• March 28, 2024

Fair go mate!

 Fair go mate!

The Lower House of the Australian parliament on Wednesday passed and sent to the Senate a bill that would introduce a jail term of up to five years for possessing, buying or selling illicit tobacco products, according to an Aap Newsfeed story relayed by the TMA.
Those who manufacture such products would be liable to a jail term of up to 10 years.
Liberal MP Craig Kelly said that whenever the government increased taxes, making cigarettes more expensive, black market activity increased.
It was necessary to respond to such increased activity, he added, by making the appropriate resources available to law enforcement agencies engaged in tackling the black market.
And it was necessary to ensure that penalties for illegal activities were appropriate.
Meanwhile, the Labor MP Shayne Neumann said that since the Australian Border Force’s tobacco strike team was established in October 2015, it had seized ‘104 MT of smuggled tobacco and 233 million cigarettes’.
Neumann said illicit tobacco trade “undermines the Australian government’s strategies in terms of prevention and control of tobacco products”.