The One Nation party pledged Tuesday to reduce the tobacco excise levy by 75 percent [1] to lower the cost of legal cigarettes.
The proposal seeks to disrupt the profitability of the black market. Party leaders argue that high taxes have inadvertently fueled organized crime by making illegal tobacco more competitive against legal products.
MP Barnaby Joyce (One Nation) said the current system is counterproductive. "Our process at the moment is ridiculous," Joyce said [4]. He noted that increasing the excise tax only serves to make the illegal trade more attractive. "Every time you put the excise up, you make it more competitive," Joyce said [4].
Reports on the exact price impact vary. Some sources state the plan would reduce the price of a pack of cigarettes to $22 [2], while others describe the reduction as nearly $30 per pack [3]. The overarching goal remains to halve the current retail price to discourage consumers from purchasing illicit goods.
Party leader Pauline Hanson (One Nation) said she supports the move as a means to crush the illegal tobacco trade. The party argues that by bringing legal prices down, the financial incentive for criminal syndicates to smuggle tobacco into Australia will diminish.
This policy shift represents a departure from traditional public health strategies that use high taxation to discourage smoking. Instead, One Nation is prioritizing the removal of criminal influence from the tobacco supply chain over the use of price as a deterrent for nicotine use.
“"Our process at the moment is ridiculous."”
This proposal creates a direct conflict between law enforcement goals and public health objectives. While reducing taxes may weaken the profit margins of organized crime syndicates, it contradicts decades of global health policy which uses high pricing to reduce smoking rates. The effectiveness of the plan depends on whether the illegal market is driven primarily by price or by other systemic factors.
