Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

Many people in this place have spoken on the Therapeutic Goods and Other Legislation Amendment (Vaping Reforms) Bill 2024. We know that this bill will ban the importation, domestic manufacture, supply, commercial possession and advertising—other than therapeutic vapes to health practitioners—of disposable, single-use non-therapeutic vapes. I think the advertising is really important. The Therapeutic Goods Act will be amended to allow for vaping goods to be regulated whether or not they contain nicotine or claim to be therapeutic. The minister will have the power to determine whether or not specified goods are vaping goods to prevent sales of evolving products designed to evade regulatory reach.

There is a huge concern in this place and across the nation with respect to young people vaping. I think that is a given. None of us want to see anyone under 18 either smoking, vaping or taking any illicit drugs at all. We did pass in this place some legislation that banned flavours and menthols and such, and I think that that will go some way with respect to the attractiveness of vapes. We know that, worryingly, one in seven children aged 14 to 17 were believed to have vaped in the month leading up to December last year, with these young people comprising eight per cent of all users. It is a big issue for young people, and I want us to do all we can to address that in this place, but I'm just not entirely sure that this bill will do that.

I'm very conflicted on this legislation, and this is why: if this legislation is passed, I believe it will have a perverse outcome where anybody aged 18 or over can walk into a service station, a corner store, Woolworths or Coles—you name it—and buy themselves a packet of cigarettes, but if they want to vape, they will need to book in with their doctor. In my electorate, that's weeks away, in many parts. They'll have to visit their doctor, ask the doctor for a script—and that is, of course, if the doctor is willing to provide the script—then go to the chemist and get that prescription filled—provided that the chemist has that stock. In my electorate, you will largely be $80 out of pocket for that. It's an expensive thing to do to go and visit the doctor, particularly if you're not on a healthcare card. So this is what I think is going to happen: I think that we will see many people go from using vapes to going to the service station and getting a packet of cigarettes. I think that we will, potentially, see an enlarged black market for illicit vapes. One thing we do know is that banning something doesn't stop it being available—we just need to look at the illicit drug market for that.

I have another concern that is not being considered, I think, in this debate, and that is regarding the effectiveness of vapes as a bridge away from cigarettes, particularly for long-term smokers. The 2022 Australian Journal of General Practice article 'An update on vaping and nicotine prescribing', by Dr Colin Paul Mendelsohn and Carolyn Beaumont, stated:

Vaping … is the most popular quitting method in Australia. It is safer than smoking and more effective than—

patches and other forms of—

nicotine replacement therapy.

Specifically, it was found that even 'long-term vaping is far safer than relapsing to smoking'. I have received many, many emails from constituents who say vapes have been the only way they've been able to get off cigarettes, and I believe requiring a smoker to get a GP prescription to help them quit is counterintuitive when we are also seeing huge costs to visit the doctor and when access to GPs in rural, regional and remote Australia is incredibly difficult.

So, while I understand what the government wants to do and while we absolutely want to limit vaping, we also really want to limit cigarettes. I don't see why, from a public policy point of view, we are treating vapes so differently to cigarettes in this place. I'm sure would-be quitters are scratching their heads about why they're not going to be able to access this yet they can freely, day or night, go and buy a packet of cigarettes over the counter.

We need to treat these the same. I think that we need to regulate vapes. We need to tax vapes. We absolutely need to ban the advertising of them, as we have banned advertising for cigarettes, and we need to regulate them and limit where they can be purchased—perhaps licensed tobacconists and perhaps chemists. There need to be strictly regulated conditions. But what I don't think we should be doing is making one product effectively unavailable or incredibly expensive to get while making cigarettes perhaps even more attractive to many people with a nicotine addiction.

So, while I'm supportive of many of the measures in this bill, I think we need to have a far more measured approach to this. What the government is proposing has not been proposed anywhere else in the world. I think that it's a very radical move, and I think that it will have unintended consequences. So I would urge the government to perhaps have a bit of a rethink. If vapes are so bad that we need to make them available only by prescription—requiring people to go to the doctor and then, obviously, to the pharmacist—why isn't the government doing that with cigarettes as well? It makes no sense. They should be treated the same. Otherwise there will be perverse outcomes

See this speech in context