Now let’s bring in our panel One Nation Chief of Staff, James Ashby joins Peter every Monday night and Shadow Immigration Spokesman Paul Scarr. Good to see you both. I want to start with those Pro Palestinian Protests that took place around the country. We saw the TV pictures on our news again at the weekend, pretty big crowds in Brisbane, less so in Melbourne and Sydney, but still, people all over the joint. The scenes in Melbourne were really disturbing. Protesters started abusing a group of people inside a Starbucks, shouting about October 7 being faked. Thousands of anti Israel protesters are screaming out things like, October 7 was a hoax set up by Israel to justify its slaughter in Gaza, one woman yelled at shame, saying that, you know you’re buying your coffee for people who support genocide. James, I thought we had anti hate laws in this country. Why don’t we use them?
James Ashby
Well, you won’t stop the deranged attitude of some people in this country. Unfortunately, Stephen and let’s face it, they’re on the left, so they get away with it. These are the same people that would deny that the Holocaust occurred during World War Two and 6 million Jewish people died there too, that you know, they’d tell you that’s a hoax as well. These people are deranged, and unfortunately, a large number of people who were involved in those protests over the weekend are just naive. They don’t understand what is truly going on in that part of the Middle East. And I think shame on a lot of these people. If you lie with dogs, you get fleas, and that’s what a lot of these people have got as a result of these deranged idiots on the weekend.
Steve Price
Paul should Federal Government? Anthony Albanese, Penny Wong, doesn’t matter who be urging their state counterparts to do more to clean up this stuff? Because, In Melbourne, there’s been one of these protests every Sunday since October 7, 2023.
Senator Scarr
Steve, I was shocked to see in Brisbane that there were terrorist flags being flown, a Hamas flag being flown during the protest, and this has caused great concern to the Queensland Jewish Community. I’m very close to our wonderful Queensland Jewish Community, and they’ve suffered from an explosion in anti semitism since the awful events of 7 October and it has just dismayed them that to see people on our streets flying a terrorist flag, and I urge the authorities to take all the appropriate action as a matter of urgency. The laws are now there on the books, outlawing the display of terror symbols such as this. The law needs to be enforced and people need to be held accountable. There is no place for this. And as for people talking about 7 October as a hoax that is just absolutely vile, and As James said, it has the resonance of the Holocaust deniers, those wackos and crazies who come out and deny the existence of the Holocaust. And again, there is no place for this, and it causes so much hurt to people in our Jewish community.
Steve Price
Yeah, absolutely. Well said, Paul, I agree with 100% with what you just said. James, I mean this tobacco excise. The excise will go up again. I think next month, September one, it’ll go up by 5%. Now, this is just crazy. It comes as we know, there’s new stats showing more people are actually smoking, and that’s because they’re smoking cheap illegal tobacco, which is smuggled into the country. Now you’ve got our cigarettes, legal ones, being sold for anywhere between $25 and $55 a packet. You can buy a packet of these fake or, you know, smuggled cigarettes for about six. Why would you put up the excise? I mean, you should be talking about maybe getting rid of the exercise and starting the whole thing again, because a tobacco shop gets fire bombed every night of the week in Melbourne.
James Ashby
Well, the Albanese Government don’t want to learn from the mistakes of previous governments. Remember, when the Coalition were in for almost a bit over nine years, they put up excise 18 times during that time and again, the Albanese Government, by the time they finish this term will have put it up another 12 times. It’s a never ending, perpetual increase that happens twice a year, not just on cigarettes, but alcohol, on fuel as well. And all this is doing is fueling the illegal market. So is it any wonder why people are turning to cheap cigarettes that it doesn’t matter where you go. I can buy them in Yepoon or I can buy them in Canberra here, cheap knock off. Actually, they’re the same brands. They’re just different. They’re labeled different. They are smuggled in. Because, why? Well, we only check about one in every 100, if you’re lucky, shipping containers that come into the country. That’s why we’re getting all this illegal product into the country. And not only are we losing genuine excise revenue that would have been collected on the cigarettes, but we’re now forcing the responsibility to police this on the State Governments, which comes at an added cost. It’s ludicrous. And you know what, smokers, I don’t blame you going looking for the cheaper cigarettes.
Steve Price
Everybody’s doing it. And Paul this, these stats on nicotine were in the wastewater. I mean, it also shows that, you know, nicotine based vapes are still being sold. Didn’t I see Mark Butler come out and tell me that he was going to get rid of all vapes. They were illegal. You couldn’t sell them, and the only place you could get one was from a chemist shop with a doctor’s prescription. What happened to that?
Senator Scarr
I remember when that legislation was brought in Steve and I spoke against it on the obvious argument that the pharmacies didn’t actually want that burden in terms of selling the vapes and having to go through all the rigmarole of checking whether or not someone had a prescription, etc, etc. And I think there has been an explosion in illegal tobacco imports. I think the figures are just astonishing. We’re up to $6 billion or something a year in terms of illegal tobacco imports. There’s been fire bombing of shops in Queensland as well as in Melbourne. You referred to Melbourne. And the other point, Steve, I want to make in relation to this. This has had a huge impact in relation to legitimate Australian businesses. So I was speaking to someone who has a franchise of two convenience stores, and he described to me the impact of this illegal tobacco market on his business, the impact on his revenue in terms of losing legal tobacco sales. So it’s having a huge impact on people who are doing the right thing as well.
Steve Price
Yeah it is. James. Paul, thank you very much for that. I appreciate you making time for us tonight. I mean, on that point, by the way. I mean the vaping shops, they’re just, you know, fragrantly ignoring the law and just selling these vapes as they wish. And there is illegal tobacco under the counter in most of them. I mean, it’s just a mess. The whole policy is a complete mess. Thanks for watching.
