Emma McBride (Dobell, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this motion moved by the member for Macarthur, and in doing so recognise his life's work as a paediatrician and his strong voice in this place for better health for all Australians, especially children and young people. Dr Mike isn't afraid of saying what's right, even when it's not popular, and often in the face of loud voices.

As the only pharmacist in this place and someone trained in nicotine addiction and smoking cessation, I thought it was important to bring the debate about e-cigarettes back to where it should be and to examine some of the key facts. First, no brand of e-cigarette has been approved by the TGA for assisting people to quit smoking. Systematic evidence and quality trials have found no conclusive evidence that e-cigarettes are an effective quit aid or that they are more effective than approved, established methods for quitting smoking. According to NHMRC reports, e-cigarette use in nonsmokers is associated with future uptake of tobacco cigarette smoking, countering claims that e-cigarette use is mainly by long-term smokers to help them quit. The market for e-cigarettes is clearly young people and the tobacco industry's profit drivers to addict a new generation. Current use of e-cigarettes among Australian teenagers aged 14 to 17 is 17.5 per cent, second only to 18- to 24-year-olds, with the highest usage rate, of 18.7 per cent. As leading respiratory physician Professor Matthew Peters points out, documentary evidence suggests kids who use vaping are three to four times more likely to go from e-cigarettes to smoking. Vaping is what the Public Health Association of Australia has called a Trojan Horse to effectively market tobacco products. Australia has an outstanding record of protecting young people from the harms of tobacco and nicotine, which we must protect.

Second, Australia has one of the lowest smoking rates in the world, despite what the lobbyists might tell you. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data published in July shows daily smoking rates to be at an all-time low of 11 per cent. This has been hard fought in the face of strong opposition from big tobacco and vested interests, and I acknowledge former federal health minister Nicola Roxon's work implementing plain packaging in 2012—Australia, leading the world in preventative health policy to control tobacco. In 2017, when presented with the Bob Elphick medal, Nicola Roxon said:

We all know that tobacco is such a scourge on our community that constant and refreshed effort is needed to limit the harm caused to Australians.

I couldn't agree more, which is why we must call out false claims by lobbyists that reductions in smoking prevalence have stalled or slowed as a means of aggressively promoting e-cigarettes as a quit method. As Associate Professor Renee Bittoun from the Woolcock Institute, who established one of the first smoking cessation clinics in Australia, said, 'Australia has one of the lowest rates of smoking in the world. We manage smokers well. There is no need to introduce a new nicotine product into the country.'

Let's debunk a myth: the claim that e-cigarettes are safe or less harmful than smoke cigarettes. There is no scientific basis for this claim. The health impacts from exposure to foreign substances—for instance, asbestos—can take decades to appear, and there is growing evidence to suggest that long-term inhalation of e-cigarette liquids or vapours is likely to pose health risks. Worldwide, millions of young people, who on previous trends were otherwise at no risk of harm from smoking or e-cigarettes, are using e-cigarettes, and many are now smoking because of e-cigarettes.

What goes into e-cigarettes? We don't know. Labelling of e-cigarettes and e-liquids has been found to be incomplete or inaccurate. Products have been found to contain chemicals that were not listed on the label, or the label has stated incorrectly that they didn't contain potentially toxic chemicals despite analysis confirming their presence. There might also be wide variations between the levels of nicotine stated on packaging and the amount contained in e-liquid. One study comparing identical models of e-cigarettes found nicotine content varied by up to 12 per cent within batches and up to 20 per cent between batches. What we do know is that e-cigarette liquids or vapours might also contain potentially harmful chemicals that are not present in smoke from tobacco cigarettes, that e-cigarettes might expose users to metals such as aluminium, arsenic, chromium, copper, lead, nickel and tin, that the rise in popularity of e-cigarette use has corresponded with an increasing number of reported nicotine poisonings due to exposure to ingestion of e-liquids, and that e-cigarette use exposes both users and bystanders to particulate matter that might worsen existing illness or increase the risk of developing cardiovascular or respiratory disease.

I'm going to finish with the words of a leading expert, Professor Matthew Peters. He says: 'The long-term effects of vaping are still unknown. However, short-term effects include onset of pneumonia and other lung diseases.' Australia has done fantastically well to reduce smoking rates. Current rates for people in the 14-to-17 age bracket are between three and four per cent. These figures are the envy of the world, and there is a desperate need to avoid introducing a product that risks increasing rates. We must protect young people from this scourge of nicotine.

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