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Speaker 1: Well, another night, another shop fire, a tobacco shop on

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Speaker 1: Sir Donald Bradman Drive at Cawan Dilla. The lad's targeted

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Speaker 1: and police are investigating links to the illegal tobacco wars.

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Speaker 1: There will be the sixteenth arson attack since July. Now.

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Speaker 1: Jade Robert went out this morning and spoke to Rashid,

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Speaker 1: who owns a shop across the road, a cafe. This

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Speaker 1: is what he had to say.

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Speaker 2: When you see your neighbors get burned, it feels uneasy

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Speaker 2: to anybody anywhere in the world. So yes, it is

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Speaker 2: a problem. It is a major problem. But we're not

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Speaker 2: sure what happened with the tobacco and the burning down,

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Speaker 2: so we can't really say anything about it.

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Speaker 1: And the police commissioner had something to say about it

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Speaker 1: as well. Grant Stevens on five Double a Breakfast about

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Speaker 1: forty minutes ago said this.

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Speaker 3: It's fair to say though, with the issues we have

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Speaker 3: with a list at tobacco, we've been watching this really closely,

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Speaker 3: particularly in Victoria, because we know what's happening over there

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Speaker 3: and we always anticipated that this might head our way.

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Speaker 3: So we're working really closely with the Victoria police, sort

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Speaker 3: of leveraging off the work they've been doing.

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Speaker 4: So is it clear to you then that the problems

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Speaker 4: we're having now with potentially a sixteenth this morning, are

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Speaker 4: they the same people from Victoria now running the same

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Speaker 4: stick here in South Australia or is it a copycat.

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Speaker 3: We believe it's the infiltration of our local market by

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Speaker 3: interstate organized crime groups and we thought this was probably inevitable,

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Speaker 3: but it was very difficult to get in front of.

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Speaker 3: But now we have a dedicated task course that's headed

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Speaker 3: up by Chief Inspector Detective Chief Inspector Brett Featherby, who's

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Speaker 3: probably one of our most credential gang investigators. So we've

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Speaker 3: got a lot of work happening in this space. We've

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Speaker 3: got results, but it's not dampening the effort of organized

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Speaker 3: crime at the moment. So we've had five arrests, we've

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Speaker 3: sieve over half a million dollars in cash, three vehicles.

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Speaker 3: We know who we're looking at from a local perspective,

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Speaker 3: or we know its shops are most at risk. There's

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Speaker 3: hundreds of these shops in South Australia, but we're targeting

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Speaker 3: on those that we think are directly connected to these families,

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Speaker 3: these organized crime networks. But there's a lot more work

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Speaker 3: to be done, but we've got a ton of resources

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Speaker 3: dedicated to this.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's have a chat with THEO Fakare who is

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Speaker 1: from the Australian Association of Convenience Stores. And this is

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Speaker 1: not good news for people in your industry.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, no, not at all, Matthew. And look, I think

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Speaker 5: what we're seeing play out is absolutely an infiltration from

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Speaker 5: interstate operators. I just want to call out the great

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Speaker 5: work that one the police are doing and to the

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Speaker 5: Malanascus government. They've got the settings right as in they've

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Speaker 5: separated the enforcement away from the Health department and they've

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Speaker 5: given it to consumer and business affairs. They've got a

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Speaker 5: task force set up and they've got people on the

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Speaker 5: ground tackling this. Unfortunately, what we're seeing play out is

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Speaker 5: a direct result of, in our opinion, failed federal government

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Speaker 5: policy on the exorbitant excise that has been applied to

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Speaker 5: the tobacco category as well as the effective prohibition of

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Speaker 5: vaping products. So you put those two together, Nationally, we're

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Speaker 5: talking about in excess of eight billion dollars per annum

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Speaker 5: that these criminal gangs are fighting for. So you know,

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Speaker 5: I can understand why we are where we are now.

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Speaker 1: So Margain interrupt you are you saying they want to

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Speaker 1: put businesses that sell things legitimately out of business so

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Speaker 1: they can sell well under the counter somewhere else down

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Speaker 1: on the street, corner, whatever it might be.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's not anymore under the counter. It's actually

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Speaker 5: above the counter on display. And that's part of issue

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Speaker 5: and what we need to see, I mean, from a

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Speaker 5: government perspective in South Australia, it would be great to

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Speaker 5: get the legislation that's currently in the Upper House fast track,

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Speaker 5: which effectively will introduce fines of a million dollars if

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Speaker 5: you're caught breaking the law in this space. And we

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Speaker 5: need to see these people prosecuted. That is a priority.

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Speaker 5: And you know, at the same time, we'd be calling

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Speaker 5: on the South Australian government to actually you know, make

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Speaker 5: their voices heard with the federal government, in particular the

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Speaker 5: Federal Health Minister Mark Butler, to really take a look

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Speaker 5: at this excise position. I mean Mark Butler, his policies

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Speaker 5: are effectively now seeing South Australia burn his own backyard.

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Speaker 5: And we've seen this play out in Victoria, in Queensland

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Speaker 5: and spatters of it in Western Australia. But given the

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Speaker 5: closeness of Victoria to South Australia, you know, obviously it's

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Speaker 5: happening there at a very alarming rate, which is very concerned.

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Speaker 1: Just explain the excise and what impact that plays here.

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Speaker 1: So is it the fact that it's an imposition and

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Speaker 1: too high an in position? Is that the problem.

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Speaker 5: Yes, excise was always put in place, which we agree

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Speaker 5: with as a deterrent to stop people smoking. Unfortunately, over

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Speaker 5: the last twelve years, excise has grown by nearly four

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Speaker 5: hundred percent. So now between what a legal product that

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Speaker 5: you buy versus an illegal product, it's actually a third

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Speaker 5: of the price for an illegal product. So you've got

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Speaker 5: consumers now that are paying fifteen dollars or twelve dollars

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Speaker 5: in some cases for a packet of cigarettes, whereas a

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Speaker 5: legal operator is actually selling that same, sorry a comparable

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Speaker 5: product for forty or forty five dollars. So that gap

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Speaker 5: is what the organized crime groups are actually fighting over

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Speaker 5: because they're not paying the excise and they're just selling

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Speaker 5: this product. And there's a tidal wave of illegal tobacco

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Speaker 5: and illegal baits that are coming into the country. So

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Speaker 5: great to see this work on the arrests and the

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Speaker 5: work of the task force. But you know, this is

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Speaker 5: a significant mountain that I think everyone needs to do

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Speaker 5: everything in their power. So, as I said earlier, fast

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Speaker 5: tracking this legislation that's in the Upper House so that

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Speaker 5: we can find these illegal operators of million dollars and

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Speaker 5: put them all on notice can't come soon enough.

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Speaker 1: Okay. So in the meantime, what are shop owners doing.

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Speaker 1: They having to hire security. I mean they're obviously been

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Speaker 1: concerned with sixteen fires in the last couple of months.

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Speaker 5: Yes, so most retailers now implementing new security measures if

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Speaker 5: they haven't already. So things that they're looking at is

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Speaker 5: they're creating one is definitely CCTV. Two is they're creating

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Speaker 5: safe rooms in back rooms for their staff to protect

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Speaker 5: their staff if they do come in and get attacked. Thirdly,

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Speaker 5: they're investing in different technologies, like these things called fog

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Speaker 5: cannons which you put in the store that you can

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Speaker 5: activate if people try to take the tobacco products. But

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Speaker 5: you know, these fire bombings, it's sort of out of

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Speaker 5: your control because they're happening, you know, at three in

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Speaker 5: the morning or at midnight, and you know, we haven't

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Speaker 5: seen anyone die yet or be seriously injured from one

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Speaker 5: of these fire bombings. However, I hope we don't because

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Speaker 5: I mean that's the last thing that we.

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Speaker 1: Need, absolutely so I appreciate your time.

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Speaker 5: Thank you, Thanks so much, Matthew, have a good day.

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Speaker 1: CEO for Care, who is from the Australian Association of

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Speaker 1: Convenience Stores, Rowan Pike from Rowan Pike Consulting, created and

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Speaker 1: led the Australian Border Forces Tobacco Strike Team and has

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Speaker 1: a wealth of experience in this area. Rowan, good morning,

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Speaker 1: Thanks for coming on morning, Matthew. What is the answer here?

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Speaker 1: Is it? A CEO describes THEO is pretty.

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Speaker 6: Close to the actually he's been across at several years

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Speaker 6: now and realizes what the drivers are. Some of the

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Speaker 6: solutions he touched on. One is your own member for

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Speaker 6: Port Adelaide, mister Butler, who continues to raise excise levels

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Speaker 6: and that's adding fuel to the fires which have now

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Speaker 6: come to Adelaide. And the other one is stricter and

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Speaker 6: more aggressive enforcement. THEO was right saying you've got the

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Speaker 6: settings right, perhaps the template right, having a police task

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Speaker 6: force and community safety trying to look after the shops

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Speaker 6: on the ground, but there just hasn't been enough action

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Speaker 6: and perhaps that's the legislation that needs to be strengthened.

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Speaker 6: And again I hear that there's more legislation coming through

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Speaker 6: parliament over there. But certainly I saw a press release

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Speaker 6: from mister Melanowskis on Saturday saying that they'd seized X

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Speaker 6: million dollars worth of cigarettes. The seizures have no effect

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Speaker 6: on the business, so they're just going to re stop

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Speaker 6: the next day and carry on. It's massive fines, it's

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Speaker 6: jail time, it's they're the top types of terrance that

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Speaker 6: will stop these people setting up shop. That the seizures

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Speaker 6: are really just missing the priority there.

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Speaker 1: All right, how much is coming in? Is you led

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Speaker 1: border force in this area? Why is it coming in

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Speaker 1: to the extent it is?

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Speaker 6: Yeah, again too touched on the price. The price is

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Speaker 6: ninety nine percent of the driver. If you've got a

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Speaker 6: product on the shelf in front of you and one's

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Speaker 6: twenty dollars and one's fifty dollars, most people are going

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Speaker 6: to go for the twenty dollars NT So the price

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Speaker 6: has caused it, and a reasonable a significant reduction in

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Speaker 6: the price might help to alleviate that driver.

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Speaker 1: What do you see is reasonable because you know, the

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Speaker 1: health message has got to stay front of mind, I suppose,

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Speaker 1: or at least right up there along with everything else.

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Speaker 6: Yep, absolutely agree with that. I'm not a smoker or

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Speaker 6: a vapor So it's hard for me to say, what

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Speaker 6: would change my mind if I've moved on to the

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Speaker 6: twenty dollars product and now and they've now got an

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Speaker 6: entrenched market. What price would the legal product have to

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Speaker 6: come down to for me to go back to it.

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Speaker 6: That's a tough decision. It's probably not one that I

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Speaker 6: can answer. But I think the mind said has completely changed,

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Speaker 6: and now that it's entrenched, it's going to be very

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Speaker 6: hard to reverse it.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so this comes down essentially to the excise. That's

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Speaker 1: what it seems to boil down to. You both agree

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Speaker 1: on that.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, well they've pulled that lever. I mean, the leaver

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Speaker 6: has been started back in two thousand when we signed

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Speaker 6: up to an international convention. But since twenty ten, the

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Speaker 6: successive federal governments on both sides have increased that exercise exponentially,

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Speaker 6: and now the leaver has been pulled too far. And

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Speaker 6: you know that's you know, the string has been broken,

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Speaker 6: so people now have no qualms, normal law abiding citizens

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Speaker 6: no qualms about buying the illegal product. And also, let's

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Speaker 6: not forget that, so this is not just Victorian crime

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Speaker 6: gangs coming over to South Australia and harming legitimate businesses

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Speaker 6: over there. The people who are selling the product are

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Speaker 6: doing a criminal act, so they're not necessarily targeting your

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Speaker 6: normal supermarkets or seven elevens or petrol stations. The people

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Speaker 6: who are selling the illicit product are the ones being targeted.

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Speaker 1: And yes, that's right, absolutely by the Grime Task Force,

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Speaker 1: et cetera. Yeah, how are they selling it? Because how

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Speaker 1: would you know if you wanted to get some what

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Speaker 1: are you doing? And there's no ads for it? Obviously?

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Speaker 6: Well funny as you mentioned it. I think I was

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Speaker 6: on five A last week and someone said that they

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Speaker 6: did see an ad coming there, which just goes to

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Speaker 6: show how blatant it is over there. But very easy

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Speaker 6: people obviously, word of mouth. Where do you buy the

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Speaker 6: cheap stuff? Just walking and ask for the cheap cigarettes,

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Speaker 6: simple as.

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Speaker 1: That, all right, So how do they get it into

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Speaker 1: the country? I mean sniffer dogs and all of that.

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Speaker 1: Not effective, they are effected.

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Speaker 6: The customers do the best that they can with the

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Speaker 6: resources they have, but the settings are not such that

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Speaker 6: they stop and search every container that comes in, So

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Speaker 6: there's you know, beast of a small percentage of containers.

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Speaker 6: But if you're bombard the border, and I think THEO

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Speaker 6: said the tsunami of tobacco coming in, you're only going

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Speaker 6: to stop a small percentage of it, and you can

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Speaker 6: just the profits are so large that they can actually

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Speaker 6: lose about twenty five containers and still make a profit

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Speaker 6: on the twenty six. So it's so lucrative that it's

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Speaker 6: grown at the market and now other criminal gangs are

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Speaker 6: wanting to get in on the giggle. I guess yeah.

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Speaker 1: Rowland appreciate your insights. Thank you so much, my pleasure.

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Speaker 1: Thanks Rowan Pipe from Rowan Pipe Consulting, who has created

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Speaker 1: and led the Australian Border Force Tobacco Strike Team in

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Speaker 1: the past