Customs and Other Legislation Amendment (Illicit Tobacco Enforcement Modernisation and Other Measures) Bill 2026

Mr VIOLI (Casey) (16:07): The Customs and Other Legislation Amendment (Illicit Tobacco Enforcement Modernisation and Other Measures) Bill 2026 is an important piece of legislation because this is an important conversation about illicit tobacco. There would not be any community across our country that has not been impacted by the scourge of illicit tobacco, its links to organised crime and, particularly in Victoria, the firebombings and associated crimes as syndicates have fought for control of the illicit tobacco market.

In my community, the innocent business owners of Seville were impacted when an illegal tobacconist was firebombed a few years ago. It's taken many years for those businesses to get back up and running, and it's good to see that they're up and running. That is what we are talking about here: innocent people and innocent businesses impacted because of illegal crime and illegal actions by organised crime.

Let's understand the scale of the problem and how much it has grown in the last few years, in particular in the last decade. In 2017, about 12 per cent of all cigarettes sold were illicit. As we come to 2025, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the government's own numbers, 80 per cent of all tobacco consumed in Australia was illicit.

There are many Australians who seek to do the right thing but realise that they can't because the price difference between an illicit tobacco cigarette and a legal tobacco cigarette is so significant, and this is driven by the excise that the government puts onto cigarettes. Now, because of this growth to 80 per cent, the illicit tobacco market in 2024-25 was estimated to be $6.9 billion.

That's $6.9 billion of revenue and profit going to organised crime in this country to do things like fund terrorism, fund other illegal drugs and fund other criminal behaviour. That is the reality of what we are talking about. It was interesting that the member for Braddon said, 'Organised crime is driven by profit.' The member for Braddon is correct.

If the member for Braddon acknowledges that growth and acknowledges that organised crime is driven by profit, the logical next step is to take away the profit from organised crime. How do you do that? You reduce the excise and take away the differential between legal and illegal cigarettes.

That's what the coalition proposes, because the coalition has recognised that this is a significant issue. It's something we've been working on for a long time. Angus Taylor, when he became the leader in February, created the Coalition Illicit Tobacco Taskforce, led by the member for Monash, Mary Aldred, and Senator Richard Colbeck, to do the work to get the settings right and crush this organised crime network, protect Australians and make sure that they are safe in their communities.

The member for Monash and Senator Colbeck did a lot of great work to engage with stakeholders and get across the detail. They understood what needed to be done. That's why the coalition plan will work—because we've done the work to make sure that it's there.

We will reduce the excise by 80 per cent. We will take away the profits from organised crime. As the member for Braddon said, we will take away their profits.

We will also invest another $200 million into enforcement to squeeze them at both ends—squeeze their profits, confiscate their illicit tobacco and lock them up. This is a multitargeted approach that was six months in the making, because that's what good policy takes. It takes time and effort to get it right, and the coalition have got it right, led by the member for Monash and Senator Colbeck under the leadership of the opposition leader, Angus Taylor.

He knew this was a big issue. But what do we see from the government? We see two bills rushed through the parliament in the last month, conveniently after the coalition announced their illicit tobacco policy.

They are two bills that we support because something is better than nothing, but they don't go to the heart of undermining the organised crime model. Let's also understand the flow-on impacts of this business model, with these stores and vapes. Let's be serious.

Not one Australian actually thinks that the government's plan to sell vapes through pharmacies is working. Is there one Australian walking into a pharmacist to say, 'Can I order my vapes, please—can I pay for my vapes?' No, they're walking into illicit tobacco stores to buy their vapes there. Do we really think that these illicit tobacco stores that are knowingly breaking the law see a child that's 13 or 14 or 15 or 12 walking into the store and say, 'There's a 12-year-old; I better not sell them a vape or a cigarette'?

Of course not. Of course they are going to sell those vapes and those illicit tobacco products to those young children, because they do not care about the law. But we have to put up with sanctimonious lectures from the Minister for Health and Ageing, pretending that the government have solved the vaping issue in our schools and with our young people because they gave the responsibility to pharmacists.

Let's remember that, when the minister for health and the Prime Minister gave vape sales to pharmacies, they didn't consult with pharmacists. Their original plan was for it to be through GPs, and they backflipped and changed to do a deal with the Greens to get it through the parliament. Pharmacists don't want to sell vapes.

I talk to my local pharmacists all the time. They're there to help people. They're there to look after their health, not to sell them vapes.

But this is the world we live in under the Albanese Labor government. It's all about headlines, all about spin and all about pretending that they do the right thing, but they're not actually making a difference. It's worse than that.

They are not only not making a difference; they are making it worse. They are actively making it worse. But the government have finally wised up because the coalition have led this conversation.

In question time, after the coalition announced their policy, the Prime Minister was asked repeatedly about the excise and whether he would confirm that he was not going to make a change, and this prime minister refused to answer. Literally, question after question, he wouldn't answer. He handballed it to the Treasurer.

He handballed it to the minister for health. At one stage we thought we were having an audition for the next prime minister. This prime minister didn't have the courage to stand up and defend his own policy.

He let his ministers do that, and he now lets his backbenchers stand up and regurgitate talking points, knowing that this prime minister is going to flip. He's going to flip and he's going to change on the excise because, in his heart of hearts, he knows that the excise system is broken. But we'll hear some more speeches from those opposite pretending.

I know they're well meaning. I genuinely sometimes feel sorry for Labor backbenchers that they have to regurgitate the talking points knowing that they're wrong. We've had some of them speak out with a little bit of background.

They didn't put their names to it, but we had one talk about how the Minister for Small Business is a terrible small-business minister and doesn't know what they're doing. We had multiple backbenchers talk out, criticising the Treasurer, saying that he has been a disaster and has failed multiple times with his budget. I wonder how long it will be before we get an unnamed backbencher starting to criticise the Prime Minister and the minister for health because of this failed policy.

That is what we're going to see when they flip and those opposite will have to come in here and talk about how they got it wrong and how, suddenly, cutting the excise is the right thing to do. That is the joy of being a member of the government: you've got to follow what the Prime Minister says. But this issue is building, and, particularly as a Victorian, this issue does not stop with illicit tobacco.

We need to cut the excise, put money into enforcement and crush these organised crime gangs because this issue has now moved to alcohol. In Victoria, because of illicit tobacco and illicit alcohol and a weak Labor government under Ben Carroll that has refused to hold criminals to account, we have seen firebombings of hospitality venues and kidnappings of hospitality operators.

Why has this happened? Because there is now a market for illicit alcohol, because, again, the differential between the excise on alcohol and illegal alcohol is so significant. The scary part for Victorians and for every other Australian, when it comes to illicit alcohol, is that the firebombings, the kidnappings and the beatings have happened quicker than anyone expected, and the reason is obvious and straightforward.

The organised crime organisations already have the business model. They already have the networks in place. They already have the young people that are willing to take the money to commit these crimes, knowing that even if they get caught, under Ben Carroll and the Labor government in Victoria, they'll get a slap on the wrist and be let out on bail so they can go about their business.

That is why we have seen crime out of control in Victoria, because of a weak Labor government, fuelled and funded by organised crime, fuelled and funded by illicit tobacco and now fuelled and funded by illicit alcohol. That is why we need to act. That is why something needs to change, because these criminals are getting more brazen.

They have more resources than ever and, of course, they're not going to walk away without a fight. Six point nine billion, and the government think tweaking around the edges and increasing penalties by even a little bit is going to make a difference? It is absolutely not.

Once you break their business model, every time you confiscate illicit tobacco it hurts them so much more, because it impacts their profit. That is what you need to do. You need to understand the root cause.

For 4½ years the Australian people have had to put up with a government and a prime minister who is an expert at political spin and an expert at political optics, who says one thing but delivers another for the Australian people, and this bill and the one before it are two classic examples of this. Let's be clear: these bills are being introduced into this House only because of the policy and the work of the coalition to lead the conversation on illicit tobacco.

But these bills alone will not make a difference, not when you are dealing with $6.9 billion that funds other illegal activity. It funds organised crime organisations to pay young people to steal cars, to take those cars to the port and to send them to black markets in the Middle East. In Australia, 69 per cent of all car thefts happen in Victoria—again, because you've got a government weak on crime but fuelled and funded by the profits made by illicit tobacco.

As a coalition we want to keep Australians safe, we want to protect our way of life and we want to make sure that we have a strong economy. But that only happens if criminals are held to account and if we crush the organised crime networks in Victoria and across the country, and that starts with having the courage to say the current system is not working. We need to break the model, and we need to arrest these criminals and confiscate their goods.

If illicit tobacco went from 12 per cent in 2017 to 80 per cent in 2025, in a couple of years there will be no legal tobacco products left. It will all be run by organised crime, and that will fuel more violence in all of our communities.