Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Higgins, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The scourge of smoking is well known to me, having dealt with its effect as a clinician each and every day. So addictive is nicotine that patients missing legs still sit outside hospital entrances all over the country in their wheelchairs to satisfy their cravings. We previously called these 'cancer sticks', but, given the litany of health problems they are associated with, a more apt term is probably 'premature death or disability sticks'. Tobacco and nicotine rob people and patients of their lives and their independence, and there is perhaps nothing more traumatic and anxiety-inducing to Australians than losing their autonomy.

We have a challenging problem in Australia: smoking rates that have been stuck at around 10 or 11 per cent. But amidst this largely difficult problem we have some bright spots in my own electorate of Higgins. We have a Better Health Network clinic in Prahran. It offers a range of services to the local community, including occupational therapy, physio, diabetes, mental health care and smoking cessation. I've seen dedicated healthcare workers buzzing around, looking after vulnerable patients, many of whom come from the social-housing towers opposite. These staff are constantly working. They are attending to their patients with a smile on their faces and warmth in their hearts. This clinic is also the only bulk-billing clinic in my electorate. It's the only one. The doctors, nurses and allied health professionals in this clinic are an asset to our community, and I commend them for providing this essential service in keeping people well and away from that hospital up the road that I used to work in. So impressed was I at the quality of the work and their dedication that I brought the Prime Minister to see them and to meet them around the time when we announced a tripling of our bulk-billing incentive. The clinic were overjoyed because it now meant that they could recruit more GPs, and I sincerely hope that that is what comes to pass, provided more medical students go into general practice, as they should.

Although only 10 per cent of Australians smoke, smoking accounts for nearly nine per cent of the disease burden in Australia and is the leading cause of preventable death. Like everything else, its prevalence follows a socioeconomic gradient. In 2019 Australians in the most disadvantaged areas were 3.6 times more likely than those in the most advantaged areas to smoke daily. Among First Nations people, smoking prevalence is sky-high, being 41 per cent in over 15-year-olds and rising to a whopping 58 per cent in very remote areas. Coupled with an epidemic of diabetes, smoking is a driver of premature death in Indigenous Australians and accounts for 12 per cent of their total disease burden. Smoking is the risk factor most responsible for the gap in disease burdens between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. This is a public health emergency, especially for First Nations people, who die eight to nine years ahead of everyone else.

Thanks to the courageous leadership of Labor leaders and past governments, smoking prevalence has declined over time, with 49 per cent of the population never taking up smoking in 1991 and 63 per cent currently. That's a significant drop. Today we continue the Labor legacy of spearheading life-changing world-first tobacco control reform. Embodying the same courage and conviction as Nicola Roxon and the Gillard government 12 years ago, we are continuing to take the fight right up to big tobacco.

In the years after plain packaging was implemented, there was a 25 per cent decline in smoking prevalence in Australia that was attributable to the legislation. Three years after plain packaging hit the shelves, an estimated 100,000 fewer Australians smoked. When Nicola Roxon launched the reform, around 16 per cent of Australians smoked. Today that number is 11 per cent. A five per cent drop in smoking rates is equivalent to one million fewer Australians smoking. This was noticed by the world. They sat up and paid attention. After we passed these world-first laws, other countries followed. Over 20 jurisdictions have now implemented plain-packaging legislation.

However, there has been a decade of inertia and inaction since. The health benefits of this reform were squandered under the Liberals. This was foreshadowed when the then health minister, Peter Dutton, in 2009 decried that these world-leading reforms were 'a bridge too far', while the coalition at the time raked in nearly $300,000 in donations from big tobacco. While the Liberals were asleep at the wheel, e-cigarette use took off. As a result, Australia is no longer the innovative and bold global leader on tobacco control. We have lost that crown. While new markets and products have emerged, our laws have lagged.

Young people are disproportionately affected by new products, with 19 per cent of nonsmokers in 2019 reporting having tried e-cigarettes, a substantial increase from 14 per cent in 2016. Almost two in five current smokers aged 14 years and above in 2019 had tried e-cigarettes, with the most common reason being curiosity. A meta-analysis—meaning a big review—in 2021, however, found that never-smokers who used e-cigarettes had about three times the odds of starting smoking compared to non-e-cigarette users. In other words, vapes are a gateway to smoking.

It is clear that our policies require an overhaul to reflect the new challenges we face from new markets and products. Wily marketing new loopholes must be closed. This suite of reforms address a range of issues. It consolidates the existing tobacco control frameworks, spread across as many as eight different laws into one act, thereby streamlining the operation of these laws—it just makes it easier to use them. It updates tobacco advertising which has not been reviewed for 30 years, and it address of the burgeoning use of e-cigarettes and vaping products.

The bill will support the targets in the National Tobacco Strategy 2023- 2030—yes, we do have one—which aims to achieve a national daily smoking prevalence of less than 10 per cent in 2025 and less than five per cent by 2030. Without these reforms, we are unlikely to achieve those targets. Most importantly, the bills new measures invest power in the government to remain responsive to new approaches adopted by the tobacco industry, which tends to outmanoeuvre government whenever regulation is imposed.

The bill will provide for the following: improved health warnings on tobacco products to better inform consumers on the effects of tobacco use; updated advertising restrictions and definitions, and the introduction of civil penalties regime; expanded advertising prohibitions to reduce the public's exposure to advertising and the promotion of e-cigarettes and other novel and emerging products, particularly in young and vulnerable people; restrictions on the use of additives like menthol and ingredients that enhance the attractiveness and palatability of tobacco products; better regulation of product design features that are known to make tobacco products more attractive to consumers, including crush balls and novel filters; restrictions on the use of brand and variant names that falsely imply reduced harm when the opposite is true; the inclusion of health promotion inserts that encourage and empower people who smoke to quit; and the mandatory disclosure of tobacco product ingredients, sales volume and pricing data, and advertising promotion and sponsorship expenditure. This is a good thing. Let's shine some light on where the money is going.

The overarching objective is to reduce the prevalence of smoking by reducing uptake, with a particular focus on young people—on children. When it comes to smoking-related harm, prevention really is better than the cure. These reforms will help restore our edge in tobacco control with our children and adults—young and older, Indigenous and non-Indigenous—the beneficiaries. I commend this bill to the House.

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