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About the Bill 

On 16 September 2025, the Minister for Health and Ambulance Services introduced the Tobacco and Other Smoking Products (Dismantling Illegal Trade) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 into the Queensland Parliament. The Bill was referred to the Health, Environment and Innovation Committee for detailed consideration.  

View: Explanatory speech
View: Bill
View: Explanatory Notes
View: Statement of compatibility

The objectives of the Bill are to:

• protect public health by reducing the supply and possession of illicit tobacco and illicit nicotine products;
• strengthen existing powers and offences to ensure they provide an appropriate financial deterrent to the supply and possession of illicit tobacco and illicit nicotine products;
• reduce the availability of commercial premises used for the illegal trade;
• hold lessors who permit the supply and possession of illicit products accountable;
• improve enforcement and investigation efficiencies; and
• make minor and technical amendments to improve the operation of the Act.

The Bill proposes various amendments to the Tobacco and Other Smoking Products Act 1998. The amendments introduce a suite of measures to address the public health issues stemming from the supply and commercial possession of illicit tobacco and illicit nicotine products. Proposed measures include: 

• expanding ‘interim’ closure powers (issued by the chief executive) from 72 hours to 3 months
• expanding long term closure powers (issued by a Magistrate) from 6 months to 12 months
• introducing a new offence for continuing business operations when subject to a closure order
• introducing a new statutory power to enable a lessor to cancel a lease when a premises is subject to a closure order
• introducing a new offence where lessors knowingly permit premises to be used to supply or possess illicit tobacco or illicit nicotine products, and introducing civil penalty orders for knowingly or recklessly permitting premises to be used to supply or possess illicit tobacco or illicit nicotine products (as an alternative to criminal prosecution)
• new deeming provisions relating to executive officer liability for certain offences
• expanding existing seizure and forfeiture powers to allow authorised persons to seize and forfeit lawful smoking products (as compromised goods) when lawful goods are found alongside illicit tobacco or illicit nicotine products
• expanding existing entry powers to allow authorised persons to enter wholesale premises without a warrant or the occupier’s consent
• new powers to enable ‘controlled purchase officers’ to conduct covert operations, authorised by the chief executive and supervised by an authorised person chosen by the chief executive
• powers to allow authorised officers to ‘require information’ from any person relevant to certain monitoring and enforcement actions, and a new offence for failing to comply with a requirement to provide information without reasonable excuse; and
• expanding the information required as part of an initial licence application.

The Bill proposes to amend the State Penalties Enforcement Regulation 2014 to prescribe three offences as penalty infringement notice offences with their respective penalty amounts

Further information

Further information including written briefings, correspondence, response to submissions, transcripts and answers to questions taken on notice will available under the Related Publications tab.

Call for submissions

The committee invites submissions on any aspect of the Bill, from all interested parties. 

Guidelines for making a submission to a parliamentary committee are available here: Guide to making a submission. Please ensure your submission meets these requirements.

Click here to make an online submission to the Bill

The closing date for submissions is 10am, Friday 10 October 2025. 

Submissions must include:

• the author’s full name
• if the submission is made on behalf of an organisation, the level of approval (e.g. a local branch, executive committee or national organisation),
• and at least two of the following:
  - email address
  - mailing address
  - daytime telephone number

Please ensure your submission includes the above or it may not be considered by the committee. If you are unable to provide a written submission, please contact the secretariat to discuss other options.

Please note: Your name and submission may be published on the committee’s inquiry webpage, which will mean it can be viewed on the internet. You can request for your name to be withheld from your published submission, or for both your name and your submission to be kept confidential (i.e. not published). Decisions about whether and how submissions are published are at the discretion of the committee.

PUBLIC PROCEEDINGS

The committee has scheduled a public briefing on the Bill by officers from Queensland Health on Wednesday, 8 October 2025 and a public hearing on Tuesday, 21 October 2025.  See timeline below for further information.

Committee’s report

The committee is due to table its report on Friday , 7 November 2025. The report will be published here.

Once the committee’s report has been tabled, the Government has three months to respond to the report’s recommendations (if any). At that time, the Government Response will be published here.

Timeline