Australia debates tobacco tax cuts to combat black market, risking youth smoking rise

Is smoking cool again?

Better not ask singer Charli XCX, who was photographed at the height of her Brat summer, receiving a birthday bouquet stuffed with cigarettes.

At the time Vogue noted the tongue-in-cheek gift was the kind of thing a Swiftie might "baulk" at.

No shade to Taylor Swift, but the subtext was clear: smoking was, regrettably, cool.

Australia considers dramatic change

Fortunately for Australian health advocates, that aesthetic does not appear to have penetrated the psyche of the average teenager.

Smoking among 14 to 17-year-olds has fallen to levels almost too low to reliably track, while local research found teens generally described young smokers as "losers" or "trying too hard to be cool".

But there remain concerns. A poll released this year found 26 per cent of 12 to 17-year-olds had tried some form of nicotine, while another 15 per cent were considering it.

All of these factors matter if Australia is seriously considering a dramatic change in how nicotine is regulated.

More than half the cigarettes sold in the country are now purchased illegally, while the estimated nicotine black market share jumps to 80 per cent when vapes and pouches are included.

Coalition releases its plan

The solution proposed this week by the Coalition is to slash the tobacco excise by 80 per cent, just edging out One Nation's 75 per cent in what Labor has dubbed a "race to the bottom" with organised crime.

But the policy unveiled by Opposition Leader Angus Taylor this week went further than the excise.

In addition to money for more law enforcement and a public education campaign, the Coalition wants to legalise and tax vapes and nicotine pouches.

That has Labor and medical experts very worried.

A young person who has vaped is five times more likely to take up smoking, according to one study cited by the Cancer Council.

Australia has to date taken a highly restrictive approach to alternative nicotine products, restricting the sale of vapes to pharmacies and banning pouches.

Enforcement has become much more aggressive, though it plainly has not eliminated the retail black market.

But where reforms can claim some success has been in youth vaping rates, which have dropped by about a third since 2024.

It is this progress in particular the federal government and health advocates fear would be undone by the Coalition's policy.

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One question opponents care about

There is only one question that matters to opponents of the idea Australia can tax and regulate its way out of a very dangerous organised crime-fuelled tobacco black market: Is a rise in smoking and nicotine addiction a price worth paying?

It's a premise either avoided or outright rejected by those who believe a more affordable legal option is preferable to the status quo.

Taylor this week has argued the "horse has already bolted" on higher smoking rates, suggesting things couldn't get worse.

He can argue that because this debate has been riddled with selective use of statistics and preferred sources of information.

While a national household survey has tracked a drop in smoking rates and stabilisation of vaping, there was about 30 per cent more nicotine detected in wastewater last year compared to 2021.

These two seemingly incongruous points are used to either argue that making cigarettes prohibitively expensive remains an effective tool for reducing smoking, or that people are turning to illegal alternatives and not reporting it.

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Black market situation untenable

There isn't a politician of any stripe who believes the current black market situation is good.

Cigarettes have become more accessible with no checks and balances — no one has any clue what is in those products or who they're being sold to.

It is financing organised crime, which has led to terrifying firebombings — including one that led to the death of an innocent woman.

The federal budget will be billions of dollars poorer over the next four years because of the drop in excise revenue.

But consensus around a problem does not mean all solutions are equal.

A legal packet of cigarettes retails for generally between $40 and $50, of which about $30 is excise, while an illegal pack can be bought for $10 to $20.

A 75 to 80 per cent excise cut would reduce the cost of a 20-packet by $23 to $24.

One Nation and Coalition argue proposals hit sweet spot

The Coalition and One Nation are both arguing their respective proposals hit the sweet spot of making legal cigarettes competitively priced enough to compete with the illicit market.

They are betting on several things for this to work.

The first is that Australians, rule followers that we are, will happily revert to the legal product for the right price.

And the second is that an enforcement squeeze combined with market competition will destroy the criminals' profits.

Both plausible outcomes — it worked in Canada, advocates will tell you.

In 1994 the country successfully quashed its thriving black market by slashing tobacco taxes in half.

But there's a third factor this strategy relies on, and it's important.

The Coalition and One Nation are hoping that the next generation of Australians will enter young adulthood and see a legal pack of cigarettes on the shelf for $20 and think, "nah, I'm good thanks".

Re-enter the Canadian example.

Killing off the black market came at a high cost: Canada has about 190,000 excess daily smokers among the generation born from 1977 to 1985.

To risk a similar result in Australia by making legal cigarettes cheaper and vapes more convenient to access would be a serious gamble.

Health minister questions Coalition

Health Minister Mark Butler has accused the Coalition of having "no understanding" of what its policy would do to Australia's smoking and vaping rates.

Labor's claim to progress in those areas will forever be undermined as long as the black market flourishes — something it does not dispute.

Spending more on enforcement is inevitable, and there is speculation some movement on the excise is possible.

But there is no chance Labor would come near the deep cuts or further legalisation proposed by its political opponents.

That sets up the next federal election as a contest of very different ideas about how to tackle Australia's illegal nicotine problem.

Perhaps against the odds, Australian teens are currently proving impervious to the return of smoking in pop culture.

The Coalition and One Nation will have to prove they believe a generation that has grown up thinking cigarettes are both deeply uncool and prohibitively expensive will continue to resist when the last of those barriers disappears.