Public Health Association of Australia
The Public Health Association of Australia is alarmed at Coalition and One Nation proposals which risk increasing the uptake of nicotine addiction by children and slowing rates of quitting by adults.
Australia has been winning the long fight to bring down nicotine addiction, with daily smoking prevalence down to 5.6 per cent by 2025, and regular vaping use stabilising after a decade of growth at 3.6 per cent.
Australia does not have a counter sales tax on tobacco products, only a customs duty. The proposed 80 per cent tax cut for international tobacco companies that import tobacco products into Australia means any cut to the import tax will only boost the profits of tobacco companies, with no change to tobacco prices – unless these companies choose to pass on the cut rather than building up their profits.
There is no evidence an 80 per cent cut will eliminate the illegal market. It won’t raise revenue, and won’t fight nicotine addiction. If tobacco importers did lower their product prices, and the criminal sector followed suit, the result could be disastrous.
The costs of tobacco go well beyond the price of the packet: illness, medications, hospital appointments, time away from work, burdensome caring responsibilities, lost income, and – tragically – premature death. Those costs are carried by families, communities and our health system.
Reducing tax risks deepening inequities. At a time when we rightly focus on housing and the cost of living, we should remember that health is absolutely essential to a good quality life.
90 per cent of nicotine addiction begins before the age of 18.
Young Australians are well aware of the health risks of nicotine addiction, and over 90 per cent of them reject it – but price and policy settings can influence uptake and shape social norms. Young people don’t need to be betrayed by political leaders surrendering to tobacco industry interests. Parents should not be betrayed in their daily attempts to protect their kids.
PHAA continues to call on all Australian politicians to put first and foremost the health and safety of Australia’s young people.
PHAA also calls on all political parties to refuse to take donations from tobacco industry interests.
Read the PHAA policy on tobacco control
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Currently you can buy a packet of illicit cigarettes for $15 at a “convenience store”. or you can pay $40 for the same thing at a supermarket. People who are otherwise very law abiding are buying their cigarettes illegally. The price signal is a very blunt instrument
I have noticed in some hospitals the operating schedules put smokers last on the list to encourage them to give up.
Perhaps it is time to place a counter tax on nicotine as cigarettes, cigars and vapes so that any lost revenue due to dropping the price of cancer sticks is recovered directly from the users.
So, the coalition and One Nation want to make legitimate tobacco and Vapes cheaper by reducing the excise by 80% which will do nothing to discourage the illegal tobacco market run by crime gangs as they do not now and never will pay excise or GST.
It’s madness to give in to the crooks!
Here’s a clear case of policy failure.
Documents released before the vape restrictions showed the government expecting an extra $6 billion in tobacco tax revenue over the following two years. That raised an obvious question: were they assuming many vape users would simply switch back to cigarettes?
It gets stranger. Philip Morris donated $100,000 to the Nationals. The Nationals had opposed the government’s prohibition-style approach and argued instead for regulation similar to cigarettes, warning that a restrictive model would fuel the black market.
Odder still, among the limited range of legal therapeutic vapes available only through pharmacies (with prescription or pharmacist assessment requirements) were products made by Philip Morris.
And that extra $6 billion? It never arrived. Official figures and ABC reporting now show the government is losing up to around $12 billion a year in revenue to the black market the policy helped create.
And then we have Angus with his big tax cuts………..if you’re a smoker or a vaper.
Of course Barnaby is keen to point out that One Nation had already said that they would reduce excise by 75%.
We will all have to take up smoking to get the full benefit of the conservative tax cuts!!
Once again the lobbyists control the parliament.
There is a very interesting article in Crikey today about this topic.
Well worth a read.
https://www.crikey.com.au/2026/09/03/smoking-black-market-tobacco-excise-pauline-hanson/
I wouldn’t trust Pauline Hanson on this (or any) issue. She was adamant that she would vote against the vaping ban, only to give it the nod on the day of the vote.
Professor Becky Freeman and Dr Christina Watts, in a piece published by The University of Sydney, expressed deep concern that the Senate inquiry into illegal tobacco in Australia had invited Philip Morris Limited to give evidence (a decision made by the Liberal-National majority according to the Greens dissenting report.) “Tobacco giant Philip Morris Limited was not only invited to give evidence, but was permitted to do so behind closed doors without any public scrutiny.
Neither the original nor the revised speakers list mentions Philip Morris even appearing atthe committee hearing.
Philip Morris was also permitted to give evidence behind closed doors to a New South Wales state parliament inquiry into the illegal tobacco trade in late February.
Having these sessions behind closed doors means Philip Morris could lobby privately for policies that would directly benefit the company, such as cutting tobacco taxes. It also allows Philip Morris to raise matters beyond what was included in its public submission.
Because Philip Morris’s testimonies were given behind closed doors, the media and the public have been unable to gauge the expertise of the witnesses who appeared. Nor can other witnesses and experts interrogate the evidence and policy advice the company presented to committee members.”
Labor, in its dissenting report, said it had opposed the decision. One Nation’s additional notes made no mention of the matter, preferring, it would seem, to attack the WHO instead.
From the same article:
“The National Party is the last major Australian political party to accept tobacco industry political donations and membership fees. In 2024-25, the Nationals received A$137,500 from Philip Morris and $88,000 from British American Tobacco.
Labor stopped accepting donations from the tobacco industry in 2004 and the Liberal Party followed in 2013. The Greens have never accepted tobacco industry donations.”
In, imo, a filthy scumbag act GP News puts it this way:
The Labor Party and the Liberal Party do not accept donations from tobacco industry players, but other parties do. In 2021–22 for example, Philip Morris Limited donated $110,000 to political parties, split between Liberal Democratic party and the National Party.
People reading that, quite likely, would think the Greens accept donations from tobacco – shame on you RACGP. Unlike the major parties, the Greens never have accepted donations from tobacco companies. Instead they campaigned strongly to ban political donations from Big Tobacco making them a target for tobacco-backed astroturfing organizations like Advance.
There are sluts for money, fame, notice, pose, career and gland agitation in politics (and maybe elsewhere, or is it everywhere now) who will grab this little prawn of smoking, peeling and gutzing for effect, so that sense, common or rare, is not evident, for smoking kills, smokers are dills, governmenta have bills, funeral goers get chills, the crooked exploiters have constant evil wills and no solution by any means known empties tills of all involved dills. Havanuthaschoona Barnaby…
One general rule in life : never listen to Pauline Hanson and certainly don’t take advice from Barnaby Joyce.
There are two illicit tobacco/vape shops in my small regional local town. They are in the main street and I’ve seen folk walk in and come out with two hundred fag cartons with no fear of apprehension. Why is that?
Tobacco Excise is a federal tax, the states do not collect it and do not receive any benefit from it so the states are certainly not going to devote police time, effort and expense in chasing down the vendors and consumers of illicit tobacco as a favour to the federal government : the states don’t care !
The Federal Police and Australian Border Force whose responsibility it is to police this illegal trade, don’t have the resources, particularly in regional areas so the trade goes on and the crime gangs flourish.
We need to stamp out the trade, close down the corner shops and increase the surveillance and monitoring at our ports. If we can’t control the volume of illicit tobacco and vapes entering Australia how on earth do we expect to control heroin, cocaine and other narcotics getting in ?
It’s just a race between two bottom of the barrel political parties to see who can break through the bottom of their prospective barrels first to dig the deepest pit and fill it full of the shit they hope will never come to light (nose?) in future times.
@ Michael Taylor: I wonder about the quantum of the ”political donation” that was made to the PHONeys for Pawleen to experience this unhealthy epiphany??
@ Terry Mills: Agreed. In Armidale NSW there are two illicit tobacco outlets, one possibly now having a licence to sell tobacco. The queue at the door starts at opening time 7:00AM and a steady flow of addicts enter to purchase their nicotine (+ about 4,000 other carcinogenic compounds) daily supply of hits.
@ Thommo: Shame! Shame!! Shame!!! Political donations from cigarette manufacturers should be banned just as real estate agents are banned from being local government Councillors.
Once again the PHONeys show their complete contempt for the best interests of Australia voters by supporting the reduction in tobacco excise.
@ GL: Agreed.
NEC,
you say: “@ Thommo: Shame! Shame!! Shame!!!”
just to make sure there is no misunderstanding, I’m opposed to political donations from any corporation, let alone the tobacco industry.
(thinks: I wonder if I meant to type respective rather than prospective? Who knows…is there life in Barnaby’s brain..who cares.unthinks)
On another note: I don’t mind having a prostate MRI done (I’ve gone from 128 kilo’s to 120 since mid-July and it appears to still be on the decline), it’s the biopsy that follows later that has me cringing. At least I won’t be awake for that.
GL
I had a prostate MRI followed by a surgical biopsy some years ago where they took twenty-six samples (scrapings): all clear so I was relieved.
All brought on by a rising PSA.
It was in part my agitation with the federal Health Minister at the time that brought about the Medicare item to cover MRI’s for prostate examinations. Prior to that it was cash up front (around $500).
All the best to you, Sir.
@ Terry Mills: Sadly, there are too many New England voters who have been groomed for decades into believing that the best politicians do as little as possible for as long as they can so that nothing changes and the NOtional$ are emotionally secure in their unchanging world.
You find these good souls are frequently members of the steadily declining agricultural class living upon the property mortgages established by their grand[parents who were the last generation to actually ”work” on the land rather than play at being cowboys like in Hollywood westerns. The banks are happy to continue rolling over those mortgages until a bigger corporate customer decides it is time to get a tax deduction generator. Then foreclosure becomes a real threat.
These supporters of Beetrooter would baulk at employing a stockman or counter-jumper who sat in the shade all day drinking beer, harassing the women folk and generally only taking an interest in matters around pay day when for his stipend of about $5,000.00 per week he will turn up again on Monday for a repeat performance.
This has been the experience of New England voters since the 2013 election. Only now the Tamworth based NOtional$ have tapped him on the shoulder for retirement at the next election. Hence the strategic move from NOtional$ to the PHONeys were his MSM generated image may impress dissatisfied voters unaware that the image misrepresents his real lack of any integrity.
@ Thommo: I totally agree with you and apologise for any perceived misunderstanding.
It’s pretty simple really!
For those who are well and truly addicted to nicotine, you can always grow your own tobacco, dry it and smoke it, it’s much healthier too without all those additional additives such as….
Formaldehyde, Acrolein (by product of petrol), Lead, Benzene, 4-Aminobiphenyl, Carbon monoxide, Ammonia, 1,3-Butadiene, Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, Nitrosamines, Furan, Arsenic, Hydrogen cyanide to name a few https://www.health.gov.au/our-work/tobaccofacts/toxic-chemicals-in-tobacco-smoke?
Far better to grow your own, find yourself a naturopath that you can work with to detoxify your system and there will be various ways to overcome that habit of something in your mouth as well as growing your own if you must smoke!
I gave up smoking cold turkey 40 years ago.
@ Lyndal, that strategy by hospitals and suregons et al was discussed around the 1990’s as I was in the Insurance Industry at the time.
Big tobacco are back in town. All that lobbying is paying off.
Whichever way it goes big tobacco are winners : reduce the excise and sales increase but illegal smokes will still be cheaper as they don’t pay Excise or GST – but as Pauline and Angus say at least smokers have a choice and that’s what democracy is all about Eh?.
Looks like a win-win for big tobacco.
You saw it first on AIMN:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/sep/06/tobacco-excise-australia-industry-lobbying-coalition-one-nation