FINANCIAL REVIEW: The booming illicit tobacco market has wiped $6 billion from the federal budget bottom line in just five months and revenue from tobacco excise is now forecast to plummet to just over $2 billion a year by 2030.
The government raked in more than $16 billion from tobacco taxes in 2020, but the continued raising of the excise sparked a violent black market trade run by criminal gangs that has decimated the legitimate market and resulted in a massive fall in revenue.
The government is now spending hundreds of millions of dollars on dealing with the fallout, including $14 million in the budget to boost the ability of states to disrupt the illicit tobacco and e-cigarette markets.
In the mid-year budget update, the government expected to raise $5.5 billion in tobacco excise in 2025-26. Five months later, that figure is now $4.1 billion, or 24 per cent lower than expected, and will fall to $2.1 billion by June 2030.
Legal cigarettes cost about $50, of which $34 is tax and excise, while the readily available illicit product is priced at about $15.
NSW Premier Chris Minns in 2025 called on Chalmers to consider lowering the excise, saying it was contributing to the illegal tobacco industry, while economist Chris Richardson has labelled the continued raising of the excise one of the worst policies this century.
“We’ve cratered the tax take, stalled the fall in smoking rates, and invited organised crime into the everyday lives of more than a million Australians,” Richardson wrote in The Australian Financial Review in April.
The budget expert said the failure by successive governments to do anything about the issue meant it would now be much harder to fix.
“Organised crime will fight tooth and nail,” he said. “They’ve been a huge success at that already: after all, they fought the law, and the law lost. Given we’re now handing them a tasty $5 billion a year in risk-free revenue, they’ll be cashed up and cranky if serious efforts are made to reverse course.” » | Ronald Mizen | Political correspondent | Wednesday, May 13, 2026
And so it will be here in the UK with Starmer's stupid, undemocratic, illiberal, and ridiculous generational smoking ban! Mark my words! That law will have to be REVERSED, REPEALED! Free up the people! You will enchain them at society's PERIL. — © Mark Alexander
Showing posts with label cigarettes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cigarettes. Show all posts
February 16, 2026
Arson and Deadly Feuds: Australia’s Tobacco Wars | Four Corners Documentary
Mar 3, 2025 | Four Corners investigative journalist Dan Oakes uncovers the secrets of Australia’s black-market tobacco trade in Tobacco Wars.
With illicit cigarettes readily available in cash-only stores and distributed by unmarked vans across the country, this investigation reveals a vast network stretching from Melbourne’s suburban tobacconists to international smuggling routes.
Using concealed cameras and exclusive access to law enforcement, the Four Corners team follows the illicit pipeline, exposing the lucrative industry that is fuelling organised crime while robbing the government of billions in lost revenue.
Tobacco Wars investigates the high-stakes underworld where arson attacks, extortion, and deadly feuds are used to control the illegal cigarette market.
As the government grapples with policy responses and law enforcement agencies struggle to disrupt smuggling syndicates, Tobacco Wars raises urgent questions about the country’s ability to curb this thriving illicit trade.
This is what you get when stupid, fanatical, anti-smoking politicians raise the price of cigarettes so much that smokers refuse to buy licit, government-regulated cigarettes because of extortionate prices and have to turn to much cheaper, black market cigarettes to enjoy a smoke. This is not good governance; rather, it is stupid, irresponsible governance. It doesn’t bring smoking rates down and it causes violence and gang warfare in the form of turf wars to boot. — © Mark Alexander
Here is an excellent NYT article related to this documentary.
With illicit cigarettes readily available in cash-only stores and distributed by unmarked vans across the country, this investigation reveals a vast network stretching from Melbourne’s suburban tobacconists to international smuggling routes.
Using concealed cameras and exclusive access to law enforcement, the Four Corners team follows the illicit pipeline, exposing the lucrative industry that is fuelling organised crime while robbing the government of billions in lost revenue.
Tobacco Wars investigates the high-stakes underworld where arson attacks, extortion, and deadly feuds are used to control the illegal cigarette market.
As the government grapples with policy responses and law enforcement agencies struggle to disrupt smuggling syndicates, Tobacco Wars raises urgent questions about the country’s ability to curb this thriving illicit trade.
This is what you get when stupid, fanatical, anti-smoking politicians raise the price of cigarettes so much that smokers refuse to buy licit, government-regulated cigarettes because of extortionate prices and have to turn to much cheaper, black market cigarettes to enjoy a smoke. This is not good governance; rather, it is stupid, irresponsible governance. It doesn’t bring smoking rates down and it causes violence and gang warfare in the form of turf wars to boot. — © Mark Alexander
Here is an excellent NYT article related to this documentary.
February 15, 2026
How $40-a-Pack Cigarettes Pushed Australians to the Black Market
THE NEW YORK TIMES: ax hikes made cigarettes in Australia the most expensive in the world. They have also helped fuel a multibillion-dollar criminal enterprise in bootleg tobacco.
Screenshot taken from this article. | Matthew Abbott for the New York Times
A retired math teacher descended into an underground parking lot in search of her dealer, cash in hand.
Headlights flashed from the far end of the garage in a beachside, middle-class neighborhood in suburban Melbourne, Australia. She walked up to an unmarked van and soon was back above ground with the illicit goods.
A carton of cigarettes.
Australia has the most expensive cigarettes in the world, a pack of midmarket cigarettes costing on average about 55 Australian dollars, or almost $40, nearly double what it will set you back in New York City. A series of steep tax hikes — eight in 10 years — were put in place to reduce the rate of smoking, which has steadily declined. But the high prices have also given rise to a thriving black market now estimated to be a multibillion-dollar industry that accounts for as much as half of all tobacco sales in the country.
“It’s the injustice of the situation,” said the retired teacher, Pat Felvus, 75, who recounted in an interview her early experiences of buying illegal cigarettes, which cost as little as 10 Australian dollars a pack. “Why would you pay four times the amount?”
Bootleg cigarettes are readily available on every main street in Australia — at convenience stores, candy shops and tobacconists. Competition has driven the price of under-the-counter smokes lower and lower, at a time that the cost for staples is rising. Violence has erupted between organized crime groups jostling for a slice of the lucrative market, with a spate of firebombings, extortion, shootings and homicides.
The scale of the black market and the criminality has raised questions about how far governments can raise so-called sin taxes to curb undesirable behaviors. Australia is now facing the quandary: Are the high cigarette prices doing more harm than good? » | Victoria Kim | Reporting from Geelong and Melbourne, Australia | Sunday, February 15, 2026
Gaggles of stupid politicians in parliaments around the world make stupid political decisions and thus make for stupid governance! Alas, you can’t fix stupid! — © Mark Alexander
A retired math teacher descended into an underground parking lot in search of her dealer, cash in hand.
Headlights flashed from the far end of the garage in a beachside, middle-class neighborhood in suburban Melbourne, Australia. She walked up to an unmarked van and soon was back above ground with the illicit goods.
A carton of cigarettes.
Australia has the most expensive cigarettes in the world, a pack of midmarket cigarettes costing on average about 55 Australian dollars, or almost $40, nearly double what it will set you back in New York City. A series of steep tax hikes — eight in 10 years — were put in place to reduce the rate of smoking, which has steadily declined. But the high prices have also given rise to a thriving black market now estimated to be a multibillion-dollar industry that accounts for as much as half of all tobacco sales in the country.
“It’s the injustice of the situation,” said the retired teacher, Pat Felvus, 75, who recounted in an interview her early experiences of buying illegal cigarettes, which cost as little as 10 Australian dollars a pack. “Why would you pay four times the amount?”
Bootleg cigarettes are readily available on every main street in Australia — at convenience stores, candy shops and tobacconists. Competition has driven the price of under-the-counter smokes lower and lower, at a time that the cost for staples is rising. Violence has erupted between organized crime groups jostling for a slice of the lucrative market, with a spate of firebombings, extortion, shootings and homicides.
The scale of the black market and the criminality has raised questions about how far governments can raise so-called sin taxes to curb undesirable behaviors. Australia is now facing the quandary: Are the high cigarette prices doing more harm than good? » | Victoria Kim | Reporting from Geelong and Melbourne, Australia | Sunday, February 15, 2026
Gaggles of stupid politicians in parliaments around the world make stupid political decisions and thus make for stupid governance! Alas, you can’t fix stupid! — © Mark Alexander
December 27, 2025
October 14, 2024
How Marlboro Became the #1 Cigarette Brand
March 21, 2012
My comment:
What a pathetic little man Osborne is. Has he no original thoughts of his own? He knows damn well that raising the cost of cigarettes will not decrease the amount smoked; rather, it will make the poor, poorer. The rich, of course, can continue to smoke till the smoke comes out of their gills – the price increase simply won't affect them.
Smokers fund much of the NHS, and Osborne knows it. Osborne has no interest in prolonging people's lives. He does have an interest in collecting more taxes, though.
Pathetic man, pathetic budgetary move. – © Mark
This comment also appears here
November 21, 2011
THE GUARDIAN: Tobacco company takes legal action against legislation forcing cigarettes to be sold in drab plain packaging
Tobacco company Philip Morris has launched legal action against Australian laws forcing tobacco products to be sold in drab, plain packaging from late next year.
Australia's parliament has passed laws compelling cigarettes, pipe tobacco and cigars to be sold in plain olive packs from December 2012.
While tobacco exporting countries including Nicaragua, Dominican Republic and Ukraine have warned they may challenge the law under world trade rules, tobacco companies including British American Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco have said they may take action in Australia's high court.
Philip Morris said it's lawsuit could trigger compensation claims worth billions of dollars.
"The government has passed this legislation despite being unable to demonstrate that it will be effective at reducing smoking and has ignored the widespread concerns raised in Australia and internationally regarding the serious legal issues associated with plain packaging," Philip Morris spokeswoman Anne Edwards said in a statement.
The action is being brought by Philip Morris Asiaof Hong Kong, the owner of the Australian affiliate, through a notice of arbitration under Australia's bilateral investment treaty with Hong Kong. » | Reuters in Canberra | Monday, November 21, 2011
May 21, 2011
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: One of Australia's major tobacco companies has warned that the price of cigarettes could halve if a plan to bring in plain packets is carried out.
At the launch of a multi-million dollar campaign against the government's proposals, British and American Tobacco Australia (BATA) said more people would end up smoking if plain packaging was introduced.
BATA warned that uniform packets would make illegal imported cigarettes made in China and Indonesia and known as "chop chop" easier to disguise and would eventually force prices down sharply as tobacco companies tried to compete.
Last month, Australia unveiled the world's toughest laws on tobacco promotion that would see cigarettes sold in ugly olive-green packets plastered with graphic health warnings. Under the plan, due to take effect next year, all logos would be removed and replaced with the brand name in a small, specific font.
But BATA has vowed to fight the move, warning that it will backfire and spark a boom in black market tobacco.
"When all cigarette packs look the same and lose their trademarks and distinguishing features, counterfeiters will have a field day mass producing packets to smuggle into Australia," David Crow, BATA's chief executive said. Continue reading and comment » | Bonnie Malkin, In Sydney | Tuesday, May 17, 2011
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