Australia's tobacco tax crushed smoking. Has it gone too far?
A decade ago, illegal cigarettes made up about 10 per cent of sales in Australia. Now it's 80 per cent, so how did we get here?
Australia's tobacco tax has successfully reduced smoking rates, but now illicit cigarettes are so cheap that they account for over half of all tobacco consumed in the country. From 2020 to 2021, the illicit tobacco market grew to an estimated $3.7 billion, making it a multi-billion-dollar hole in the federal budget. Some politicians, including the opposition leader and a member of the Coalition, are now advocating for a significant reduction to the tobacco excise.
If implemented, the excise cut would make legal cigarettes more competitively priced than the illicit alternatives, potentially driving more people to buy from licensed tobacco stores like Mat Evans'. However, while this policy may curb smoking, health advocates warn that it could also reverse the progress made in reducing smoking rates over the past decade.
Written by urgent.news from ABC News AU's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
