A Shorten Labor Government will further curtail Australia’s biggest preventable cause of disease and death by raising tobacco excise to bring it in line with world’s best practice.

Tobacco excise

If a Shorten Labor Government is successful at the next election Labor will introduce four annual 12.5 per cent increases in excise on:

• 1 September 2017;
• 1 September 2018;
• 1 September 2019; and
• 1 September 2020.

Following the four 12.5 per cent increases in excise, taxation as a proportion of the retail price of a packet of cigarettes will sit at around the World Health Organisation’s target of 75 per cent of the retail price.

Estimates suggest that in Australia these measures should lead to tens of thousands more Australians quitting smoking and that number again will smoke less than they otherwise would for every excise increase contained in this package.