MATTERS OF URGENCY
Senator CASH (Western Australia—Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (16:27): I move: That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency: The Albanese Government's failure to stop the explosion in illicit tobacco that has handed billions to organised crime, fuelled firebombings and violence across our communities, and the need to smash the gangs, destroy their business model and restore the rule of law.
It is a fact, sadly, that Australia has an organised crime crisis. What is worse, though, is that the Albanese government has allowed this organised crime crisis to flourish. What Labor did was they kept hiking up the tobacco taxes.
What then happened was the legal market collapsed, the black market exploded, the gangs made billions and Australians, sadly, got the violence. That is the Albanese government's shameful record. Today, a legal packet of cigarettes can cost around $50—even more.
An illegal packet can cost between, say, $10 and $15. You don't need to have an economics degree to work out what happens next. Labor has handed organised crime a huge price advantage, and, sadly, the organised crime gangs have driven a truck through it—billions that they have made that fuel drugs, money laundering, extortion, violence, firebombings.
In Victoria alone, there have now been almost 200 tobacco related arsons and six homicides in this trade. Shops have been firebombed. Businesses have been threatened.
Communities have been terrorised. This is not some harmless black market. This is organised crime in Australian suburbs, where mums and dads live, and, sadly, the reality is—and this can't be denied, because the statistics actually support this—it has exploded under Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's watch.
But, as we saw in question time today, when questions were posed to Senator Wong, representing the Prime Minister, it's always someone else's fault. Senator Wong's response was effectively, 'Well, if the states don't come to the party, there's not a lot that the Commonwealth can do.' There it is again. This is what this government does.
The statistics are there in front of them. We have an organised crime crisis in Australia that has allowed the illegal tobacco trade to flourish, and what has Labor done? They sit back and they say that it's someone else's fault.
They blame the states, blame somebody else, make an excuse—anything but take responsibility. I have a message for the Prime Minister: Australians are not interested in your excuses. They actually want their shops to stop being firebombed.
They want someone to put organised crime out of business. And they expect the Commonwealth government to lead. Meanwhile, another reality that's happened under Anthony Albanese is that tobacco excise revenue has collapsed.
It peaked at around $16 billion; it is now around $8 billion. Who would have thought—Labor taxes tobacco harder; the government collects billions less! The gangs, on the other hand—the organised crime gangs in Australia—make billions more, and Australians get the firebombings.
Only Labor could tax something more, raise less money and make organised crime in Australia all the wealthier. That is not policy success. That is a catastrophic policy failure.
And still Labor refuses to admit the obvious: its approach has failed. We've made it very clear. The coalition is not going to sit by and watch this government destroy Australia.
We will do what Labor has been too weak to do and too stubborn to do. We will smash the business model of organised crime. We will cut tobacco excise by 80 per cent, because you cannot smash a black market while guaranteeing the criminals a massive profit margin.
Cut the price advantage, cut their customers, cut their profits and then, of course, you've got to hit the criminals with the full force of the law. We will put forward $200 million in terms of a national law enforcement surge—more raids, more seizures, more arrests, shut the illegal shops, follow the money, seize the products and dismantle the organised crime networks behind this trade.
Then, we will replace Labor's failed approach to vapes and nicotine with a properly regulated market. The fact of the matter is this: Labor's policy has failed. The black market has exploded, the gangs cashed in, the taxpayer lost billions and Australian communities got the violence.
That is the record of Anthony Albanese. Australians got the violence; Labor gave them excuses. The coalition will smash their business model.