I tried to tease this out of Shoebridge last week- he saved it for the ABC!
Fresh independent costings done for the Greens show that legal recreational cannabis could generate $700 million annually for Australia’s budget.
That figure from the Parliamentary Budget Office is far lower than previous estimates, and comes after the federal party’s policy was voted down by the two major parties in 2024.
Despite the reduced forecast tax benefits, on Thursday, the Greens will renew their pledge to push legal weed in the next parliament.
“The future that we see is adults being able to make adult decisions about their use of cannabis,” Greens senator David Shoebridge said.
“It’s about going to a really chilled out place: a cannabis cafe, a dispensary.
“And having a cannabis infused latte after a really intense week at work.”
In most jurisdictions, it is still illegal to use, possess, grow and sell cannabis to get high.
That is except in the ACT, where it has been decriminalised and is now legal to grow at home for personal use.
Medicinal cannabis has also been legal for years, after the then-Coalition government paved the way for this back in 2016.
Benefits of legal weed slashed in fresh costings
The Greens put out their last policy in 2023, focused on small-time sellers, a central body to deal with distribution, and home growing of plants.
At the time, modelling of this plan by the independent Parliamentary Budgetary Office (PBO) showed it could generate $28 billion in revenue in a decade.
That would come from GST, company tax and a 15 per cent specialist sales tax.
Yet the modelling was criticised at the time by an economist who specialises in cannabis usage.
Jenny Williams said it was predicated on either a surge in uptake or an incorrect interpretation of current rates of use by people through the black market.
Professor Williams said the PBO’s latest costings of the Greens policy looked closer to the mark.
“The PBO’s correction has led to a downward revision in the average weekly use of cannabis among past year users in Australia,” she told ABC News.
“From 6 grams to 2.8 grams per week, which is less than half of the original figure.
“Once you reduce consumption by more than a half, you see the amount of revenue expected to be raised also fall from $28 billion over 10 years to $11 billion.”
The PBO does not comment on unpublished costings.
But its latest modelling notes the numbers “reflects better the situation in Australia rather than relying on international data and experience”.
“There is a high level of uncertainty in this costing,” the PBO added, noting a lack of data in Australia around production, consumption and market prices.
Currently on the black market, prices can vary from about $10 a gram up to $15 depending on how much dried bud is bought in one go.
Professor Williams said the PBO’s new modelling dropped the expected retail price from $16.95 a gram down to $14.17 a gram.
Getting legal weed down to the same price as the black market is seen as crucial to transferring usage away from drug dealers.
Senator Shoebridge said the party has “always been guided” by the PBO and that the latest figures show legal weed was worth it.
“We are talking billions of dollars of additional revenue, based upon a reform that sees about 60,000 people taken out of the criminal justice system,” he said.
“A reform that sees long-running jobs, sustainable jobs in the legal cannabis industry. We think this is a win, win.”
