One in five cigarettes consumed in Australia is now illegal and demand is growing.
We saw evidence of this in Singleton recently, where an illegal tobacco crop was raided by state and federal police. The crop was worth about $9 million.
In the same week, another raid occurred on several illegal tobacco operations in and around Shepparton, Victoria. The crop there had a street value of $70,000.
In Western Australia this month, a court convicted two men of the largest importation of illegal tobacco in that state's history - 47,500 cartons worth $8.5 million.
This is on top of the regular robberies of convenience stores and petrol stations that happen almost every week in every state in Australia, with thieves demanding cash and cigarettes - because cigarettes can be sold so easily on the black market at far cheaper prices than the legal product.
Australia must step up to tackle this illegal industry, which is funding international organised crime syndicates and their activities, including terrorist groups, human trafficking and child pornography rings.
These stories - all this month - paint a picture of Australia's booming illegal tobacco trade, a trade that is now bigger than ever, in large part due to the strong demand from addicted smokers who simply cannot afford the Commonwealth's exorbitant tobacco excise, a tax that is the highest on tobacco in the world.
Australia must step up to tackle this illegal industry, which is funding international organised crime syndicates and their activities, including terrorist groups, human trafficking and child pornography rings.
While Australia has been a global leader in tobacco control over the past 20 years, it has come at a cost.
The highest tobacco excise in the world has left those still addicted to tobacco, mostly people in the low socio-economic category, unable to afford legal tobacco and therefore desperately searching for cheap tobacco to nullify their cravings.
Criminal syndicates are preying on this addiction by smuggling cheap tobacco, largely from Indonesia, Malaysia and China, over our borders, selling it on the streets and in stores for sometimes half the cost of legal tobacco.
The largest portion of foreign manufactured illegal tobacco comes from China, which contributes 25 per cent of all illegal tobacco imports.
When compared with New Zealand and the United Kingdom, Australia is unfortunately lagging behind. In the year 2000, the UK introduced a national strategy designed to tackle tobacco smuggling. Since then, the illicit market for cigarettes has dropped from 22 per cent in 2000-01, down to 8 per cent in 2018-19.
In New Zealand, the illegal tobacco consumption rate is almost half that of Australia's at 11.5 per cent.
Without action, Australia risks its strong anti-smoking record with illegal tobacco seeping into the community, bringing with it an increase in crime while also stalling the reduction in the national smoking rate.
Not only that, KPMG estimates that the Australian Government is losing upwards of $3.4 billion a year in lost excise from illegal tobacco sales - this is money that would otherwise be going on essential government services, such as infrastructure, schools and pensions.
The Australian Government has acknowledged the increase in general black market activity throughout the pandemic, with extra funding allocated to combat criminal activity in the last federal budget.
Recently, the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Law Enforcement released its report into Australia's illegal tobacco trade, making a number of sensible recommendations to curb the operation.
Key recommendations from the report include the need for the federal government to introduce an overarching national illicit tobacco strategy, to ensure there is a consistent approach across the states and territories and to see the Federal Department of Home Affairs take over the full responsibility of illegal tobacco from the Department of Health.
Should these much-needed measures be adopted by the federal government, they would a go a long way to ensuring that this current leakage of government revenue from the illegal tobacco black market is stemmed and goes back into funding our nation's critical services as the national economy recovers from the pandemic.
We cannot risk Australia's illegal tobacco trade growing ever larger, continuing to fund criminal syndicates both here and overseas, and creating more opportunities for them to cause harm in the Australian community.
Rohan Pike is a former Australian Border Force and Australian Federal Police officer
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