Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Tobacco remains the leading cause of preventable death and disability in our country, so I welcome the opportunity to speak about the Public Health (Tobacco and Other Products) Bill 2023. After a wasted decade, this government said that we wouldn't waste a day, and this is one of the reasons that we've brought this bill to the House. Research estimates that two in three lifetime smokers will die from disease caused by their smoking. It remains the leading cause of cancer in our community. There are very few people that have not in some way been impacted by smoking related disease. That can include lung cancer, prostate cancer and bowel cancer, and all can be related to tobacco related diseases.

It costs Australia approximately 20,000 lives per year. This is a really sad number. It's not only the people who lose their lives to cancer related illness; it's the people they leave behind. My colleague was explaining to me how her father passed away from lung disease at the age of 70. Considering what the life expectancy is of Australians, that's really quite sad. I think that everyone would prefer to have their parents on this planet for as long as possible. The community impact is widespread, and this is fundamentally something that we can prevent. Smoking related disease also places a heavy burden on our healthcare system, and there's an economic cost that could be diverted elsewhere into research on other preventable diseases.

What is also a concern to me is the discrepancy between the rates of smoking for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Information from the Cancer Council reveals that while smoking rates across Australia have declined substantially over the past decade to about 15 per cent of the population, among the most disadvantaged groups rates are up to five times higher than the average population. While tobacco use has decreased over time, it remains much higher for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. About 45 per cent of our First Nations Australians smoke, compared to around 15 per cent for non-Indigenous Australians. Once again, we see a gap that needs to be closed. These rates of tobacco use are a major contributing factor to poor health incomes among our First Nations Australians. This means that the most disadvantaged groups in Australia bear a disproportionate share of tobacco related illnesses.

If we close the gap on smoking, we can improve the health outcomes for the most vulnerable people in our community, and I am super passionate about closing these gaps. Reducing smoking rates in these populations is an important and pressing public issue. Therefore, any measures that aim to do this should be wholeheartedly welcomed by the House. Putting in place effective measures to improve the lives of all Australians is the goal of this government, and these new laws aim to curb smoking and addiction to tobacco products. These are the biggest anti-smoking reforms in 12 years.

When we legislated our original plain-packaging rules, the world was looking at Australia. These were some of the biggest reforms that we had seen across the world, and, once again, Labor led the way to show that this is something that we can do. We can look at the marketing mechanism and actually reduce the rates of people smoking. These latest changes will require cigarette and vape packages to include health warnings. Under these new laws, individual cigarettes will carry warnings about the danger of the habit. Under these laws, the use of additives such as methanol will be banned.

We have also seen the rise of tobacco related products such as e-cigarettes. We have a commitment to improving the health of all Australians; however, the prevalence of vaping among our young Australians is now becoming a nationwide problem, and urgent action is needed. The latest research found that smoking and vaping cause eye problems in young people. An international study from Canada's McGill University found that people that smoke a combination of vapes and cigarettes have a higher likelihood of developing eye issues.

The use of e-cigarettes has become more common among both smokers and non-smokers. It's become more common across all age groups but, in particular, young people. We're seeing that this is a problem that high schools are needing to tackle. This is a concern for all of us, including parents. E-cigarettes are recognised as a pathway for people taking up smoking. While we've reduced the number of people smoking significantly in recent decades, e-cigarettes are now seen as a newfangled product that teenagers are fascinated to look at. But, once again, what it's doing is normalising smoking. Some of these e-cigarettes and vapes have added additives and flavouring, such as glycerol, propylene glycol and sorbitol, which makes them more toxic. Additives to tobacco products can amplify the effects of nicotine on the brain, making them even more addictive.

The flavours include cherry, menthol, strawberry—it sounds a bit like candy or ice cream. What they're trying to do is improve the user's experience of the tobacco product and make it more difficult for people to actually quit and also make it more marketable to young people by making it look like it's not what it really is. The truth is it's toxic chemicals that people are pumping into their systems.

Plain packaging has meant that the tobacco industry has had to devise clever strategies to market its products. Essentially, that's what I see e-cigarettes doing. Unconsciously, they are targeting children and, unfortunately, it is working. The National Health Survey data indicated that just under one in 12 Australians aged between 15 and 17 reported using an e-cigarette or vaping device at least once during 2020-21. This number is rising based on all the current trends.

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The tobacco companies have made a field day of targeting teenagers to increase their market share. It's something they're doing very intentionally, and it's something we need to be very cognisant of, particularly as legislators of this country. These companies make packaging child-friendly to appeal to teenagers. They're wanting to make smoking appear to be cool and acceptable again. The packaging is relatively discreet, so they don't look like cigarettes, which allows children to hide their e-cigarettes from their parents and their teachers.

The tobacco industry has spent millions, if not billions, defining and measuring the harshness experienced by a person during inhalation of their products—the roughness or the rawness in someone's mouth or throat. So, they've started to add sugars and other additives to basically design and manipulate the appearance of the harshness of the smoke on the mouth and throat. They go as far as to add extra chemicals in order to change the nature of the smoke by improving the aroma so that the experience is perceived to be more appealing to the smoker and to those standing by. It's sneaky, it's manipulative, and it's fundamentally about getting more and more people hooked on smoking so that the tobacco companies can increase their market share so that they can increase the sale of their products. The truth is, if they didn't disguise it, people would see it for what it truly is.

When I was growing up my father was a smoker, and as a kid I knew instinctively that it was a toxic habit. If you're honest, cigarette smoke doesn't really smell that pretty. One of the great things when I became a young adult was that we used to go out to the pub or to nightclubs, but you'd go home and you'd smell like an ashtray because of all the public smoking that used to happen in those venues. One of the great things that happened was when we banned smoking in those venues because nobody wanted to smell like an ashtray. It was so not the kind of thing that people wanted to do. But now that the tobacco companies have worked out that people don't want to smell like ashtrays, they're instead making smells—like cherry, like strawberries, these fresh fruity aromas that sound like candy.

This is about the market and increasing profits. We need to change our thinking about the way we control tobacco in our country, and we need laws that adapt to the current trends. We need to stay ahead of the big tobacco companies. Australia has a great legacy of being able to do this. We need to have a look at being a leader to make sure we look after our public and our community firsthand. We do this by listening, learning and responding to what's happening amongst our youth and amongst our community, especially those in Indigenous communities.

The government has recognised that a renewed focus on improving the health of all Australians is needed and hence we need this legislation. The community needs to understand that it's about more than just preventing kids from vaping at school. The new laws will allow Australia to reinforce its position in the world as a leader on the control of tobacco. The things we're looking at include updating and improving the health warnings. We're looking at improving coverage and enforcement and compliance by tobacco companies. We want to restrict the use of additives and regulate product design features. We want to make sure we restrict the use of brand names and insert the health promotion measures to help people quit, and also look at mandatory disclosure of all the ingredients.

This is one of the reasons the national peak medical body, the Australian Medical Association, as well as the Australian College of General Practitioners, are for the large part supporting the government's initiatives contained in this bill. Stronger regulation and enforcement of all e-cigarettes comes after a public consultation process in response to increased e-cigarette usage by children. The range of tobacco control measures, on top of the plain packaging of tobacco, will help the government achieve this aim.

There has never been a more important time to introduce this bill to parliament, because Australia's current tobacco related measures are split across eight different laws, regulations, instruments and court decisions. For example, the government is prohibiting certain forms of tobacco advertising. That's now 30 years old. But we are sorting out the convoluted patchwork of regulations, because we can no longer have smokers falling through the cracks. This bill brings tobacco measures together with 11 new measures into a single streamlined and effective act of parliament, which will re-ignite the fight against tobacco and nicotine addiction. The government is taking action for the benefit of the health of all Australians. Basically we've set an aim to reduce the national smoking rate to less than 10 per cent by 2025 and to five per cent or less by 2030, with the aim of reducing the rate to 27 per cent among First Nations people by 2030. It's one of the reasons that the national peak medical body and the Australian Medical Association are leaders and are supporting this bill. I think that these laws will help the government to achieve this aim. Really, this is about the future of our children. It's about the future of the health of our people in Australia, so I commend this bill to the House.

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