Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Certainly, I am happy to provide that. I do not have the table in front of me, but I can provide the details that have been made public in the past—and we are happy to make them public—of Customs seizures. They do continue to identify tobacco that is being brought illegally into Australia and we, of course, prosecute people for doing that. The changes that have been announced go to what penalties apply when that happens.

There has been a longstanding dispute between the industry and the government about the extent of this problem. It may well be a dispute that is inevitably going to continue. By its nature, illicit trade means that you cannot always perfectly measure how much is being brought in, but we have a range of different things for measuring it. We have Customs material and household drug surveys. All of them show a far smaller incidence of this than the tobacco industry's own reports. I have said on the record many times before, and I am not ashamed to say it again, that the tobacco industry do not have a good record when it comes to the way they use data and research. In fact, they have a shameful record. So it is fair enough, I think, for me, the government and the public to take with a grain of salt this sort of data that they rely on.

Nevertheless, this change that was announced today, which does not have a separate provision in the budget, is something that the tobacco industry themselves have been calling for. It is in their interests and in the Commonwealth's interests to make sure that, if tobacco is going to be bought and consumed in Australia, the proper taxes are paid and that the proper health warnings are in place. Our government is determined to do everything it can to reduce the number of people who want to participate in that activity.

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