One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce has rejected claims that arguments for cutting the price of legal cigarettes could also be used to support the legalisation of cocaine and marijuana.
Joyce faced questions over the comparison as Australia’s tobacco debate intensifies, with One Nation and the Coalition both putting forward contentious plans to dramatically reduce the tobacco excise in an effort to curb the booming illegal cigarette market.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor last week backed an 80 per cent cut to the excise, following One Nation’s proposal just days earlier for a 75 per cent reduction.
NSW Premier Chris Minns has also kept pressure on the federal Labor government, repeatedly urging his colleagues in Canberra to consider lowering the tobacco excise or at least reviewing the current rate.
Such a steep reduction could wipe about $30 off the price of a packet of cigarettes, taking prices back to levels not seen since 2013.
During an interview with Joyce, ABC Afternoon Briefing host Patricia Karvelas pointed out that countries including Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines still have illegal cigarette markets despite having much lower tobacco taxes.
Joyce responded: ‘Now, we have had no luck in trying to stop marijuana either. We’ve had no luck with cocaine. There are a lot of things we’re really struggling with.
‘With cigarettes, we are still never going to solve the problem. But you’re certainly going to alleviate it. Bring the price of legal cigarettes down to where they should be – illegal ones are around $15.’
One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce claimed to ABC presenter Patricia Karvelas that smoking cigarettes is safer than getting behind the wheel
She then asked Joyce on why his argument for making legal cigarettes cheaper should not also apply to legalising marijuana and cocaine.
‘You mentioned cocaine and marijuana. Why don’t you legalise those then? If the argument is that you can make sure they’re safer and know what’s in there.’
Joyce then hit back, arguing that cigarette smoking posed less of a danger than taking cocaine or marijuana.
‘If I’m going down the road, what would you rather me be doing? Having a bunga (cigarette) in my mouth and smoking it, or taking a big long line (of cocaine) and sticking it up my nose, or maybe just pulling a whole heap of cones?’ Joyce fired back.
‘Which one do you feel safer with?’
Karvelas laughed and shook her head in response.
‘All of it seems alarming to me as a scenario,’ she told Joyce.
‘I suppose the health impacts, and the health impacts of smoking, are pretty dire?’
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A major cut to the tobacco excise could see the cost for a pack of cigarettes drop by $30 to prices not seen since 2013
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A cigarette smoker himself until two years ago, Joyce pointed out that no driver has been busted for being over the limit due to cigarettes.
‘But, by gosh, if you’re pulling bucket bongs and deciding to go for a drive down to the shops, it’s probably more dangerous isn’t it,’ he said.
Around 80 per cent of all tobacco consumed in 2025 was illegal, up from 12 per cent in 2017, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates.
‘We used to have cheaper cigarettes and we didn’t have an illegal trade,’ Joyce said.
‘Then we got really dear cigarettes and we get an illegal trade.
‘We’ve had no luck in trying to stop marijuana either or cocaine.
‘With cigarettes, you’re never going to solve the problem but you’re certainly going to alleviate it when you bring the price of legal cigarettes – a regulated product – down to the orbit to where they should be.’
‘Now we’re getting less excise, even though the price is outrageous and overwhelmingly goes to the federal government coffers.
‘They believe (smoking cigarettes is) morally wrong but they believe it’s morally right to get the money from it.’
Joyce also accused the Coalition of copying One Nation, a claim that was vehemently denied.
‘This is not a slogan. This is not a headline. This is a solution to a policy problem, a failure of this government,’ Liberal deputy Jane Hume said.
Meanwhile, senior government minister Tanya Plibersek dismissed proposals to slash the tobacco excise, branding it a race to the bottom.
‘It will kill people. Like seriously, we have some of the lowest smoking rates in the world because cigarettes are expensive,’ she told News24.