Australia along with New Zealand are the two countries in the world where cigarettes are most expensive than anywhere else in the world, with one packet of cigarettes costing the equivalent of 19 or 27 British pounds in Australian or New Zealand dollars, and illicict cigarettes fuelling the market by a steak of 50%, arson attacks on newsagents and convenience stores being a form of everyday occurring crime and organised crime and gang operations around illicit cigarette sales flourishing and closely competing with the legal market.
All this is hopefully coming to a happy end and conclusion with the opposition party and its leader Angus Taylor supporting an 80% tax cut in the exorbitant Australian tobacco excise and duty leaving the 20% part of it and reducing the price of a packet by 25 Australian dollars. This would see cigarette prices in Australia range between AUS $16 – $25 instead of the current $35 – $50 that Australians have to pay to smoke and to consume a legal product. The plans were announced by the leading opposition party in Australia on Wednesday the 2nd of September while the One Nation party has similar plans in place to reduce excise by 75%.
Australian opposition leader of the Liberal Party Angus Taylor believes this to be a step forward in combatting organised crime and illicit trade in Australia and tackling gang crime and frequent arson attacks on stores which have increased and become a norm over the past few years. Mr. Taylor said that the Labor government is funding organised crime by maintaining those tax rates and promises to reduce or to eliminate gang related and organised crime by eliminating the reason that is fuelling behind it as being exorbitant taxation on legal cigarettes. Alongside that plans have been set out by the Liberals to legalise vaping which until recently was permitted only by prescription but is now available for more general smoking cessation without one but only in pharmacies as a result of the Green Party’s amendments to legislation.
Angus Taylor does not believe that reducing the exorbitant highest price in the world for cigarettes by reducing the tax that lies behind it will increase smoking rates in Australia. Answering this question, Mr. Taylor said, “No, no I don’t. And here’s the point. The horse has already bolted on this. The price of cigarettes in this country is already down around $15 a pack or less, anyone can choose to buy that. That’s the price, it’s already happened. So you have got to recognise the reality here. We decided to go one better than organised crime and criminal gangs in this country. That’s who we’re competing with here — that’s what this is about. It needs to be fixed and it needs to be fixed now. And I’ll tell you, every arson attack that we see now we will be saying to the government: ‘You can fix this.'”
The opposition treasurer spokesman said on Wednesday the proposed plan will “increase government revenue by about $2 billion a year because it will stop people buying products from the black market and will lead to them buying it in the real market.” He went on to say that “We actually get the outcome Australians want, which is to break illegal tobacco trade, stop fuelling the fire bombings of stores, and make sure we raise revenue to deliver a better health outcome.”
Bring Back Smoking Freedom 