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history.

TOBACCO,

A SMOKIN’ HISTORY

To grow tobacco in Australia, you need a valid excise licence from the

Australian Taxation Office (ATO). No one currently holds such a licence,
making tobacco growing illegal. But it wasn’t always so.

WORDS by Sara Mulcahy

obacco growing started during the early years of settlement. Built on the Barron River, about 100km upstream of its mouth in
At its peak in the 1970s, Australia produced 16,000 tonnes of Cairns, the dam stores 436,500 megalitres of water, distributed by
tobacco leaf a year — more than half of it here in Far North channels that were purpose-built to supply the tobacco farms. It was

TQueensland. filled up for the first time on March 31, 1962, and soon after, Mareeba

became the tobacco capital of Australia.
Each growing area had its own Tobacco Leaf Marketing Board,
which was responsible for allocating supply quotas of tobacco to Cured and graded tobacco leaf was sold to licensed tobacco
the individual growers. Our nearest branch, retitled in 1990 as the manufacturers via the sales floor in Mareeba. Cigarette companies

Australian Tobacco Marketing Advisory Committee, was located in were legally obliged to use at least 50% Australian tobacco in their
Mareeba, the centre for tobacco growing in the Far North. You can local cigarettes, and the Tobacco Leaf Marketing Board oversaw
still see its signage atop the building, now a Westpac bank, on Byrnes industry ‘stabilisation plans’ which guaranteed the sale of leaf at a set
Street, the town’s main thoroughfare. price. For the next few decades, tobacco was the main crop grown on
the Tablelands, and at its peak was worth $50 million a year.
An hour’s drive inland from Port Douglas, Mareeba started life as a
coach stage between here and the mining town of Herberton. In the But the good times didn’t last. Support for the industry began to wane

1890s, the railway from Cairns was opened, and Mareeba became one in the 1980s. Education about the calamitous health effects of smoking
of the busiest spots in north Queensland. For today’s travellers, it’s the saw tobacco use in the Australian population dwindle, and stepped
gateway to the Atherton Tablelands, a rich and diverse agricultural reductions in the protective tariffs meant cigarette manufacturers

area that’s famous for its fruit crops, grazing pastures, waterfalls and could turn to the cheaper international market for their leaf.
historical villages. Tobacco was a major crop here right up until 2004.

The Australian Tobacco Marketing Advisory Committee was

With its rich volcanic soils and subtropical climate, conditions around abolished in 1997, and the Government offered a buyout scheme
Mareeba and nearby Dimbulah were perfect for the cultivation of this which saw many growers diversifying into cattle or produce. Those

specialised crop. In 1926, a Government experiment station was set few who remained were stymied when the last manufacturer, Philip
up a couple of miles out of town to test the possibilities of tobacco Morris, pulled the pin on its North Queensland buying agreements in

growing. Pursuant to its success, the Lands Department threw open 2004. The last sales contracts were filled that same year.
parcels of land for a deposit of £3, and every available acre was taken
up. Today, the land that once produced tobacco now grows limes,
bananas, sugar cane, avocados, mangos and coffee. Pretty much all

A decade or so of setbacks followed, due to the lack of a reliable water traces of its former primary industry have gone. The tobacco sheds

supply. Each seedling needed a cup of water a day to thrive until that littered the landscape have been repurposed or destroyed; the
the rains began, and no rain meant no crop. Many of the pioneers brick kilns and chimneys left to rot. But the memories live on at the

went broke. It became clear that without irrigation, the survival — Mareeba Heritage Museum on Byrnes Street in Mareeba — home to
and expansion — of tobacco was a pipe dream. And so began the Australia’s largest tobacco industry exhibit. Their coffee is excellent,

construction of Tinaroo Falls Dam. too.
CHOP CHOP
In 2004, the average packet of 30 cigarettes cost $9.86. Of this amount, $7.20 went to
the Government in taxes. The manufacturer got $1.30, the retailer another $1.30, and the
remaining six cents went into the pocket of the grower. So it’s perhaps not surprising
that some farmers supplemented their income by selling illegal tobacco, known as

chop chop. Customs and excise officers had absolute power to search farms and houses

without notice or a warrant, and the consequences were serious. Hefty fines and/or jail
time are still the penalty for dealing in chop chop, a clandestine industry that continues in
Far North Queensland to this day.
32 Port Douglas Magazine & Travel Planner Photography: Thank you to Craig Marsterson and Mareeba History Shire Group
PORT DOUGLAS MAGAZINE 33