Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Hansard source

Let be there no question, the coalition supports any measure to improve the health of all Australians. The intent of the Public Health (Tobacco and Other Products) Bill 2023 is right. However, I question whether this bill does enough. In fact, I can see the measures resulting in perverse outcomes for our nation. Mandating new graphic warnings on packaging, including external warnings, banning packets of certain sizes, banning specified additives and other measures put forward by this bill are all well and good; however, what we don't want to see is an increase in black market sales. I fear these measures could cause that, on top of Labor's legislated five per cent increase in tobacco excise, per year, for the next three years.

We need to acknowledge that there is an unprecedented illegal market operating for tobacco and nicotine vapes around the country. In Melbourne alone, Victoria Police report that there have been at least 29 arson attacks linked to the illegal tobacco trade in Melbourne over the last six months. One in four cigarettes sold now comes from the black market and more then 90 per cent of vaping products are illegally purchased. Australia's black market, unfortunately, is thriving. The current laws do nothing but encourage that criminal behaviour. Unscrupulous individuals sell their products to anyone, including children, with funds used to bankroll even more nefarious activities.

The minister's bill serves to make products he is seeking to ban all that more enticing for the black market. Meanwhile, the Albanese government has refused to provide a single extra dollar for illegal tobacco and vape enforcement, while state police are too busy dealing with burglaries, drug dealers and other criminal elements. With no funding and no plan from the Albanese government to crack down on the black market, authorities have neither the powers, the time nor the resources to police federally, through border control, or through the police at a state level, this huge and growing illegal market.

I will take this opportunity to say I have major concerns about how prevalent these products are among our young people. A recent study found one in four Australians aged 14 to 17 have vaped and 5.7 per cent of teens surveyed class themselves as regular vapers. Those are shocking numbers. Parents and grandparents are deeply concerned about their children and grandchildren vaping.

An estimated 90 million unregulated, illegal Chinese vapes, per year, are flooding into Australia with no product standards, no packaging requirements and no safety standards, all readily available in local stores and online on the black market. With 500 million containers a year flooding through our ports, the Australian Border Force is not equipped to stop every illegal shipment. It is a simple fact. We need measures at federal and state level that stop our children being able to access these colourful, sweet-smelling vapes filled with dangerous chemicals, clearly marketed for them. Current vaping laws are clearly being ignored on an industrial scale. These laws require an adult vaper to go to a doctor to get a prescription, and then find one of the very few pharmacies that stock vaping products. They were well-meaning laws at the time when they were introduced by the former Minister for Health and Aged Care, Greg Hunt, but the landscape has changed. If people cannot get a prescription or see a doctor, the prevalence of the black market trade in vapes makes it simple for them to access. This bill only empowers that trade. The intention of the Minister for Health and Aged Care to ban non-prescription vaping in Australia would result in the same outcome.

The Nationals firmly believe that we should be learning from the past and regulate vapes as we have done with cigarettes. Prohibition of a mainstream adult product has never worked and will never work. However, when Australia regulated cigarettes, we saw an 80 per cent reduction in juvenile cigarette use. The outcome of regulating cigarettes gives a precedent for a path forward. Regulating the sale of vapes to adults will disincentivise the black market. Australia's regulatory model for cigarettes has been proven to work in protecting our children, and we must take the same pragmatic approach to regulate vapes.

According to the RACGP, Australia is the only country in the world to restrict access to vaping products on a prescription-only basis. All other Western democracies regulate vaping products as a controlled adult consumer product. While the Minister for Health and Aged Care may claim this tobacco bill is at the forefront of global tobacco control, the reality is it is half-baked and does not go far enough. Aside from advertising and sponsorship bans on vaping products, which are welcomed, it does nothing to address Australia's rampant vaping crisis. The only way to fix that crisis is to extend this tobacco control bill to regulate vaping products in the same way as tobacco.

Recently commissioned research by the RedBridge Group has found nearly 90 per cent of Australians agree or strongly agree that regulated nicotine vaping products should be sold through licensed retail outlets the same way as alcohol and tobacco products, and 68 per cent of Australians see government regulation of nicotine vapes as poor or very poor. The Albanese Labor government must move the dial on that perception. One thing is for sure: this current bill will not do it. Without change, the health minister's tobacco bill will do nothing to fix Australia's rampant unregulated vaping black market.

On tobacco itself, we must acknowledge this serious social and economic problem too, even as we navigate a newer landscape with the prevalence of vapes. Estimates from FTI Consulting show almost one-quarter of tobacco consumption in Australia in 2022 was illegal, resulting in a revenue loss of $4.2 billion. Imagine what that could fund. These figures highlight the critical need for the Albanese Labor government to implement policy measures to capture that lost revenue. Will this bill do that? It will not. In fact, it is more likely to drive up the illegal trade.

That illegal trade is already prevalent. Victoria has been a popular target for gangs to grow tobacco, allegedly, at places like Nhill—in my electorate of Mallee—Broadford and the Goulburn Valley. In 2021, officers from the multi-agency Illicit Tobacco Taskforce uncovered more than 40 hectares of the plant growing on properties either side of the Victoria-New South Wales border near Swan Hill, also in Mallee. The potential value of that haul was estimated at $84.3 million. Just last year, in the Riverina, a New South Wales police operation led to $42 million worth of illicit tobacco being found and destroyed. Never mind the importers; the crimes are also being committed right here on our shores.

The road map to fix Australia's illegal tobacco crisis has already been written, with bipartisan support, through the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement inquiry into illicit tobacco. The PJCLE report recommended Australia's rampant illegal tobacco market, with an organised criminal element driving it, should become a law enforcement issue, not a policy area for the Department of Health and Aged Care. The report also recommended a national strategy on illegal tobacco; legislative reform; and funding to support law enforcement agencies across the federal, state and territory governments to crack down on the organised criminal gangs flooding Australia with cheap, illegal tobacco products. This inquiry was established by the former coalition government, with a government response published in November 2020. However, under the Albanese government, not a single recommendation has been progressed, despite the four Labor MPs and senators who participated in the inquiry endorsing the recommendations. Here we are, right now in this chamber, still talking about the health issues rather than the enforcement issues.

Former CEO of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission Mike Phelan said:

As the cost of legal tobacco products continues to rise through frequent increases in excise, serious and organised crime groups are taking advantage of the opportunity to make more illicit profits.

The Police Federation of Australia president, Scott Weber, says that Australia has taxed tobacco into making it illicit. This bill simply makes the black market a more viable option for those who want to sell their products.

The minister needs to listen to his experts. I note this bill has been referred to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, with a report due on 22 November. Once that process is finished, there will possibly be amendments. However, at this time, my Nationals colleagues and I are calling for a pragmatic approach when it comes to vaping. It is time to treat vapes just as we have been treating cigarettes so successfully.

Vaping is a scourge on our youth, just like cigarettes are. Australia solved the latter through regulation, a method which we can repeat when it comes to vapes. Regulation will curtail the criminally run black market trade that is so rampant when it comes to vaping. It will also ease the burden on our health system, cutting down on the need for vaping users to clog up our general practice waiting rooms. From there, we can seek to fully address other health issues. I reiterate that the intent of this bill is right, but I caution the minister about unintended consequences and call on this parliament to have a serious discussion about a better way forward.

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