Fireworks black market: Experts struggle to halt sale of illegal crackers

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Pyrotechnics experts are warning it will be difficult to stop Australia's dangerous underground market of illegal professional-grade fireworks.

Police are urging people to hand in their stashes of illegal fireworks before Australia Day, as they investigate two deaths from accidents with the devices.

A 52-year-old man on the NSW Central Coast and a 46-year-old man in Victoria's Gippsland died after they attempted to set off illegal crackers on New Year's Eve.

Australia's fireworks industry is made up of between 250 to 300 companies.

Christian Howard, the president of the Pyrotechnics Industry Association, said the black market fireworks were sourced from legal suppliers in Australia, rather than imported from overseas.

"I think the legal market of suppliers sell to the legal users, that they potentially on-sell them to the illegal market," he said.

"So there's a supply chain that's all legal and then at some point people start selling them to the public.

"I think there is a small amount of direct import but I think that's actually been slowed down in the last 10 years. It's very difficult to export them and import them into the country."

Mr Howard admits it will be difficult to stop the black market in illegal fireworks.

"There was a person selling fireworks out of a white van in Western Sydney and one of my colleagues who worked in the area just advised me that they were there.

"We alerted the authorities.

"They worked out he'd sold several hundred cartons of fireworks per year, just as a one person driving around in a van making a lot of cash on the side."

That person was linked back to a legal supply chain.

"In actual fact, he had a licence to use pyrotechnics but he would buy them and not use them, he would buy them and sell them, which is illegal because you need a licence to sell."

Fireworks are also freely for sale on the internet, including on Facebook.

"We take a lot of time and energy to make sure as an industry that we are safe with storage, handling, using, transporting and then the fact that then anyone can then buy them or sell them online and the general public is then using fireworks," Mr Howard said.

"And probably most of the time they are not low-level fireworks, they are probably the professional-grade, high-altitude aerial shells, which are very dangerous."

'Hand them in', police warn

The sale of fireworks is banned in Australia, except on a single day in the Northern Territory, and under tight controls in Tasmania.

The deaths of two men on New Year's Eve are believed to be the first deaths from illegal crackers in four years.

Victoria's Deputy Commissioner Andrew Crisp has urged people who may be holding onto illegal fireworks for Australia Day to hand them in.

"If you have illegal fireworks hand them in, report to Victoria police report to Worksafe, if you know of someone whose got illegal fireworks, similarly report it.

"How would you feel if you knew someone was about to let off illegal fireworks and it resulted in serious injury or the death of another person?"

Topics: accidents---other, accidents, disasters-and-accidents, law-crime-and-justice, crime, australia, nsw, vic