‘All for it’: Why non-smokers are backing Pauline Hanson’s push for $22 cigarettes

Exclusive: Half of nine.com.au readers are in favour Pauline Hanson’s plan to slash the price of cigarettes to about $22 a pack, including a surprising number of non-smokers who wouldn’t save a single dollar if it passed.

Earlier this week One Nation revealed a radical new tobacco policy which would cut the tobacco excise by 75 per cent and pause indexation for three years.

If passed in full, it would slash the price of a $46.50 packet of legal cigarettes to about $22.

A nine.com.au reader survey of nearly 1200 Australians revealed that one in four were opposed to Hanson’s proposal, and the same proportion felt neutral about it.

“If the government took the tax off cigarettes, there wouldn’t be a black market,” one told nine.com.au.

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Another asked, “Why can’t Labor see $30 tax on a packet of cigarettes is ridiculous?”

But when asked if they’d be more inclined to buy cigarettes if they were just $22 a pack, 40 per cent of nine.com.au readers said no.

Only 12 per cent said they’d be eager to buy cheaper cigarettes, while many more said they were on the fence or non-smokers.

“I have never smoked, but the cost of cigarettes is outrageous,” one person said.

Another added, “I don’t smoke but anything that will reduce illegal cigarette trade, I am all for it.”

Hanson said One Nation’s proposal is designed to take on organised crime and shatter the black market for tobacco.

“This is not about encouraging smoking. It is about restoring the rule of law and breaking the black market,” she said on Tuesday.

“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.”

All tobacco sold in Australia is subject to an excise, which has been in place since federation, was hiked in the 2000s, and is indexed twice a year.

Recent federal budgets have also shown multibillion-dollar falls in tobacco excise takings, wiping billions from the nation’s budget.

The rising cost of cigarettes has put some Aussies off smoking, while many of those who maintain the habit have been pushed towards a tobacco black market linked to organised crime.

Experts say reducing the cost of cigarettes could help kill the illicit tobacco trade, but Labor is firmly against it.

“Governments aren’t usually in the habit of engaging in price competition with organised crime,” Health Minister Mark Butler told the ABC this week.

The nine.com.au poll, which runs once a fortnight, canvases the views of the Nine audience on Idea Xchange, which is an online community of our readers and viewers. Learn more and sign up here.