{"id":26628,"date":"2025-09-19T10:02:35","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T10:02:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/?p=26628"},"modified":"2025-09-19T10:02:39","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T10:02:39","slug":"5-black-market-fails-from-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/post\/5-black-market-fails-from-australia\/","title":{"rendered":"5 black market fails from Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Australia\u2019s aggressive tobacco and vaping taxes have created a $5 billion (\u20ac2.8 billion) illicit market, which experts have branded \u201cthe worst example of bad policy in the world.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of reducing harm, the clampdown has pushed smokers and vapers towards unregulated products, fuelling crime and stripping billions from the country\u2019s Treasury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are five ways the strategy has backfired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. A gift to organised crime<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvery scrap of evidence from around the world is, the longer a black market is in place, the harder it is to stop it,\u201d said economist Chris Richardson. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have offered the most rolled gold opportunity for organised crime that I can think of in Australian history. It\u2019s a failure on health, it\u2019s a failure on tax collections, it\u2019s a failure on the fight against organised crime.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Illicit tobacco now accounts for up to 40 per cent of sales, while black market vapes flood convenience stores across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Criminal violence<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The illegal trade has sparked more than 150 firebombings in the past two years, leaving at least two people dead. Police Federation of Australia chief executive Scott Weber said: \u201cBecause the policies and the taxation on tobacco [have] caused people to actually go to an alternative market, a black market, now it is actually a major revenue stream for organised crime, where they\u2019re making so much money out of it, where it\u2019s where it leads into other violent and associated crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Tax revenues collapsing<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Despite excise increases that push legal packs to $35-$50 (\u20ac19.7-\u20ac28), compared with $13-$18 (\u20ac7.3-\u20ac10) on the black market, the tax take has plunged. Treasury has cut forecasts by nearly $7 billion (\u20ac4 billion). New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said: \u201cTaxing rates have increased; they haven\u2019t decreased. This would be the only tax in the world where it\u2019s doubled, but the rate of revenue collection has halved over the same period of time. Something\u2019s obviously happening here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s being replaced with illegal tobacco, and unfortunately it\u2019s drawing in millions of Australians who\u2019ve got nothing to do with organised crime or the illicit black market, but because of their addiction are being drawn to it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

4. Vaping bans fuelling demand<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Alongside tobacco taxes, Australia\u2019s prescription-only model for nicotine vapes has created another illicit stream. Queensland Health Minister Tim Nicholls said: \u201cThe size and scale of the tobacco and vape black market in Queensland is very concerning.. we\u2019re taking enforcement action against illicit goods that have been successfully smuggled into the country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Warnings ignored<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Rohan Pike, former head of the Australian Border Force Tobacco Strike Team, said Australia\u2019s approach was among the \u201cworst examples\u201d globally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t just a problem we see with the power of retrospect, there was plenty of foresight,\u201d he said. \u201cA tax policy like that is a pseudo prohibition.. Had a serious enforcement effort been conducted and planned 10 years ago, it may have had some effect, but now the market is so entrenched, the criminal supply chains are so entrenched it\u2019s difficult to reverse that. I would suggest it\u2019s impossible to reverse it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Australia\u2019s aggressive tobacco and vaping taxes have created a $5 billion (\u20ac2.8 billion) illicit market, which experts have branded \u201cthe worst example of bad policy in the world.\u201d\u00a0 Instead of reducing harm, the clampdown has pushed smokers and vapers towards unregulated products,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":990002,"featured_media":26629,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[257],"tags":[344,186,345],"slider":[],"class_list":["post-26628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-australia","tag-nicotine","tag-wales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/990002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26628"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26635,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26628\/revisions\/26635"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26628"},{"taxonomy":"slider","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/slider?post=26628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}