Big tobacco is back in town as cigarette tax fight lights up Australian politics

The tobacco industry’s influence campaign has burst back into the headlines as the Coalition and One Nation pledged cuts to tobacco excise. Photograph: Srdjan Zivulovic/Reuters

Anti-smoking campaigners had been on the lookout for weeks.

While in Canberra for hearings about the booming illicit trade in Australia in May, longtime observers of the tobacco industry suspected its lobbyists were working in the background to influence events.