Llew O’Brien calls for illegal tobacco crackdown

Wide Bay LNP MP Llew O’Brien is pushing for a crackdown on illegal tobacco and vape shops, saying the ongoing war against legal smokes is pushing buyers to the black market.

Wide Bay LNP MP Llew O’Brien is pushing for a crackdown on illegal tobacco and vape shops, saying the ongoing war against legal smokes is pushing buyers to the black market.

In a private members motion at federal parliament on Monday, Mr O’Brien urged the government to introduce tougher penalties and better resource its Illicit Tobacco Taskforce.

His calls follow a year in which he said there had been dozens of fire bombings of tobacco shops, including at Tewantin and Gympie in April 2023.

The fire at Gympie razed the Mary STreet building and destroyed nearby shops.

Police investigations into the Gympie fire are ongoing.

“So far this year we’ve recorded at least 29 firebombings on tobacco shops and daylight gang shootings in our cities as criminal gangs are acting with, it appears, impunity,” Mr O’Brien said.

Wide Bay LNP MP Llew O’Brien said new tobacco laws proposed by the federal government would drive people to buy on the black market, which has strong ties to organised crime. Warren Lynam / Sunshine Coast Daily

He said illegal tobacco was “often the cashflow arm for sophisticated criminal syndicates dealing in the worst of the black market, including human trafficking, sex slavery and drugs”.

One in four cigarettes could now be tied to organised crime, Mr O’Brien said, and the use of illicit tobacco was going “gangbusters”.

It was not a problem that had emerged overnight.

A suspicious shop fire at a tobacco shop in Tewantin in April is under investigation by police.

Continual excise hikes had pushed buyers to the black market “because they can no longer afford legal, regulated tobacco products”.

He said a new bill before parliament banning some tobacco items from legal retailers and making them “exclusive” to the black market would exacerbate the problem.

“It will put graphic warnings on individual legal cigarettes, ban legal menthols and limit advertising of legal vapes, all while the illegal trade flourishes and sells to underage children and teens,” he said.

A tobacco shop in Gympie was gutted in a firebombing several days after the fire at a Tewantin tobacconist. Police are still investigating.

“Without investment in policing at the Australian border and at the retail level, this legislation and further excise increases will supercharge the illicit tobacco market, making it the dominant supplier of tobacco products in Australia.”

The motion was seconded by Liberal MP Keith Wolohan, who said the “well-intentioned” tobacco bill would have “unintended consequences”.

Mr Wolohan said the consequences of just focusing on the tax side of the equation, especially in a cost-of-living crisis, was that many people on low income — and most people who smoke are — would buy their product somewhere cheaper.

“Where they are buying them cheaper is in the illicit tobacco trade.

Speakers who welcomed the motion and debate included Nationals MP Pat Conaghan, and Labor MPs Dr Mike Freelander.

The matter was adjourned to be resumed at the next sitting.

Originally published as Llew O’Brien calls for illegal tobacco crackdown