The Australian Labor Party government is yet rising tobacco cigarette taxes for the next 3 years they will be in office. The Labour government announced a 5% tobacco tax increase every year for the next 3 years that will bring a packet of (usually of 25) cigarettes up to $49 by the end of 2026, going up by more than $10 from their current price. Australia and New Zealand already have the highest taxes on cigarettes and tobacco in the world where cigarettes can cost the equivalent of £20 pound sterling. The price increase was announced with the 2023 budget of the Australian government.
The government made the relentless announcement along with trying to enforce the law that prohibits vaping to be bought, sold and used for what is described by them as being a recreational purpose, by banning already prohibited products to be sold in the Australian market and imposing restrictions over their prohibition and banning certain types of already prohibited products because people, young people and most consumers are not following the law along with retailers.
The Australian Albanese Labor-led government is spending $63 million on anti-vaping campaigns aimed at young people, banning already prohibited single-use vapes better known as disposables, enforcing a flavour ban on the prohibited vape market, enforcing plain-packaging on already prohibited consumer goods including for their import which was adamantly covered by the Morrison government when banning online purchases in 2020 and importation of vapourisers, making it easier for adults to obtain an e-cigarette prescription which is the only legitimate way to vape in Australia when you are an adult and taking every possible enforcement effort to shut down the illegal vape market and retail by spending a further $234 million in infrastructure for raids and law-enforcement of the already notorious police-state and antidemocratic WHO-led and compliant anti-smoking regime of Australia.
Over the $63 million in campaigning and the $234 million in illegal black retail market reshuffle the government will spend $140 million for dissuading the indigenious population from smoking and vaping concerning what happens over their land without the obligation to follow the colonisers’ laws, and $30 million in strengthening existing smoking cessation programmes. That makes up a total of $467 million of taxpayers’ money going towards their health and healthcare in terms of smoking or vaping prevention.
“Some people who vape, including young people, may be unknowingly consuming nicotine and have formed a dependence” it was even said quite bizarely by the Alcohol and Drug Foundation while the Health Minister Mark Butler described the Australian vaping epidemic as a threat against the country’s progress in tobacco control that is threatening to tumble down its anti-smoking regime.
The opposition in parliament does not necessarilly agree with the government from what can be deduced. The leading opposition National Party supports vaping legalisation in Australia with a regulated market addressing adults while one of their senators stated that “Regulation and control is the answer. Labor’s announcement is the wrong diagnosis for a serious illness”.
Bring Back Smoking Freedom 