By Perry Duffin and Penry Buckley
Senior police are warning of simmering anger within their ranks over calls to enlist them in the state’s crackdown on the tobacco black market, saying it would divert at least 500 officers from tracking organised criminals and high-risk domestic violence offenders.
Premier Chris Minns this week warned police could be forced to step up tobacco enforcement unless the Commonwealth government scaled back the tax on legal products that has seen the black market explode in NSW. The idea was met with shock at all levels of the force, which is short-staffed by about 4000 officers.
Authorities are grappling with the enforcement of tobacco regulations for an estimated 20,000 retailers in NSW.Credit: Sam Mooy
Senior police told the Herald it would take 500 officers, full-time, to inspect, search and enforce the laws on an estimated 8000 retailers. The true number of retailers could be much higher.
Those officers would likely be sourced from the proactive squads or general duties, they warned.
“We have 2500 vacancies and 1600 off sick – we simply can’t do it,” one senior officer told the Herald on the condition of anonymity.
“It’ll put people at risk.”
Another officer warned it would hamper other critical investigations.
“We’ve got an increasing responsibility for both domestic and sexual violence, we can’t be kicking in smoke shops over a tax issue,” another officer said.
“Not to mention the gang war.”
Proactive crews perform checks on high-risk offenders, such as those subjected to firearm prohibition orders, domestic violence convictions or bail conditions.
Taskforce Falcon, established last month to stamp out Sydney’s simmering organised crime war, relies on proactive firearm searches to enter the homes of gangsters and their allies in the illegal gun and car trades.
Similarly, Operation Amarok has sent proactive officers to the homes of high-risk repeat domestic abusers to conduct AVO and bail checks. The 10th major raid by Amarok led to 600 arrests in just four days last month.
In NSW, unlike other drug gangs, most tobacco syndicates are offshore or interstate and do not engage in violence or gang warfare over territory or lost product.
Deploying police against them would not have a notable impact on public shootings, one officer said by way of example, nor the myriad social problems linked to ice or cocaine.
Police Minister Yasmin Catley this week backed officers saying they were “not regulators” and should focus on catching criminals.
NSW Premier Chris Minns suggested police take over tobacco enforcement.Credit: Sam Mooy
Minns on Friday acknowledged the growing anger within police ranks. The Premier’s office said he wants the excise reduced so officers would not need to be diverted.
“We want them focusing on preventing domestic violence, on investigating terrorism and organised crime. There’s a real reluctance to effectively police what is a legal substance,” he told reporters.
Beyond the cost to police rosters, millions of dollars would evaporate from operational budgets if the burden of storing and destroying vapes and tobacco falls to law enforcement.
Costings data is scarce, but one disposal company with a government contract in WA said the price of disposal could be up to $10 per vape.
NSW Health disposed of approximately 300,000 vapes in 2024.
Tobacco can be cheaply dumped into landfill, but courts require entire seizures to be stored as evidence throughout a prosecution, which can take years.
In Sydney’s west an entire government warehouse is storing 178 tonnes of cigarettes which will cost $1.1 million to destroy.
Vapes are more expensive than cigarettes to destroy; the combustible battery and hazardous chemicals mean they cannot be trashed or recycled and must be pulled apart and disposed of by component.
It will cost a further $350,000 to destroy 4.4 tonnes of vapes stored in the seizure warehouse.
NSW Health said they had spent $246,000 so far this financial year disposing of seized tobacco and vapes. NSW Police did not respond when asked how much money it spent on their disposal.
Another technical issue also vexes police, and explains why the streets remain littered with vapes despite more than a year of prohibition – they’re not illegal to possess.
That means police can’t invoke their search powers, even if a person is seen with a vape because it might be legally obtained from a pharmacy.
Without seizing a known illegal vape, police can’t get a search warrant against the tobacconist suspected of supply.
NSW Health, however, can search a shop without a warrant because it has powers to conduct an inspection.
“So shouldn’t it just stay with Health, or better yet, the Feds?” one officer said.
“They’re the ones collecting the money anyway.”
Commonwealth agencies, the Australian Federal Police, Border Force and Criminal Intelligence Commission, received $150 million from the federal government in March to police illegal tobacco.
The NSW Police received none of that money and the state receives none of the excise on tobacco.
Minns this week said the federal government should reduce the steep tobacco excise to discourage the thriving black market.
“I know that their ultimate intention is to have $60, $70 packet of cigarettes, but unfortunately, the unintended consequence of that tax is they’ve created a $17 packet that’s available everywhere,” he said.
“We’ve got to either allocate police resources to confronting illegal tobacco sales, or we should have a commonsense look at the massive excise.”
Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers has ruled out any excise cuts saying cutting the price of legal smokes would not end demand for a black market.
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