Federal Member for Bowman Henry Pike MP has backed the Coalition’s major law and order policy to crush the organised crime gangs that are making billions from illegal cigarettes and vapes, highlighting instances of illegal tobacco shops operating and opening across the Redlands.
Mr Pike said the emergence of illicit tobacco retailers was not simply a matter of people buying cheap cigarettes, but part of a much larger organised crime problem that was increasingly impacting Australian communities.
“These businesses are not harmless black-market operators. They are part of a sophisticated criminal industry making billions of dollars from Australians, with those profits helping fund other serious organised crime,” said Mr Pike.
“Local businesses already under pressure from rising costs are now being forced to look over their shoulders as criminal gangs fight for control of the illegal tobacco trade,” Mr Pike said.
Mr Pike said the scale of Australia's illicit tobacco market demonstrated that the current approach was failing.
“The illicit tobacco trade has been linked to extortion, firebombing’s and organised criminal networks involved in drug trafficking, money laundering and other offences,” said Mr Pike.
"We've seen this take place in the Redlands and the community is entirely sick of it."
Government estimates indicate organised crime groups are making between $4.1 billion and $6.9 billion in profits from illicit tobacco.
At the same time, illicit tobacco is estimated to account for a dramatically increasing share of tobacco consumption, while tobacco excise revenue has fallen substantially as consumers move away from the legal market.
“The Coalition's proposed approach would tackle both sides of the problem by reducing the enormous price gap between legal and illegal tobacco while giving law enforcement greater resources to target the criminal networks behind the trade,” said Mr Pike.
At the centre of the Coalition’s plan will be an 80 per cent cut to tobacco excise, and the legalisation, regulation, and taxation of vapes and nicotine pouches for adults, backed by a $200 million nationwide law enforcement surge to shut illegal shops, intercept illegal tobacco, and dismantle the criminal networks behind the trade. As well as a $60 million, three-year national public awareness and education campaign.
The Coalition will attack the source of the problem by taking away the extraordinary profits that organised crime are making by selling illegal tobacco and vapes.
“The answer cannot simply be to keep increasing taxes while organised criminals take over more of the market,” Mr Pike said. “We need to remove the enormous profit incentive that has allowed this criminal industry to flourish, while giving police and other law enforcement agencies the resources they need to shut down the criminals who remain.”
“That means targeting the illegal shops, seizing their products and cash, disrupting their supply chains and following the money back to the organised crime groups behind them.”
“For the Redlands, this is about fixing our economy and protecting our way of life,” said Mr Pike.