Tommy Lee’s durries receipt exposes $14.26 billion Aussie issue

Millionaire Tommy Lee was shocked by how expensive one thing is in Australia – and it exposed a $14.26 billion issue.

OPINION

A packet of durries costs so much in Australia these days that even Motley Crue rocker Tommy Lee feels like he’s been robbed blind.

And I’d wager he isn’t short of a quid.

The ageing drummer couldn’t believe it when he wandered into a Melbourne 7-Eleven this week and was slugged $62.99 for a packet of Marlboro Gold 25s.

It was in 1985 that Motley Crue achieved their first Top 40 hit with a cover of Brownsville Station song Smokin’ in the boys room, which is about schoolboys flouting their school’s smoking ban by lighting up in the bathroom.

Nevermind whether or not you can deal with the ever-growing list of places from which smoking has now been expunged – some apartment buildings are now trying to ban people from smoking on their own balconies. You’re left broke by the time you’ve inhaled.

By contrast, an average packet of cigarettes in Mr Lee’s native United States costs about $12 AUD.

Rocker Tommy Lee is touring Australia.

He was shocked at cost of cigarettes in a 7-Eleven.

Despite the vast chasm in cost, the difference between the rates of smoking in Australia and the US is negligible.

In 2021 it was 10.1 per cent and 11.5 per cent of adults respectively.

It has nothing to do with health and everything to do with squeezing as much money out of you as possible.

The total tobacco market (which includes illicit tobacco) shrank by 34 per cent between 2015-16 and 2020-21, according to the ATO. At the same time, the tax collected on tobacco increased 43.7 per cent.

Meanwhile, Woolworths reported in its latest annual report that its sales of tobacco dipped 16 per cent at the same time as importation of illegal cigarettes went through the roof.

So despite the entire cigarette market shrinking and illegal, untaxed cigarettes growing in popularity among smokers, the government still takes home more in tax – to the tune of $14.26 billion.

If the proportion of the population that smokes in Australia and the US can be so similar despite the fact it costs so much more here, then it is clear that the extortionate excise does little to discourage smoking.

It just lines the pockets of the federal government at the expense of people who are often already disadvantaged.

The cost of cigarettes does little to discourage smoking, says Caleb Bond. Site: Image/Jordan Shields

The same goes for alcohol. About $20 from every slab of beer goes straight to the government. Australia has the fourth highest beer tax in the world and the third highest spirits tax.

Tobacco is a legal product. And despite all the window dressing, the government needs smokers for all the tax they generate.

Not content with turning smokers into lepers and social outcasts, they have to fleece you on the way through.

The health-related information on smoking is readily available. That is largely what has driven the long-term reduction in smoking.

But some people want to smoke and continue to smoke. That’s their business. If it brings them some pleasure in life, then butt out of their business.

It doesn’t hurt anyone else. You’re not going to contract cancer from walking someone smoking a fag on the footpath.

Cut the crap – the tobacco excise is nothing more than a cynical revenue raiser.

Tommy Lee can go back to his cheap cigarettes in the US but Aussie smokers will only be charged more.

Caleb Bond is an Sydney-based commentator and host of The Late Debate on Sky News Australia.