear. That is what the communities in places like Midland are seeing, and that is why the parliament has to act.
Legitimate retailers have real interests in stronger federal action and deserve our support. Theo Foukkare, the CEO of the Australian Association of Convenience Stores, welcomed the stronger Commonwealth intervention against the illicit tobacco market, saying it's 'a crucial step towards fighting one of the biggest public health, community safety and economic threats to this nation'.
He said it was 'a big step forward' and that coordinated federal action was 'to be applauded'. The Australian Association of Convenience Stores represents about 7,000 stores and 75,000 workers nationwide, and it recognises that organised criminal networks are undercutting lawful trade, distorting the market and putting communities at risk. Public health experts have also spoken out.
Anita Dessaix of Cancer Council NSW said plainly: The sale of illegal tobacco undermines decades of public health progress. That same statement called for governments to apply a 'gold standard of tobacco sales regulation' and argued that stronger retail controls would 'make monitoring and enforcement of illegal tobacco sales easier', calling that approach 'a win-win solution'.
We need to defend the public health gains Australia has fought hard to achieve over many decades. The problem is not going away. Record seizures have occurred over the last financial year, with an over 320 per cent increase in the number of cigarettes seized compared with four years ago.
Stronger penalties and powers are intended to ensure law enforcement agencies can not only seize illicit tobacco but prosecute those behind the trade and choke off the criminal profit stream. In media terms, this issue is often framed as 'cheap smokes on the high street', but that framing completely understates the reality. Behind those glossy, paper-thin retail shopfronts sit sophisticated and often transnational organised crime networks which are operating across borders and reinvesting profits into wider criminal activity.
These aren't victimless crimes. Minister Julian Hill has noted that the trade fuels violence, firebombing and intimidation and that it risks the unwinding of decades of success in tobacco control policy lowering smoking rates in Australia. He also said they are not victimless crimes.
They harm communities, honest retailers, workers and public safety. That's exactly right and that aligns with the experience in my own community of Hasluck, including the Robot Bun Factory. Leslie and Neil put their heart and soul into creating this wonderful community space not just for those of us who enjoy our coffee and bao buns; they also host comedy nights and beautiful opportunities for local artists to exhibit.
And it's not just the space they created for community; the workers have also suffered as a consequence of this firebombing. Annalise, Mae, Ben, Tess, Amber, Penny, Laica, Debbie, Jean, Mark, Serenity, Antia and Amy all loved to work in the Robot Bun Factory and no longer can. This bill responds to this reality in a deliberate and structured way, and it does two central things.
First, it seeks to rebalance the risk-to-reward calculation for criminal actors engaged in the illicit tobacco. And, second, it strengthens the proceeds of crime regime to target the profits generated by that illicit trade. It does that by increasing penalties for illicit tobacco offences; expanding investigative powers, including the telecommunications interception for relevant offences; and strengthening the mechanisms available to seize criminal assets.
Those settings matter, because criminal networks calculate risk. If the profits are enormous and the consequences are manageable, the trade grows. If penalties bite, if investigative powers are stronger and if criminal assets can be confiscated more effectively, the calculation shifts.
The bill creates new offences for large-scale illicit tobacco activity linked to organised crime. It increases penalties across importing, possessing, buying, selling, producing and manufacturing. It expands unexplained wealth and proceeds of crime tools, and it enables enhanced law enforcement powers, including wire taps for serious tobacco offences.
This is not symbolic legislation. It is practical legislation aimed at disrupting that business model of organised crime. The member for Canning really needs to get behind this bill rather than moving amendments that he pretends would bring in a better one.
This bill is not about making life easier for tobacco companies and it is not about making excuses for the legal tobacco trade. It is about crime. It is about criminal syndicates.
It is about the people who profit from intimidation, illegal supply chains and violence. I also acknowledge that the bill is not by itself the whole solution. The government's own materials explicitly state that there is no single solution to the illicit tobacco market and that a comprehensive and integrated approach is required.
That is correct. The bill must work alongside sustained state and federal enforcement, retail regulation, intelligence sharing and coordination across jurisdictions. But the fact that it is not the whole solution is not an argument against it.
On the contrary, it is an argument for getting one important part of the response right. In Western Australia, the state government has commenced significant enforcement action to deal with the illicit tobacco problem. It has boosted compliance capacity, deployed Superintendent Steve Post into the Department of Health, more than doubled the inspector numbers, passed tougher laws with penalties up to $4.2 million for individuals and $21 million for companies and 15 years for imprisonment.
In fact, the guy that firebombed in my community has just been charged with six years imprisonment. And it introduced closure powers for shops caught selling illicit tobacco and vapes. The latest Department of Health publication of closure orders lists 63 premises now shut under the new regime, alongside major seizures of loose tobacco, cigarettes and vapes.
Governments need to cooperate if this scourge is to be met and dealt with, and I'm glad to say that the Albanese and Cook governments are of one mind in this regard. Public confidence requires that we act effectively against criminal enterprise conducted in plain sight. In Hasluck and in every town and city in Australia, people are increasingly aware of the visibility of illegal retail operations.
They see the shopfronts. They hear about the firebombings. They see lawful businesses undercut.
They know that the issue is not abstract. They are properly concerned about whether enforcement is keeping pace, and this bill is part of the answer to those concerns. It signals clearly that organised crime will be targeted, profits will be confiscated and the legal framework will keep up with emerging threats.
It's also worth remembering that this legislation does not stand alone. It sits within a broader national effort involving Commonwealth agencies, state and territory governments and financial regulators. The government's materials describe a coordinated approach involving stronger penalties and enhanced law enforcement powers and tools directed at illicit profits.
This coordination is critical because the illicit tobacco market, as I say, doesn't sit neatly within jurisdictional boundaries, and neither can our response. Organised crime networks do not stop at the state border, and the law should not behave as though their operations do. Legitimate retailers have called stronger action a big step forward.
Public health experts have warned that illicit tobacco undermines decades of progress. Independent commentary has recognised that stronger penalties are welcomed if enforced properly, and the government has put before the House a bill that strengthens offences, penalties, investigative powers and asset-seizure tools directed at organised crime. As Theo Foukkare of the AACS put it, 'This is only the beginning of a long fight.' He is right about that, but it is a fight that this government is willing to take on.
We owe that to the lawful retailers, we owe it to the agencies tasked with enforcement and, most of all, we owe it to the communities who should not have to live alongside this intimidation and the risks associated with criminal violence. For this reason, I commend the bill to the House.