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

I listened to the member for Macarthur. In fact, we were talking about this very issue yesterday. I think the painful fact is that, on both sides of the House, we want the same result. We want to see our children safe from vaping and safe from taking up drugs and cigarettes. At this point in time, at this juncture, we have a different way that we want to get there.

Around 10 per cent of vapers are purchasing their product via the prescription model. Let's remember: this has actually been in place since the previous health minister. Around 90 per cent of vapers are not. Our concern is, as I said, for our young people currently accessing vaping products. I'm told that as many as 1.7 million Australians are vaping, close to seven per cent of the total population or, if you like, one in 15 Australians. Compare that with one in 21 Australians being a member of an AFL club, according to the AFL. That number of people, 1.7 million Australians, is more than the populations of Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory combined; it's more than the number of Australians who are over 80 years of age. I draw those random examples to point out that the number of Australians vaping is a significant proportion of the population. By no means am I saying that vaping is good for your health. We've heard plenty about why it's terrible for your health. However, that is the scale of the situation that we are facing here in Australia.

The government proposes a prescription-only model, or to continue the prescription-only model, and anyone vaping without a prescription will be deemed a criminal. Let me also remind the House, yet again, that Labor has a blind side, and that is regional Australia. In the regions we have a higher prevalence of tobacco addiction. But, yet again, we see the government taking a metropolitan-centric approach to policymaking. In fact, the latest data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare indicates that people aged 14 years or older living in a remote or very remote area of Australia have a smoking rate of 19.6 per cent and are more likely to smoke daily than people living in inner regional areas and major cities, where the smoking rate is 9.7 per cent. According to the AIHW there are two groups of people who use vapes:

People aged under 30 were more likely to nominate curiosity while people aged 50 or older were more likely to use e-cigarettes as a cessation device.

The voices of regional Australian voters in my electorate of Mallee, in north-western Victoria, have shared their stories of vaping with me. One constituent from the west of my electorate highlighted how hard it is to get to see a doctor in the first place—something I have been raising constantly in this House as shadow assistant minister for regional health. This constituent said: 'I cannot even get an urgent doctor's appointment for a shingles vaccine within a week, let alone to get a prescription for smoking cessation. I cannot have my blood taken for blood tests, despite having an appointment for a week prior, because there is no replacement nurse when the nurse is sick. I have to wait at the hospital until a nurse is free to take my blood, never mind if they are fasting bloods and I have to wait until midday'—we all know what that feels like—'so how is my local health provider supposed to find the time to write prescriptions for people to give up smoking or continue to stay smoke-free?'

A constituent from the east of my electorate said: 'My husband and I have recently retired and live a quiet life in central Victoria. My husband had smoked for many years, much to my dismay, until he got put on to vaping by an acquaintance a couple of years back. The vape he uses is much less nicotine now than when he was smoking, as he has been gradually weaning himself. His doctor is in full support of this. It's getting hard to buy products for him, even with a prescription. If and when vaping is completely banned, he says he will go back on to cigarettes.'

A constituent from the south of my electorate said: 'In 2017, I gave up smoking for the last time ever, with the help of vaping. I weaned myself off all nicotine eventually, and then gave up vaping. All other cessation aids didn't help me whatsoever, and, embarrassingly, I smoked through three of my four pregnancies because the cessation tools on offer just didn't work.' She says: 'Vaping has been scientifically proven to be less harmful than smoking, and in the UK, for example, it's advertised in hospitals for people to start vaping and quit smoking.'

Another, from the north of my electorate, said: 'Being a health promotion officer and a parent of a teenager, I've been told numerous times how easy it is for underage children to simply walk into a shop and purchase vapes. I was also part of a youth mentoring program and became concerned with how reliant some of the teenagers were on their vapes. The only way to stop this is to follow the lead of New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Canada and regulate nicotine vapes with strict consumer safety standards. This would see them classified as an adult consumer product, sold only by responsible retailers upon age verification.'

Another constituent, from the centre of my electorate of Mallee—constituents from all around—said: 'We need a system that makes it easy for smokers to switch to vaping without having to jump through hoops. Adults also need appealing flavours to match the switch. The current nicotine products available in supermarkets taste horrific. The only way we can do this is by empowering responsible retailers to sell regulated vaping products.'

Another constituent from the north of my electorate said: 'The complex requirements for buying vapes have created a black market'—Have we heard about that today? Yes—'where products are unregulated and easily available to children.' Another constituent from the south of Mallee says, 'Banning vaping will force people back to smoking, which will only fill your own pockets from the taxes and take more from the people.' Now, the thing that strikes me about all these emails that I've received this week, and more, is that they are all pro regulating vaping—having the controls that we need in order for people to be able to buy products that are known to be less harmful than the horrible products bought in some of our black-market shops.

When it comes to my purpose in this place, I represent the people of Mallee, as I did with the government's wasteful referendum and as I have on Australia's future energy mix and in opposing the reckless railroading of electricity transmission lines through Mallee and the turning of my electorate into a wind-turbine pincushion. My constituents are on board with that representation, and hence it is utterly responsible for me to share their views on this bill. As shadow assistant minister for regional health, I refer back to one of the first quotes I raised from a constituent from the west of my electorate who can't even see a doctor. How on earth does Labor believe their prescription model will work if people can't see a doctor for shingles, vaccines or their myriad other health issues?

Labor robs the regions to buy votes in the city, as they did in expanding the distribution priority areas for international medical graduates. In the first six months of that policy, there was a 56 per cent increase in those doctors leaving the regions for metropolitan suburbs. Labor has 'bled' the regions of doctors—that's the term used by the Rural Doctors Association, not me—and now they want to put more pressure on medical practices by requiring them to write new vaping prescriptions.

Health department data indicates around 450,000 people are seeking vaping prescriptions under the current model, but, under what Labor is proposing in this bill, one million people more will seek those prescriptions. While Fred and Vera are holding hands in an overflowing regional Australian clinic waiting to see their doctor, they'll have to wait for Tom, Dick or Harry to get their vaping scripts. Theoretically, that could be managed in the city, but regional health is not on the same page. The bill is setting regional health up to fail further.

The government's prescription model is failing, and they are simply doubling down and banning vaping harder. This comes as the black market in vapes is now estimated to be about $1 billion per annum through over 100 million illegal vapes per annum. In Melbourne, we have serious problems with crime associated with what police are allegedly saying is a battle between two Middle Eastern organised crime groups for control of the illicit tobacco trade. Police operations are seizing cigarettes, tobacco and vapes in significant numbers. There have been arson attacks on tobacco shops, vape shops, gyms, restaurants and private addresses.

In opposition, it is our role to hold the Albanese Labor government to account, and what they have proposed in this prescription model is unseen anywhere else in the world. This week we saw the bravado of Minister Bowen evaporate as Australia was going to have the most aggressive vehicle emissions standards. Once again, the Nationals highlighted the problems imminent with yet another reckless rush posed to regional Australia and demonstrated the valid critiques of the automotive industry, and, voila, Minister Bowen has backed down—or, as the West Australian newspaper put it, the Prime Minister took the wheel.

Indeed, the Prime Minister may be on the wrong side of the road altogether when it comes to vaping. Let's look at the overseas data. In the UK, where vapes are regulated for those over 18 years old and banned for those under 18, more than 50,000 smokers stopped smoking with assistance from a vaping product in 2017, with a 33 per cent reduction in smoking in the four years to 2022. In New Zealand, there was a 39 per cent decline in smoking, from 13.7 per cent to 8.3 per cent, over three years since vaping was legalised and regulated in November 2020. I am told the Maori smoking prevalence declined by 35 per cent. Canadian surveys have indicated a 15 per cent reduction in smoking for those aged over 15, and in the 15- to 24-year-old cohort there was a reduction of 32 per cent for males and 52 per cent of females. In the over-18 market, 14 per cent less men and 19 per cent less women were smoking. There are huge reductions in smoking rates in the 18- to 24-year-old age bracket: 42 per cent less for men and 53 per cent less for women.

The opposition is holding this government accountable for this proposal, and we have concerns about the adequacy of funding to regulate and enforce laws to prevent the illicit tobacco and vaping trade. The fact is that, currently, their efforts to stop vapes at our borders have been ineffective. We've also seen the peculiar footage recently of Therapeutic Goods Administration officers with TGA emblazoned on their flack jackets—SWAT team or FBI style—raiding a smoking shop. Is the TGA really well equipped to run policing operations potentially in situations where organised crime might be involved?

Labor is spending some $700 million to fight vapes as illegal products. Yet they are forgoing—potentially, if this where the public policy goes—$4.2 billion in annual tax revenue, if a regulatory model were adopted, which could go into regional health. What a great idea!

All the alternatives need to be considered thoroughly and costed. So we take this moment to seriously address this public health issue.

As the shadow assistant minister for regional health, I urge the government to consider the higher prevalence of smoking in the regions, the use of vapes to quit and the maldistribution of doctors away from regional Australia. The very overworked and under pressure medical practices in Mallee and across regional Australia are the very ones Labor is going to pile more pressure on, with potential tripling of vaping prescription consultations. Will Labor provide special funding to primary care providers in the regions for this burden? I won't hold my breath.

The coalition wants this bill thoroughly examined by a Senate committee, and we will be moving to do just that in the other place. This is a very serious topic, and this government's crash-through approach on policy could yet again result in a backflip, a U-turn—a realisation that their bluster doesn't match the reality around the world. As an opposition, we will be holding them accountable for their missteps on this very serious public issue.

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