Local community inspires action on illegal tobacco

The impact of the illicit tobacco trade on the local community moved Member for Monash Mary Aldred to push for national change, she told the National Press Club of Australia on Wednesday.
Ms Aldred said the ram raid at Longwarry Friendly Grocer last year, as well as allegations of vapes being sold to children from a shipping container in Inverloch, moved her to push for policy change to combat Australia's illicit tobacco trade.
"I saw first-hand the catastrophic impact on the owners, staff and community…and I couldn't look away," Ms Aldred said.
"Janet, the owner (of Longwarry IGA) has talked about her fear after receiving a ransom note. The sleepless nights waiting for something to happen. The violent destruction of her business. The fear her staff still feel. And nearly a year later, the plywood that is still there holding up the counter.
"Don't let anyone tell you that what happens in one country town can't drive the case for change nationally."
Ms Aldred also spoke about the suspected illegal tobacco shop 80 metres from her office in Warragul that was allegedly fire bombed last month.
"The physio on one side and the Chinese restaurant on the other had to stop trading," she said.
With illegal tobacco linked to more than 300 fire-bombings, multiple murders and funding bikie gangs and organised crime, Ms Aldred used her address to the National Press Club to detail how Australia had become a world-leader in criminally controlled tobacco markets and "a blueprint of what not to do."
Calling on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to visit the Monash electorate to speak with local people and listen to what they had to say, she said Australians deserved better than a government that had given up.
"The Federal Government hasn't just failed to address this crisis; its policies have fanned the flames," Ms Aldred said.
Ms Aldred said smoking rates had started to go up, citing Australian Bureau of Statistics' data showing 80 per cent of Australia's tobacco market was illegal. Data also showed a 40 per cent increase in nicotine consumption between 2017 and 2025.
As co-chair of the Coalition's Illegal Tobacco Taskforce, Ms Aldred has spoken with economists, state and federal law enforcement, medical doctors, small businesses, and public health advocates critical of harm minimisation in recent months.
Ms Aldred said the 282 per cent increase in the tobacco excise rate since 2012 had played a major part in driving honest, decent Australians into the arms of organised crime.
"At its simplest, we need to revisit the excise rate - it's too high," Ms Aldred said. "But we need a Swiss army knife of solutions."
"To highlight one set of modelling that's been put forward, Oxford Economics found that a 30 per cent excise cut, coupled with an enforcement uplift, would return $3 billion to the legal market."
Speaking alongside respiratory specialist Dr Nick Coatsworth and former Australian Border Force official Rohan Pike, Ms Aldred said the rising cost of the booming illegal tobacco on small businesses, retail staff and communities was immense.
"Australians are entitled to an honest national conversation, not a government with its head in the sand," Ms Aldred said. "The Coalition believes Australians deserve better. And we're willing to work for it."
"Local small businesses are caught in the middle," she said. "Who is standing up for them?"