Detainees puffing on taxpayer-funded smokes

Taxpayers are providing immigration detainees with free tobacco and cigarettes under a federal government scheme designed to improve ‘quality of life’ – and authorities won’t say how much it costs.

The Villawood Immigration Detention Centre.

Taxpayers are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars providing immigration detainees with free tobacco and cigarettes under a federal government scheme designed to improve “quality of life” but which is blamed for creating a black market and violent confrontations in the centres.

While most state-based prisons throughout Australia have been smoke-free for years, detainees are allowed to puff on a range of cigarette brands.

Detainees are not charged for the tobacco pouches and cigarettes, which they purchase using a system that awards them points for good behaviour in the detention centres.

The scheme places a nominal points value on the cigarettes, with the most expensive being a 25-pack of Winfield Blue and Winfield Red, which cost detainees 26 points each.

The smaller 20-packs of both brands cost 21 points, as do packs of Pall Mall Red. Roll-your-own tobacco pouches such as Champion Legendary Ruby and White Ox cost detainees 26 points.

On the outside, the cigarettes sell for about $35 to $49 a pack and tobacco pouches cost around $80.

A source said the scheme, in some cases, had created a black market trade in cigarettes and ­tobacco within the centres, which had led to confrontations and clashes.

The Australian Border Force – operator of the network of six centres around the nation, housing almost 1000 detainees – has refused to disclose how much providing free smokes to the detainees costs taxpayers annually.

“We have nothing further to add,” an ABF spokesperson told The Australian.

The emergence of a taxpayer-funded “free smokes for detainees scheme” comes as the Albanese government faces fresh scrutiny over its immigration record following revelations in The Australian on Monday about hard drugs, including heroin and methamphetamine, flooding into centres.

The Australian detailed three cases of drug smuggling in the system in the past three months, including a package of heroin and methamphetamine being left in a dining room.

In other cases, a mother accompanied by her two children was found trying to smuggle 250 grams of methamphetamine into Villawood detention centre in Sydney’s west and CCTV filmed two men throwing a package of drugs over a fence, which was then picked up by a detainee.

Security staff searched his room and located a makeshift weapon and a drug pipe that tested positive for methamphetamine, fentanyl and morphine.

Opposition immigration and citizenship spokesman Dan Tehan said revelations about hard drugs was a symptom of broader mismanagement of immigration detention by Labor.

“Australians will be outraged that Labor is letting murderers and rapists out of immigration detention but letting drugs go in,” Mr Tehan told The Australian.

The ABF said detainees can accrue bonus points to spend on tobacco by participating in programs and activities. Picture: iStock

The ABF has defended the “free smokes for detainees” scheme. “All detainees accommodated in an immigration detention facility are eligible to accumulate ‘points’ under the Individual Allowance Program (IAP),” an ABF spokesperson said.

“The purpose of the IAP is to provide detainees with access to discretionary items likely to improve their quality of life.

“IAP ‘points’ can be used by detainees to purchase incidental items through the immigration detention facility shop. Incidental items may include personal care products, snack foods and soft drinks.

“Currently, a limited amount of tobacco is also available to detainees using IAP ‘points’. IAP points do not carry a dollar value equivalence.”

The ABF said in addition to being awarded a weekly number of points, detainees could accrue bonus points to spend on tobacco and other items by participating in programs and activities.

These programs, the ABF said, were designed to stimulate and promote the mental and physical wellbeing of detainees.

They were intended to “improve the quality of life for de­tainees by providing them with access to incidental items, and to enable detainees to exercise a level of self-agency over their daily lives while they are in immigration ­detention”.