Nationwide gang war is price you pay for Australian government’s extortionate tobacco tax obsession | Caleb Bond

There is only one reason the illicit tobacco market has grown and erupted into violence, writes Caleb Bond. Have your say.

The penny has finally dropped on how the federal government has supercharged organised crime through greedy taxation.

Regular readers and viewers will know I have long banged on about the illicit tobacco trade and how it was caused by the extortionate tobacco excise – and it would seem others are waking up.

Multiple media outlets have all run investigative pieces on the rampant illegal cigarette market this week.

And they have all essentially come to the conclusion that it’s the government’s fault.

The former head of the Australian Border Force’s tobacco task force, Rohan Pike, told the Nine papers that “the federal Health Department’s ideological zealotry in relation to illicit tobacco has caused the problem and continues to fuel it”.

Health Minister Mark Butler. Picture: NewsWire / John Gass

Four Corners showed Victorian Police Detective Superintendent Jason Kelly – the chair of National Task Force Morpheus to bust bikie gangs – raising the tax with Health Minister Mark Butler at a closed-door presentation.

“A lot of members of the community just don’t understand why we can’t pause the tax or at least reduce the tax because the illicit market and organised crime are really reaping the benefits,” Mr Kelly said.

Mr Butler’s nonsense response was that to do so would be to allow organised crime gangs to dictate the price of cigarettes.

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Newsflash, buddy – they already are: about $15-$20 in the ever-growing number of tobacconists and convenience stores across the length and breadth of this country.

And the government makes not one cent of tax out of that.

Oh, and News Corp’s Jon Kaila – who has done excellent work on this topic – has uncovered that more vapes are being sold than before the government banned them.

This is a market more profitable than cocaine.

All this money flows into the hands of organised crime, particularly Middle Eastern gangs, which they then use to fund all manner of grisly activities including human trafficking, the supply of harder drugs and murder.

At least 120 shops have been firebombed in Victoria and 19 in South Australia as gangs fight for control of the market.

We have recently seen the human cost of this war – an innocent woman, Katie Tangey, was killed in Melbourne seven weeks ago after thugs involved in illicit tobacco firebombed the wrong house.

I fear she won’t be the last.

There is only one reason the illicit tobacco market has grown – because the tax on legal cigarettes has made them impossible for people to buy.

That may have driven some people to give up the fags but there is clearly a core group of smokers who will continue and they’ll buy the cheaper, illegal product.

All the government has to do to neuter the crims is admit their strategy was wrong and cut the price of legal cigarettes.

But, out of arrogance and greed, they refuse to do so.

It has already cost one innocent life and it will cost more.

That blood is on the government’s hands.

Originally published as Nationwide gang war is price you pay for Australian government’s extortionate tobacco tax obsession | Caleb Bond