Rowan Pike
speaker
55 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 7 Jul
Rowan Pike’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
It's strange to say, but a decrease in the excise rate will actually increase the take because more people, hopefully people will go back to a legal regulated market as opposed to what the current situation is where people are selling it, selling any product.
They don't care what the product is or what's in it, and they don't care who they sell it to.
But I do get in trouble because my views on how to solve the crisis differ from some of those of public health advocates.
But I don't resolve from that.
My position's been based on the global science and the truth, and I'm very comfortable with my standpoint.
In 2010, Australia started ramping up excise rates based on a report that said that would be the best method of containing the smoking market.
In 2011 and 12, we saw an immediate rise in smuggling at the border.
I came to the border force in 2015 and suggested that the ABF should have responsibility for tobacco, that we should do more and that there was a problem growing that was unrecognised and
no response had really been generated.
So they put me in charge of tobacco enforcement and our team grew from a small team to a nationwide team and that became called the Tobacco Strike Team.
But that obviously uncovered, due to the focus,
of our team and the first time that any team had really invested, if team had turned their mind or their resources to illicit tobacco specifically, uncovered the size of the market then.
And I've been trying to warn both Australia and other countries ever since that this is a large problem.
But in terms of the government, the government didn't really realise that it was such a big problem until three years ago.
in 2023 when the criminals who had been flocking to the marketplace due to the high profits that were available and easy opportunities and very low risk of getting caught started firebombing each other.
And so at that point, it became undeniable that we had a huge illicit tobacco problem.
And since then, everyone has realised that it's a huge problem and we've been
um trying to come up with a solution for the last only for the last couple of years but it's been growing well before then so you believe that this gap in the market if you like was created by the soaring price of legitimate cigarettes a hundred percent i mean the excise is the key driver of the market um
It was well-intentioned at the start, but as we know with all prohibition-type policies over the last 100 years, what they do is create an opportunity for crime to come in, undercut that price, and service a market which has not dissipated.
So there was a large smoking market, well, a substantial smoking market,
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