From British American Tobacco
Last week’s Federal Budget laid bare the scale of the Albanese Government’s failure on illicit tobacco, with collapsing excise revenue and an enforcement response completely out of step with the crisis unfolding across the country.
Budget papers revealed Treasury now expects tobacco excise revenue to collapse to just $2.1 billion by 2029-30 – the lowest collection this century – despite originally forecasting $16.8 billion over the same period. Public reporting also revealed a projected $77 billion excise shortfall across the forward estimates.
At the same time, the Government continues insisting enforcement is the answer while allocating just $14 million across all states and territories for illicit tobacco enforcement – approximately $1.75 million each.
That is not a serious response to a black market now estimated to be worth around $10 billion annually and linked to more than 285 firebombings nationwide.
Even more concerning, the Government’s own Budget papers concede this additional funding is only expected to result in a “small but unquantifiable increase” in tobacco excise revenue.
After years of escalating violence, collapsing revenue and repeated warnings from law enforcement, retailers and us, the Government is now effectively admitting its enforcement-only strategy is unlikely to regain any control of the illicit market.
For years, through countless parliamentary inquiries, industry submissions and stakeholder consultations, we have repeatedly warned that the higher tobacco excise climbed, the greater the incentive for organised crime to move into the market.
Those warnings were ignored.
The Australian Border Force has also warned enforcement alone cannot solve the problem while strong consumer demand driven by price continues fuelling illicit tobacco
As the Senate inquiry continues its examination into the illicit tobacco crisis again today, the Federal Government must explain how Australians are expected to have confidence in a strategy it is barely funding, openly acknowledging is unlikely to work, and which continues to hand billions of dollars to organised crime while stripping billions more from taxpayers and government revenue.
Meanwhile a large quantity of illicit tobacco was seized from mail sources in the Northern Territory last week.
The Australian Border Force (ABF) has disrupted the supply of illicit tobacco following targeted warrant activity under Operation GOALFENCE, seizing more than 100,000 cigarettes and 39 kilograms of loose‑leaf tobacco from the international mail stream.
Operation GOALFENCE is an intelligence‑led disruption campaign focused on identifying and seizing illicit tobacco before it reaches the community and the black market, supporting the broader objectives of Operation PRINTWALL.
On 13 May 2026, ABF Regional Investigations Northern Territory executed Customs Act 1901 warrants relating to multiple consignments identified through intelligence‑driven targeting within the international mail stream.
As a result of the activity, ABF officers located and seized 103,600 illicitly imported cigarettes and 39 kilograms of illicit loose‑leaf tobacco.
The seized tobacco represents approximately $193,860 in duty evaded and an estimated $150,400 in potential proceeds of crime if sold within the community.
ABF Commander Graeme Campbell said the result demonstrated the ABF’s ongoing focus on disrupting illicit tobacco supply chains.
“Illicit tobacco trade harms legitimate retailers, distorts the market and generates significant profits for criminal groups operating outside the law,” Commander Campbell said.
“Operation GOALFENCE is targeting vulnerabilities in the supply chain, including the misuse of the mail stream to move illicit tobacco into Australian communities.
“These detections in the Northern Territory demonstrate the ABF’s ability to identify and disrupt illicit imports, regardless of the concealment method used.”
Sorry I didn’t mean to like this pro Gov article !
By essentially outlawing cigarettes, they have opened the door wide to far more dangerous illicit and legal drugs. Cigarettes should only contain leaf tobacco – not a myriad of chemicals that damage the consumer.
BTW, although I am 75, I have never smoked cigarettes. But I believe that people have the right to choose and that smokers should sit separately in a well-ventilated restaurant.
You can’t get blood out of a stone.
With the highest number of taxes in the world the target market for the illegal tobacco market is doing it tough, living on the bread line, eating poorly, suffering depression due to poor diet and often homeless, many are shadows of their former selves.
You have taken away their jobs and their health now they are enslaved to the system. And you want to get more taxes out of them. On top of that you think enforcement is the answer. In your eyes they are now criminals. How about you leave the comfort of your luxury home and visit some of the homeless. You are responsible for providing fir their needs. Do some face to face research. Find out how many are living rough and how much the numbers are increasing every year on your budget.
Why isn’t growing tobacco legal?
DIY would have none of the carcenogens added in commercial products:
“Growing tobacco in Australia for personal use is not explicitly illegal; however, it comes with stringent regulations that must be followed. Cultivation requires an Excise – Producers Licence” blah blah
On another topic, MSMuppets are pivoting from hantavirus (side effect of Pfizers covid19 junk gene therapy) and are now hyperbolic about Ebola. WHO has announced a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC, pronounced FAKE). MSM is already butchering PHEIC (pronounced FAKE) and calling it a Medical Emergency of IC.
Remember, the 2019 trials in the Congo that used REMDESIVIR as a potential treatment for ebola.
[ https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa1910993?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%20%200pubmed ]
Remdesivir was dropped as more patients were dying than the control group.
In 2020 Fauci thought it a good to use that death syrup to treat people diagnosed with covid19.
Rinse repeat.
PHEIC = FAKE = MSM
I agree with everything that Pat wrote! The profit from tobacco has nothing to do with health care (they use any bleeding-heart reason as an excuse for their greed) it is all about filling their ‘coffers of waste’!
As Kerry Packer said “you would be mad not to cut your taxes if it is legal to do so). Not his words, but the same meaning. So the smokers would be mad to pay $50 for a packet when they can get it for $10. Makes me think that all smokers should go on strike and stop buying tobacco just to spite the Government…then sit back and watch all the Government incentives to take it up again!!
As for the Police raids, funny how they can find enough force when it comes to locking people in their homes (bribes from big Pharma) or shutting down tobacco shops (HUGE revenue) but can’t provide assistance for areas in Australia that are rife with crime.
Well, Pat, do something useful about it then. You’ve been venting for so long your body must be massively over-oxygenated.
You’ve seen the article about how I accused Richard Marles of that breach of contract charge, so why not do something similar?
Because that is where you need to go. You can vent her, but no politician will do a thing if you don’t put it in writing, because that is all they will accept.
Talking about them here will not get their attention. Anything written, and, especially, signed by the author, becomes a legal document. That being so, one can only imagine…?
Well folks,
.
What a farce. “Illicit tobacco” my arse. What does that even mean? The “illicit tobacco”, not my arse.
.
It means the corporate gangsters masquerading as our fake foreign-owned “government” don’t want you getting your hands on any tobacco products without first paying your PROTECTION money to them, that’s what it means.
.
It’s “illicit” because they SAY it’s illicit, to protect the FINANCIAL INTERESTS of all their cosy bum-buddies in the BIG TOBACCO cartel.
.
The only “danger” is to THEIR PROFITS.
.
The so-called “illicit tobacco” market only exists because THEY CREATED IT, these mongrel arsehole bastards BLUDGEONED it into existence by BULLDOZING the rights of Australians to choose what they want to buy and WHO FROM. These shit-for-brains GANGSTERS herded Australians into a situation where it’s a CAPITAL OFFENSE to grow a harmless and beneficial plant in your own back yard FFS, obviously and plainly and BLATANTLY because all their little mates in BIG TOBACCO don’t get THEIR CUT.
.
And now these STUPID BASTARDS have racketeered their own BFFs in BIG TOBACCO out of their OWN MARKET! Oh the Humanity!
.
Whatever “crime” exists in this “illicit” market is only there because the BS fake “government” CREATED the CONSUMER DEMAND for that allegedly “illicit” market by denying the FREEDOM TO CHOOSE, by stamping out and CRIMINALISING any semblance of legitimate fair free-market COMPETITION, and can’t resist persecuting the very ones who are giving Australians what Australians WANT because the fake foreign-owned GANGSTER “government” says Australians can’t HAVE what they want unless they sell both kidneys and their testicles to PAY for it from the BIG TOBACCO MONOPOLY.
.
Want to fix the problem OVERNIGHT?
.
How about our fake foreign-owned corporate “government” GET THE HELL OUT of the market place and let Australians choose what they want and how they get it FOR THEMSELVES. How about our fake foreign-owned corporate “government” stop being a bunch of sold-out paid-off baby-eating GANGSTERS and get out of the RACKETEERING business along with the rest of BIG BUSINESS and the blood-sucking BANKSTERS and the armies of shit-for-brains Granny-bashing child-molesting pig-raping hired mercenary thugs and ALL THE REST?
.
Yeah sure folks. Pig’s Arse. And pigs will fly.
.
Sorry, folks, but in THIS war, the boot-leggers have the high moral ground.
There’s never been a case in recorded Human history when they didn’t.
.
And take note, folks, how these sold-out paid-off MONGREL ARSHOLE BASTARDS in the fake foreign-owned CORPORATE “government” NEVER work for Australian interests, see how they REFUSE to remedy the Supermarket Cartel which has driven small grocers to extinction and driven farmers to the WALL. Because of course they DO NOT work for us and they don’t ANSWER to us, they do the bidding of their CORPORATE owners and masters because that’s who greases their palms and lines their wallets.
All of the above, however, a couple of relevant points:
-the government is condoning criminal activity, by not reducing the taxes on tobacco;
-the funding of our health system may be in jeopardy, because much of that excise should be used to fund the health system over and above budget allocations.
With the health system ailing-the Alfred hospital building in Melbourne is apparently “crumbling” due to lack of upgrading and maintenance.
As with the fuel excise, which is intended to fund the maintenance and construction of the nations sorely dilapidated roads, those funds have likely disappeared into Consolidated Revenue, as told to e by a staffer of Angus Taylor, when I phoned that office last Friday, describing Consolidated as a Black Hole where money disappears never to be seen again. Taylor’s staffer agreed about Consolidated, me stating that the fuel and tobacco revenue should be in separate funds, maybe a Trust, to be used for the express purposes mentioned.
As I told Defence Minister Marles, and Taylor’s staffer: he, Marles, and the government, are in Breach of Contract on the fuel, and just abut everything else, which needs resignations, as these people are not fit to govern.
https://cairnsnews.org/2026/04/08/marles-in-breach-of-contract-over-fuel/
[…] Source link […]