David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party, Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

Part of that program has just appeared. If you were watching the State of Origin game last night, you would have seen the Don't Make Smokes Your Story ad, which I had a bit to do with and actually spoke about on World No Tobacco Day.

The other thing is that there was a mention of e-cigarettes. The NHMRC and TGA have given very clear advice to the nation that the use of e-cigarettes has not been established as being a safe practice. There are toxins in e-cigarettes, including glycerol, formaldehyde—all sorts of things that in a heated environment can get right into your lungs. We have seen through occupational health and safety many fibrotic lung diseases and cancers that have developed over many years, and with traditional nicotine smoking and inhalation. We have a responsibility not to recommend or legitimise anything that we think is not safe.

There are many things in the rural health space that are right at the heart of the coalition government, and I have mentioned just a couple of them. These criticisms are not correct at all. We are very active in this space. there are the Integrated Rural Training Pipeline initiative, extra specialist training places, regional training hubs, three new university departments of rural health—the list goes on. There are so many initiatives by this coalition government in rural health and against smoking. (Time expired)

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