by
The Australian Financial Review
Policies have consequences, and despite the laudable aim of reducing smoking, plain packaging of cigarettes always had the downside potential to encourage a black market. Without branding to attract consumers, the best smokes became the cheapest. And what's the best way to make smokes cheap? Don't pay 62¢ of every stick in excise (69¢ from September). Now, as Duncan Hughes reports today, the government faces a nationwide black market, run by criminal gangs, of at least 350 shops, costing the taxpayer an estimated $4 billion per year.
And who is responsible? Well, as today's reporting shows, each government agency seems to think someone else is!
