Proposals to lower the tobacco tax risk allowing “organised crime and big tobacco” to “rewrite Australia’s health policy”, dozens of top medical groups say.
More than 30 bodies, including the Australian Medical Association, Cancer Council and Heart Foundation, have penned a scathing letter slamming Australia’s weak regulation and enforcement against illicit cigarettes.
The warning, addressed to federal politicians, said policies “to make cigarettes cheaper and open the door to widespread commercial vape sales” will “kill more Australians”.
“Weak regulation and poor enforcement … has allowed illicit sellers to take root street by street and suburb by suburb for too long.
“Criminal groups saw a low-risk, high-profit market and moved in.
“Making cigarettes cheaper and vapes available everywhere will not change that.
“[It] will only make smoking and vaping rates go up, leading to more deaths, more years of disease and increased healthcare costs.”
Letter signatory Australian Council on Smoking and Health chief executive Laura Hunter said Canada tried drastic tobacco tax cuts in the 1990s and it failed, contributing to an estimated $30,000 extra deaths.
“We are absolutely committed to ending the serious issue of the illicit tobacco and nicotine trade,” she said.
“You cannot price-match criminals who can manufacture a packet of illicit cigarettes for less than a dollar.”
The Albanese government remains committed to the excise, but the Coalition and One Nation have both vowed to slash the tax significantly, by 80 and 75 per cent respectively.
The new letter, calling for stronger border controls and regulations, a reduction in the number of tobacco stores and free nicotine replacement therapy, is set to reignite fierce political debate on the issue.
Australia’s high tobacco excise has come under heavy scrutiny in recent years as a growing number of smokers switched to organised crime’s highly profitable, and violent, illicit market.
Legal cigarettes cost up to more than five times the price of illicit cigarettes, prompting calls to slash the tax in a bid to reduce the black market and the associated tobacco wars.
The Australian Crime Intelligence Commission told a senate committee earlier this year that serious organised crime groups use profits from the trade to offset losses from “other traditional criminal activities”, and the violence from group’s turf warns has spilt over into the community and taken at least three lives.