Australian and Chinese authorities have worked together to crack an international syndicate shipping illegal tobacco into Australia.

More than 60 people have been arrested in China over their involvement with the syndicate, which the Australian Border Force (ABF) found had shipped more than 90 containers carrying tobacco to Australia between January and May this year.

The ABF revealed more than 60 million cigarettes were seized, along with 60 kilograms of loose-leaf tobacco, worth over $92 million. The tobacco’s value is measured on taxes evaded. Chinese authorities traced the tobacco as likely manufactured and moved through South-East Asia, where it would be hidden among legitimate cargo bound for Australia.

That has led to a political push from figures like NSW Premier Chris Minns and One Nation to cut the tobacco excise, currently about $30 for a 20-cigarette packet. But the federal government has maintained that cutting the tobacco excise is unlikely to stop the criminal trade and has instead stepped up enforcement efforts.

Foreign affairs minister Penny Wong has expressed “outrage” and will call in the Israeli ambassador over the Israel Defense Forces decision overnight not to open a criminal investigation into Gaza strikes that killed Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom.

In a statement released on Thursday, Penny Wong called the timing of the decision, on World Humanitarian Day, “especially insulting”.

The April 2024 strike hit a convoy of World Central Kitchen vehicles, killing seven humanitarian workers from the US-based aid group, which has distributed food in Gaza throughout the war. The IDF said on Wednesday it had mistaken several individuals in the vehicles for armed Hamas military operatives, and that the convoy deviated from the previously coordinated route. It concluded that “the decisions of the commanders did not raise reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct”. Two officers were removed from their positions at the time and three others reprimanded.

One of those killed in the strike was Frankcom, an Australian aid worker. The Australian government has previously called the deaths a “tragedy and an outrage” and pressed for full accountability and “any appropriate criminal charges”. In February the Australian prime minister Albanese said he had made it clear to Israel and its president, Isaac Herzog, that Australia expected transparency about Israel’s then-ongoing investigation into the incident.

Many human rights experts and MPs have also demanded the Australian government to put sanctions against the state of Israel and stop sending weapons parts to Israel.

Consumer privacy advocates have responded with alarm after Coles and Woolworths confirmed they were testing facial recognition technology that they could use in their Australian supermarkets to record shoppers’ personal biometric data.

The two companies confirmed on Monday that they had tested the technology and said they were considering installing it in their Australian stores to crack down on retail crime including aggression towards staff. They also said they had not made a final decision on whether to proceed with the rollout, and neither supermarket chain would disclose which company had provided them with the software they had tested.

The supermarkets’ exploration of facial recognition software follows a decision by the administrative review tribunal in February to greenlight Bunnings’ use of the technology on its customers. After an appeal by Bunnings, the tribunal reversed a 2024 ruling by the privacy commissioner that had found the hardware giant breached the privacy of store visitors by scanning and checking their faces.

Marketing expert Dr Pallant from RMIT University said the trials posed a “security versus privacy dilemma”, when the solution is all about being transparent and educating consumers about how the procedure works. Tom Sulston, the head of policy at Digital Rights Watch, also said facial recognition was “wildly inaccurate”, and the supermarkets’ approach is rendering consumers’ experience unsafe.