MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE
Ms BELL (Moncrieff) (16:02): Today we confront a problem that can no longer be ignored: Australia's booming illicit tobacco trade and the organised crime that it's fuelling. We've all seen the wave of firebombings across cities like Melbourne, where criminal syndicates fight violent turf wars to control the illegal tobacco and vape trade. Shop owners are being threatened and intimidated, businesses are being burned to the ground and innocent Australians are being caught in the middle.
Just today we've seen another report of a suspected illegal tobacconist that has been firebombed, with innocent civilians in the apartments above fleeing for their very lives. This is the reality of the illicit tobacco trade, and we need to ask ourselves: how did we get here? For years, tobacco policy has rightly been focused on reducing smoking and improving public health.
It is a public health concern. We all understand the devastating health consequences of smoking, and none of us are suggesting anything else. But the reality is that increasing the tobacco excise has not eliminated demand or eliminated the health impacts on Australians.
People are still smoking, and not just the regulated kind. As tobacco excise has risen and legal products become more expensive, an enormous gap has opened up in the market, and this has created a highly profitable opportunity for organised crime—one that criminal networks have been quick to exploit. Communities have lived the consequences of this: violence, intimidation, firebombings, fear and crime.
While those opposite sit on their hands and turn a blind eye, the coalition can recognise that something needs to change. Their policies are simply not working, and that's why we've committed to cutting the tobacco excise by 80 per cent. It's not about encouraging smoking, as those opposite would have you believe; it is about recognising that smoking addiction will continue despite regulation.
This is about taking the oxygen out of the black market, reducing the profit flows to organised crime and addressing the violence that's spilling into our communities. The coalition's plan is about tearing down the business model that has allowed this organised crime to flourish, while strengthening enforcement and giving Australians access to properly regulated alternatives because enforcement alone cannot solve a market that's become this large and indeed this profitable.
Consequences of the illegal tobacco trade are not only being felt by our police and border agencies; they are also being felt by Australians who are doing the right thing. Just up the street from my electorate office is a local convenience store—just metres away. The owner is an honest small-business operator.
He's doing everything by the book. He told me how his sales have dropped dramatically as the illicit tobacco trade has taken an increasing share of the market. I heard a similar story from a local newsagency in my electorate in Nerang.
In an age of digital media, cigarette sales have for years provided an important source of income that has helped keep businesses like these afloat. Yet these local businesses find themselves at breaking point as a result of the illicit trade's market share. These businesses pay their taxes, these businesses follow the rules and they employ locals, yet they are being forced to compete with criminals who do none of those things.
This is why this issue matters. The illicit tobacco trade is not just about cigarettes; it's about the criminal networks profiting from them, the violence being inflicted on our streets and the legitimate small businesses being pushed out of the marketplace. It's also about whether this government is prepared to admit when a policy is no longer achieving its intended outcome.
We don't see this government admitting failure on anything. And, let's face it, Australians know they have failed on everything. We need stronger borders.
We need intelligence led policing. We need to follow the money and dismantle the criminal networks behind this trade. But we also need to remove the enormous financial incentive that has allowed this black market to flourish.
That's why the coalition's plan to cut tobacco excise by 80 per cent is so important. We cannot continue doing the same thing and expect different results. That is the definition of madness, and that is the definition of the Albanese Labor government.
It's time we act—before it goes further.