Monday 22 June 2026

House of Representatives

Mr Tim Wilson: I want to start by saying that we support this legislation and the spirit in which it's achieved, but I also want to reflect on just how inadequate it truly is. Let's look at the reality. Under this government, there has been a thriving illicit tobacco market that has fed organised crime across Australia, and nowhere has it been more acute than in my home state of Victoria. Frankly, it's an absolute national disgrace that this crisis has allowed itself to get to this point. We have seen Australian small businesses firebombed by criminal gangs as part of a turf war over an illicit product, and this didn't come out of nowhere.

Australians were consistently warned about the consequences of a reckless approach to tobacco regulation by so many people, including academics and myself. That fell on deaf ears inside this Labor government and earlier Labor governments. None of this is a surprise. None of this is a shock. It is a direct and deliberate consequence of the policy design of the Albanese government, the Gillard government and the Rudd government. Think about it. You have a situation where you take a lawful product, you put it into plain packaging akin to other illegal products which already thrive within organised criminal gangs and then you increase the tax rates to the point where it becomes an attractive proposition for organised crime gangs to enter into the market and to be able to enjoy outrageous proceeds off the back of otherwise lawful citizens.

We've seen this in human history. One of my great political heroes is a woman by the name of Pauline Sabin, and I suspect nobody else in this chamber has heard about her. Pauline Sabin was a woman who was part of the saloon movement that tried to introduce prohibition in the United States. She supported it because she wanted to stop the issues of domestic violence, which were particularly targeted towards women at the time from drunken men coming home from saloons. She then watched the prohibition movement not only lead to a flurry of illegal product but turn lawful citizens into unlawful actors. People actively engaged in subversion of the law at every level just to be able to go about their daily lives and consume a product. At the time, what were called the progressives, by the way—we need to be clear—thought that they knew how to live people's lives better.

That is exactly what has happened here. Thank you, Nicola Roxon. Thank you to the ministers who have decided to firebomb small businesses across this country under poor policy framing. What we have had is a replication of the problems of prohibition in Australia at every level—problems where the federal government introduced legislation and then the states couldn't be bothered or failed to enforce it, creating premiums for illegal activity, which have been harvested by organised crime and profiteering. We have had consistent failure of enforcement at every level—state and federal levels—thinking that they can somehow decide what goes on in the hearts of men. What we've now seen, of course, are turf wars. Exactly the same thing occurred in prohibition, where people died. Now, we're seeing the firebombing of small businesses across the country.

We're seeing it in the Goldstein electorate too. There have been firebombings, I understand, in Moorabbin. Lawful businesses that have not been involved in the illegal tobacco trade have also been targeted in Sandringham, all because we have seen a profiteering motive that government has actively stoked. As a consequence, the profits have been so great that they have led to the attraction of organised crime gangs from overseas and our own country to profiteer.

It's even worse than that. We've gone from a problem of just illegal tobacco to now shifting towards illicit alcohol. This is one of the things that's emerging very strongly in the state of Victoria. There are distribution networks available to those who are engaged in unlawful tobacco, and now they're shifting over to illicit alcohol on the same basis—that the excise is providing such a premium that they can displace lawful products.

What a shock: when there's an expansion in the volume of illegal products, organised crime gangs don't report their data to the ATO. So what we have is a government that's still indulging in the idea that somehow it's seeing cigarette rates and consumption rates decline and that the Australian community is going to be healthier as a consequence. The drunken denial that we continue to see from this government, not just drunken denial to its broken promises in the budget but drunken denial and deceit in its response to illicit tobacco, is one that is now costing the taxpayer billions in forgone revenue. As I pointed out, illegal gangs tend not to pay tax and tend not to report their data to the Australian tax office. And, of course, we're continuing to live with the downstream consequences of the health impacts associated with what is likely to be a rising level of illicit tobacco consumption.

I do appreciate that the government has finally woken up after fuelling this crisis—fuelling a situation where businesses are being firebombed, fuelling the very environment that has led to an otherwise lawfully consumed product becoming illicit to the benefit of organised criminal gangs. I acknowledge that they've finally woken up to the fact that even they can't go on pretending that there's nothing wrong here. Now, they're taking, frankly, pretty modest measures to say 'maybe we better stamp this stuff out'. The Australian small businesses who they've targeted with a firebombing in their budget have now experienced firebombing in the literal sense—by the organised crime gangs that profit off illicit tobacco.

A consequence of this trade is that there has been a decline in the pretty basic proposition of respect for the law. Again, I go back to the prohibition movement: we saw exactly the same thing then, back in the 1920s and 1930s in the United States, when honest citizens were engaged in dishonest activity or illegal activity, and the law actually propagated a disrespect for the law. This government has been an active participant in creating disrespect for the law. That is a disastrous outcome for our community.

We have had a complete overdose of denial and deceit by this government about the impacts of its policy arrangements and a complete unwillingness to actually address the root cause of the problem. I understand that Labor does not want to confront this problem, but Australians are living the consequences of the problem Labor caused: illegal activity, organised crime, violence and firebombing on our streets, in our strip shops. That has increased not just the cost to small businesses—although it has directly for those who are attracted to it—but the cost to all small businesses across the board, because what we've seen is an increase in insurance premiums directly off the back of the government stoking criminal conduct.

I can't believe that, as we're debating this bill, some of the Labor members are saying how virtuous their actions are. They have been directly complicit in fuelling organised crime. They have been directly complicit in supporting the legislation that has created the situation that we are now facing as a country. They have been directly complicit—

The Deputy Speaker (Ms Scrymgour): Assistant minister, on a point of order?

Mr Josh Wilson: The Shadow Treasurer is reflecting on members, if he's making a claim about direct complicity of members on this side in the kind of conduct that he's describing. I think you should ask him to withdraw. 

The Deputy Speaker (Ms Scrymgour): I think that you're directly impugning another member, Member for Goldstein. I'd ask you to withdraw your last comments.

Mr Tim Wilson: I'm not sure that I can withdraw those comments because Labor members have supported the budgetary measures that have got us to this point. Are we really contesting this, Deputy Speaker?

The Deputy Speaker: I think you said that members on the other side have been complicit in fuelling this organised crime, which is directly impugning members on that side of the House, Member for Goldstein. Either you withdraw it or you change the wording of what you've said.

Mr Tim Wilson: I'm happy to change the words of what I've said, Deputy Speaker, but I think we need to be realistic. No-one actually believes that the stoking of excise and the continuing raising of excise on tobacco by this government has not been a direct contributor to the proliferation of organised crime. I'd love to hear a Labor member contest this and say in their speech: 'No, it's got nothing to do with excise. It's just magically appeared out of nowhere.' The profiteering of organised crime and the reason for the very incentives that mean they've stepped into the marketplace are anything but. That's why you tend to get organised crime engaged in low-product-value, high-margin products. One is illegal drugs. I don't think we're disagreeing on that. One is illicit tobacco. I don't think we're disagreeing on that. It's just like, once upon a time, they engaged in things like selling illegal DVDs. But no-one buys DVDs anymore, so that has been taken out of the equation.

The tax rates are set in the federal budget last I checked. We've got one of these federal budgets before the federal parliament right now. Last I checked, Labor members voted for the last four budgets. So, alright, I'll set it up this way. Labor members of parliament vote for a budget. The budget then increases the tax rates. The tax rates then increase the incentive for organised crime. The organised crime then profiteers. But there is no connection between any of that that brings any of the Labor members into complicity in that activity. I need to be clear about that. It's just a fantasy. We're all making it up. I can tell you it's only in the parliament of Australia, in the House of Representatives, that people don't think that there's some sort of connection between those series of events that have led now to firebombing of small businesses and increasing insurance premiums. The biggest explosion of organised crime in Australia's history has been under this government. Now there's the risk that we're going to see equivalent behaviour with the expansion of illicit alcohol across the sector, which is leading to attacks on small grocery shops, attacks on small businesses and firebombing that's risking people's lives and destroying small business. But, hey, according to the member Fremantle, there's no connection between any of that. It's just a coincidence.

I think we've just got to get real. It's not a coincidence. It's real. It's what Australians are living. It's propagating crime. By the way, that criminal activity and the money that's raised from that activity is then going on to fuel other things, like terrorism. This, by the way, has been a point that has been made by our police services and is very distressing. I know that the Labor members don't like drawing the connection between their budget, their tax regime and organised crime and terrorism, but I'm afraid it's real. Australians are living with this, but we've seen this constant attitude of being drunk on deceit and drunk on denial from this government about the reality of what it is its doing. But Australians are living it. I have no issue calling this out, because there has to be a point at which we in this parliament wake up and people actually start to realise the consequences of their actions. As I outlined, it was the progressive movement in the early part of the 20th century that was responsible for prohibition that went on to lead to the propagation of organised crime, the proliferation of organised cartels and the profiteering, as I said, of organised crime. But, more importantly, it led to violence and death on the United States's streets. Once again, we are seeing a repetition of behaviour. We have progressives who think that their grand intentions are greater than the actual lived outcomes of Australians and that, if only they were left in charge and they had every lever that they could pull at their discretion, all of a sudden they would build a better society. In fact, that's wrong. They're handing our streets over to organised gangs that then use that money to proliferate criminal activity which harms every Australian either financially or in their safety and has gone as far as financing terrorism, and—can I tell you what?—some of us are sick of it.

Some of us are sick not just of the drunken denial from the government about the consequences of this but of the fact that there seems to be this complete disregard of what they're doing to Australian streets. We know that crime is a massive issue in our country. We know who's paying the price for the Labor government's denial on these issues and the consequences of their decisions. We know, because we're living it in our communities and our on our streets, and, while there might be Labor members who like to turn a blind eye, the Australian people are not turning a blind eye.

This measure, of course, is a step in the right direction, but it is a long way from how far we need to go, and until the Labor member for Fremantle, the member for Macnamara or any other members on the other side of this chamber are prepared to be honest with the Australian people and stand up—and we know honesty, by the way. We know full well it was not exactly something that came naturally before the last election. But if they are going to do it, we'd need a sense of honesty about what the consequences of Labor's policy are going to be. I can tell you that the small businesses of the country are desperate for a sense of leadership from this parliament, and it certainly isn't being provided by this Labor government.