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

Mr TIM WILSON (Goldstein) (19:09): I have enormous respect for the member who just spoke. I know his incredible contribution to the health and wellbeing of the community. But I don't agree on all of his content, particularly his commentary about how any person could go on and support a cut in tobacco excise.

While we are all concerned about smoking rates, and we are, and while we're all concerned about the health impacts of illicit tobacco, and we are, we're also concerned about the explosion in the illicit tobacco trade, and we are. The member knows full well that there has been a trajectory in the consumption of illicit tobacco that has perfectly correlated with the introduction of two policy measures.

One is plain packaging for tobacco products, taking a lawful product that's branded and making it generic so that anybody can trade for it willy-nilly, as they see fit, such as with illicit drugs. Those policies aren't really that effective in shutting down people's pathways. The second one is the expansion of excise.

I remember the time we debated the introduction of plain packaging. I remember then that it didn't work and so the government whacked a giant excise on top of it to try and demonstrate that a failed policy worked. It's the difference between policy design on outcome and policy based on intent.

What we've seen, year on year, has been an increase in the amount of excise applied to tobacco by both coalition governments and Labor governments. I don't know if you've heard about this, Deputy Speaker Freelander, but—shock, horror!—if you increase the price of a product completely disproportionate to the cost of its production, there are very fat margins that can be made and—funnily enough—international crime gangs like to get involved with them and engage in illicit products.

We saw this with another product, for example. It's one I've mentioned already, which is illicit drugs. I'm not sure, but I don't believe there's any legal market for that.

But the absence of a tax hasn't removed people's consumption of that. I will acknowledge that's because there is no legal product available. But take something by comparison.

Remember CDs? Remember DVDs? Cost of production at the point of manufacture was very low—10c, 20c or whatever it was.

The cost of sale was 30 bucks. There was quite a big margin there. Do you remember, Deputy Speaker—and I'm sure you do—when people used to sell illicit movies, video games et cetera?

They were created from illegal products, knowing full well that the margins were there. Who was behind it? I think it was organised crime gangs, because there was a lot of money to be made.

So here we are in this parliament and we've had the federal government continue to increase the tax on tobacco products year on year so the margins and the profits are getting bigger and bigger. What a shock—illegal crime gangs have come along and taken advantage of it and profiteered! Even worse than that, they've made sure that the availability of illicit tobacco is now all over the community.

The Deputy Speaker referred before to how great Nicola Roxon was as health minister. She was even given a World Health Organization award for being a leader. Her legacy was the expansion of illicit tobacco in this country, the firebombing of shops, the destruction of a legal market and the collapse in revenue from legal tobacco to reward international crime gangs.

Sorry, Deputy Speaker, but it's nothing to be proud of. That is a shameful history and a shameful legacy. Even on her signature policy which she got that incredible award for and for which the world told her how wonderful she was, I can tell you it's pretty hard to find a pack of plain-packaged tobacco products in Australia because, when the illegal crime gangs move in, funnily enough, they're not that worried about what the law is from the starting position.

They certainly don't follow branding guidelines or warning labels. They certainly don't report their revenue to the Australian Taxation Office, let alone pay the taxation and—shock, horror!—when all of the ordinary regulatory constraints that sit around a legal product are removed, suddenly you see consumption increase. Suddenly you see changes in behaviour.

So I'm sorry, Deputy Speaker. I know the Labor Party think they're on the side of angels on this. I can fully accept that people do not like the problem and they also do not like the cure.

But the thing about this parliament is we get elected to take responsibility and make best judgements as much as we can about how to run our country. And I can tell you there is no scenario in any book or, I suspect, in all of the parliamentary debates that are in front of us right now or in all of the parliamentary debates in the history of the Commonwealth where any parliament has ever turned around and said, 'Do you know what?

Even if we disagree with how they use that freedom, in a choice between supporting people's right to choose to pay lawful tax and buy lawful products and rewarding the international crime gangs and selling out our citizens'—as the current law and current tax laws do—'I'm going to give this one to the international crime gangs.' Well, that's not true. In the 48th Parliament, we have made history, because this government is so stubborn, so pigheaded and so obsessed with its own history that, rather than focusing on the Australian people, they have now deliberately designed laws—and are defending the deliberately designed laws—to reward organised crime.

We've seen this not just in tobacco, and we know it full well. I've written to the Prime Minister and said, 'Prime Minister, would you audit the amount of money that you took from the Australian taxpayer and gave to organised crime through the CFMEU-Labor cartel by funding Victoria's Big Build projects? Would you actually audit that so Australian taxpayers' money doesn't end up in the hands of organised crime?' Silence.

We're now seeing a pattern of behaviour where the Labor Party funnels public money—and that of Australian taxpayers—to reward international crime cartels. I say that, and there's nary a peep in the House because the reality is they all know it's true. All the ministers over there know it's true.

All the backbenchers over there know it's true. Everyone knows that the Labor Party finances and facilitates the reward of international crime gangs, and I cannot believe that this is not a point of pure rage not just from the Australian community but, more importantly, from people within their own government saying, 'Prime Minister, why are we rewarding international crime gangs?' I don't know about you, member for Fadden, but if we were ever sitting on the other side of this chamber and you came up to me and said, 'Do you know that our policy is rewarding international crime gangs?' my response would be, 'No, that can't be right.

We'd never allow that to happen. We would shut down any pathway whereby international crime gangs had access to Australian taxpayers' money, let alone to consumers.' One of the first things I'd be quite unapologetic in saying would be: 'No. I'm really against international crime cartels and organised crime, and we're going to shut that down.' But in the Albanese government, the answer is: How big should the cheque be?

How high would the international crime gangs like us to jump in terms of the volume of excise? This is sheer insanity. It is utter insanity.

But this is currently the state of the Commonwealth of Australia and its government. I don't think most Australians looking at the parliament would think that this government has any reason or any sense about its approach to tobacco regulation. The idea that it actually wants to stop smoking rates or stop illicit trade is, frankly, laughable.

We know full well the legacy of not just what we've seen has happened with illicit tobacco. The follow-through is that we're now seeing a replication of that in illicit alcohol consumption. By building out the supply chains for illicit tobacco, the federal government has also provided a pathway to reduce tax revenue.

I'm not sure I'd say, 'Tick!' but it's an achievement of sorts—one of the insane variety. But now they've built the supply chains that other products where the cost of production is low and the profits are large, like alcohol, can be put onto. In Melbourne, we now have illicit tobacco in nightclubs, restaurants, cafes and pretty much anywhere.

Apparently Uber drivers sell it. In nightclubs, you go in and buy, essentially, from the mafia. I don't know what victory the government is celebrating here, but we know full well that excise revenue has collapsed.

We know that it is going to follow in terms of alcohol. And the only answer from the Prime Minister and the ministers sitting on the government benches is to applaud themselves and tell themselves what a wonderful job they're doing. I'm sorry.

We have entered the Twilight universe. We are Through the Looking-Glass. This is an Unreality, because I am here making the case that we should shut down the pathways for organised crime to enjoy superprofits and not pay any tax, and I get opposed by members of the Labor Party.

Mr TIM WILSON: As the member for Fadden says—I agree. It's actually more than unbelievable. Yes, it's unbelievable, but it's mind-blowing to think that this is a situation we're in.

Because we don't do it, guess what happens? Those organised crime gangs go around and firebomb businesses and risk people's human health. People have died.

People have ended up in hospital from fire burning. People have lost livelihoods. People have lost property.

Insurance premiums are going through the roof. And it's all to reward organised crime. We know full well and I do understand that the relationship between organised crime and the architecture of the modern Labor Party is embedded.

It is a deep relationship where money, particularly taxpayers' money, is funnelled through the Labor Party to organised crime. I do understand that they use it as part of their corrupt patronage network, where people are paid off between the CFMEU and government contracts and decide who gets to sit in positions including in this chamber. Again, there's no objection while I'm saying these things.

There's no suggestion that there's any misleading of the House. Welcome to the modern Labor Party. The idea that that corruption translates into what happens on the streets of our communities and that corruption directly threatens the safety and the wellbeing of the Australian community is, frankly, despicable, but here we are.

The Labor government turns a blind eye and, like that meme character sitting on a chair surrounded by a bonfire, says, 'This is fine.' It is so mind-blowing to me, but this is where we are. Illicit tobacco, superprofits for organised crime—and the response of Labor is, 'This is fine.' We see this all over the country. In my electorate, we've seen it.

News agencies being targeted, milk bars being targeted, convenience stores in Highett, in Cheltenham, in Sandringham Village, in Beaumaris—it pretty much doesn't matter where you are; illegal crime and illegal tobacco is running rife. We hear these local stories, and I want you to hear the story of Dave. He runs a business in the community.

He says: I would really like to pass my business on to my kids, but it is getting that marginal, purely because of external environment factors out of my control, that I really don't know how much longer we can go on. Every week or so we become aware of another business that has closed, and just wonder how many more will go before our politicians listen. Listen!

Listen to the voices within the community. They're not asking for a handout. They're not asking for any particular assistance.

They just want the firebombings to stop. Dave has said he has one existential issue for his business, and it's called insurance. He says: We pay almost $100k a year as it is, and with the growing illicit alcohol trade bringing the same criminality that we have seen with tobacco, insurance will simply become either unaffordable or simply not available, as it is now for tobacconists.

Fantastic work, well done, congratulations, Prime Minister. What we've seen now is a replication in tobacco policy of what we saw during the prohibition era in the United States. It's bad policy by bad governments that refuse to swallow their pride.

They turn lawful citizens into criminals. They actively subvert the law to advance their mad ideology. Some of us don't hold this view, and the sooner this government is removed and their relationship to organised crime is removed, the better Australia.