Labor’s tobacco tsar Julian Hill on Al Capone and the paradox of taxing vice
The Victorian MP says there’s a ‘significant degree of creativity’ in the government’s efforts to crack down on the illicit tobacco trade.
It’s uncommon for an MP to cite a Prohibition-era American gangster. But that’s exactly the era which critics of Australia’s tobacco laws say the country has reverted to.
The parallels are obvious: a government cracking down on a common vice, a booming black market filling the void, and police playing what feels like a game of whack-a-mole.
“Ultimately, Al Capone was done on tax evasion,” Labor MP Julian Hill tells Capital Brief in his parliamentary office.
“There’s a significant degree of creativity being implemented now, including things which the criminals won’t know about till they get got.”
