South Australia’s illicit tobacco task force is continuing to see “larger volumes of product” seized in regional areas.<\/p>\n
It comes as the task force raided six stores in the state’s Riverland region last week, following “multiple complaints” to Consumer and Business Services (CBS).<\/p>\n
More than 1,000 packets of illegal cigarettes, 500 vapes and 15 kilograms of loose tobacco were seized.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
More than 1,000 cigarettes were seized across six stores in the Riverland region. (Supplied: Consumer and Business Services)<\/p>\n
Smoke Accessories and Gifts in Berri, Gifts and Accessories in Berri, and Smart Smoke in Barmera received 28-day closure orders.<\/p>\n
Another three stores \u2014 Shell Get and Go in Glossop, Waikerie Tobacconist in Waikerie and Riverland Mini Supermarket in Renmark \u2014 received 72-hour interim closure orders.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Shell Get and Go in Glossop also received a 72-hour interim closure order. (ABC Riverland: Amelia Walters)<\/p>\n
Bigger volumes in regional areas<\/p>\n
Minister for Consumer and Business Affairs Andrea Michaels said about 20 per cent of the task force’s raids were in regional areas, “potentially because they think they’re not going to get picked up on”.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Andrea Michaels says the latest law reform has been “quite useful”. (ABC News: Lincoln Rothall)<\/p>\n
Ms Michaels said some of the raids conducted nationally\u00a0had involved organised crime gangs.<\/p>\n
“It’s essentially bikie gangs making their money to fund their other illegal operations,” she said.<\/p>\n
The minister noted that as CBS conducted more raids, the tactics of the organised crime gangs had changed.<\/p>\n
“We [used to] see hundreds of packets of cigarettes being seized in one go, but they’ve changed their models to keep very low volumes of stock because they’re getting more inspectors from CBS,” Ms Michaels said.<\/p>\n
Organised crime rife<\/p>\n
Australian Association of Convenience Stores (AACS) chief executive Theo Foukkare said organised crime gangs continued to flood the market, with about 4,000 illegal stores suspected across the country.<\/p>\n
“We believe about 99 per cent of vape products sold in Australia are sold by organised crime networks through these illegal outlets,” he said.<\/p>\n
Theo Foukkare is calling for the excise on tobacco to be frozen to stop organised crime gangs from flooding the market. (Supplied: Theo Foukkare)<\/p>\n
Mr Foukkare said the increasing excise on tobacco, coupled with the federal government’s health policies around vapes, was driving customers towards purchasing from organised crime gangs.<\/p>\n
“When you’ve got more than 1.5 million adults in Australia vaping regularly, that demand has to be satisfied somewhere,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Unfortunately, given the policy settings at a federal level, that demand today is almost exclusively being supplied by these organised crime groups.”<\/p>\n
Last financial year the federal government expected to earn $7.4 billion in revenue from its tobacco excise, according to the University of Sydney.<\/p>\n
That is down from $12.6 billion in 2022-23 and an earlier peak of $16.3 billion in 2019-20.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Multiple Riverland businesses were given on-the-spot fines. (Supplied: Consumer and Business Services)<\/p>\n
Mr Foukkare believed freezing the tobacco excise would help.<\/p>\n
“We do need it to go back down to a 2018 or 2019 level so that a legal pack will cost around $25, which will reduce the gap between the illegal and the legal market,” he said.<\/p>\n
Toughest laws in the country<\/p>\n
The South Australian government invested an additional $16 million in its last budget to create the illicit tobacco task force, employing 22 staff within CBS.<\/p>\n
Ms Michaels said since July 1 last year the task force had removed $30 million of illegal tobacco products from SA streets.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fifteen kilograms of loose tobacco was seized in the Riverland raid. (Supplied: Consumer and Business Services)<\/p>\n
Reforms to the state’s tobacco laws started on June 5, enforcing greater police powers, longer closure orders and harsher penalties for premises suspected of selling illegal tobacco and vapes.<\/p>\n
The minister now has the power to shut illegal tobacco stores for up to 28 days and enforce closure orders of up to 12 months through a magistrate.<\/p>\n
Under these amendments, SA now has the toughest penalties in the nation for those caught selling illicit tobacco and vapes, with fines of up to $6.6 million.<\/p>\n
CategoryQuantitiesMax. penaltiesCommercial<\/p>\n
5,000 cigarettes; or<\/p>\n
5kg of any tobacco product, 100 e-cigarettes; or<\/p>\n
200 of any other prescribed product (such as nicotine pouches)<\/p>\n
1st offence $1.05m<\/p>\n
2nd offence $2.1m<\/p>\n
Body corporates:<\/p>\n
1st offence $2.225m<\/p>\n
2nd offence $4.5m<\/p>\n
Large commercial<\/p>\n
25,000 cigarettes; or<\/p>\n
25kg of any tobacco product, 500 e-cigarettes; or<\/p>\n
other prescribed product<\/p>\n
1st offence $2.1m<\/p>\n
2nd offence $4.2m<\/p>\n
Body corporates:<\/p>\n
1st offence $4.5m<\/p>\n
2nd offence $6.6m<\/p>\n
Mr Foukkare said SA has the “gold standard model” for combating the illicit tobacco trade and it should be applied on a federal level.<\/p>\n
“In Australia today we have the Commonwealth set of laws and we also have different laws in each state. We need uniform enforcement and [the recognition of] a criminal association wrapped up into one to combat this,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We really need a different approach, otherwise within three to five years the entire nicotine market in Australia will be run by organised crime groups.”Excise price signals ‘effective’<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for federal Health Minister Mark Butler said while its policies were all about “helping Australians live longer and healthier lives”, licensing regimes were “a state and territory responsibility”.<\/p>\n
“The government’s changes to tobacco excise are designed to encourage smokers to quit. Price signals remain one of the most effective public health interventions,” the spokesperson said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“The government has no intention to revert the excise to 2019 levels.”<\/p>\n
The spokesperson said Mr Butler was taking “decisive action” to end the trade of illicit tobacco and had invested about $350 million to tackle the black market.<\/p>\n
Mr Foukkare said the AACS would continue to advocate for national law change and crack down on organised crime gangs.<\/p>\n
“If you’re participating in selling illegal tobacco or vapes, you’re effectively supporting organised criminals,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Any retailer that’s breaking the law you’ve go to stop doing this because you can’t continue lining the pockets of these illegal groups.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Australia’s illicit tobacco task force is continuing to see “larger volumes of product” seized in regional areas.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[49922,49915,64,63,49921,49911,99,8625,49913,49923,69,36369,49909,36367,44381,49919,49918,32031,44375,49916,49917,49910,6878,49908,49914,48995,49920,10702,8621,21334,49912],"class_list":["post-61885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-aacs","tag-andrea-michaels","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-association-of-convenience-stores","tag-berri","tag-business","tag-cigarettes","tag-consumer-and-business-services","tag-excise","tag-federal-government","tag-gangs","tag-glossop","tag-illegal","tag-illicit","tag-illicit-tobacco","tag-illicit-tobacco-task-force","tag-organised-crime","tag-raid","tag-raided","tag-raids","tag-renmark","tag-riverland","tag-riverland-mini-supermarket","tag-south-australias-illicit-tobacco-taskforce","tag-state-government","tag-theo-foukkare","tag-tobacco","tag-vape","tag-vapes","tag-waikerie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}