One Nation policy aims to slash cigarette costs and undercut illicit tobacco gangs

Packets of legal cigarettes would cost around $20 less according to a new One Nation plan to stamp out Australia’s illicit tobacco trade by slashing the current high rates of excise by 75 per cent.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson insists her party’s policy, which includes pausing indexation for three years, is not about encouraging smoking but taking on organised crime gangs and smashing the black market.

“People are sick of the firebombing, shootings, extortion and killings. They are sick of watching tobacco shops burn, while organised crime takes control of the market,” Senator Hanson said.

“Labor’s policy is failing. ABS estimates show illicit sources supplied 80 per cent of nicotine consumed in 2025, while total consumption rose almost 40 per cent between 2017 and 2025.”

According to One Nation, legal packets of 20 cigarettes now include excise of about $30.60, with smokers increasingly turning to tobacco from the black market.

Under its newly released policy, One Nation would cut excise by 75 per cent and pause indexation for three years, which it calculates would bring down the cost of a legal packet from $46.50 to about $21 or $22.

“Excise revenue is in free-fall, dropping from $12.6 billion in 2022–23 to an estimated $4.1 billion in 2025–26 and $3.6 billion this financial year,” Senator Hanson said in a statement outlining the proposal.

“Labor has not only lost the revenue, it has lost control of the black market in illegal tobacco. Every budget prediction they have made on excise has been wrong, wrong, wrong.”

As part of the tobacco excise cut, One Nation says its plan would also be matched with stronger border enforcement, faster shop closures, tougher penalties for traffickers and attack organisers, and aggressive seizure of criminal assets and unexplained wealth.

“We do not blame Australians under cost-of-living pressure for stretching their budgets. We blame a government that kept doubling down while organised crime built a multibillion-dollar market,” Senator Hanson claimed.

“This is not about encouraging smoking. It is about restoring the rule of law and breaking the black market. Labor handed this market to organised crime. One Nation will take it back.”