The South Australian government will table amendments to cigarette and retail laws in parliament this week, in a bid to crack down on the illicit tobacco trade.
Under the proposed changes, dealers could be jailed for up to 17 years and anyone caught with large commercial quantities could face fines of up to $21 million, up from $6.6 million. Expiations for supply and possession would rise from $20,000 to $175,000.
Landlords convicted for a second time of knowingly causing or permitting their premises to be used for illicit conduct could be jailed for a year. Police Minister Michael Brown said the laws would close a gap.
“There’s been a gap in the law when it comes to powers and obligations on landlords in particular,” Mr Brown said. “One of things that landlords have told us is that they felt that our closure orders in South Australia weren’t for a long enough period and also that they weren’t empowered enough to be able to cancel leases of those people running illegal tobacco stores.”
The amendments also create a new 130-day closure order for businesses, between the current 28-day option and the 12-month closure imposed by courts, and ban ATMs from retailers found selling tobacco without a licence.
Rohan Pike, a former federal police officer and founder of the Tobacco Strike Team, said the legislation acknowledged that earlier settings had failed. “It seems that they’re locked in a bit of an arms-legislation race with the other states,” he said. “There’s a difference between harsh legislation and harsh enforcement. It’s not certain that South Australia has sufficient resources to enact these proposals.” Asked about the penalty scale, he said he could not see how a 21-year penalty for selling cigarettes would ever be enforced, saying “You hardly get that for murder these days.”