Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm proud to speak on the Therapeutic Goods and Other Legislation Amendment (Vaping Reforms) Bill 2024. This is world-leading legislation that delivers on our promise to protect children, young people and other Australians from the harm of vaping.

I have no doubt about the integrity and the bona fides of the member for Maranoa and his good intention. But truly, the coalition opposed Nicola Roxon's groundbreaking legislation that the Labor government brought in on plain packaging and a whole range of areas that we undertook in relation to tackling the scourge of smoking and for nine years did very little in relation to this. And I won't take lectures from those opposite, who were so bad in my home state of Queensland, cutting so many police out of the police force that Jack Dempsey, the police minister, lost his seat in the 2015 election. It was a Labor government in Queensland that increased the number of police on the beat to tackle the things that we're dealing with here today. I won't take lectures from those opposite about that. The facts do not bear out what they say.

This bill bans the importation, manufacture, supply and commercial possession of disposable, single-use and non-therapeutic vapes, while preserving legitimate patient access for therapeutic vapes through pharmacy settings for smoking cessation and the management of nicotine dependence where clinically appropriate. It is a public health menace, a scourge, and the rapid rise amongst young people is alarming. This week I spoke to respected GP Dr Cath Hester at the Colleges Crossing Family Practice in my electorate. Cath is a deeply valued member of our community and has been on the board of the West Moreton Hospital and Health Service as well as a representative of the college in relation to GPs. She was talking to me about what GPs deal with each and every day in my area and about the problems of vaping. She agreed, and other GPs in my electorate agree, with the idea of tackling this issue in a prohibitive way but also a therapeutic way, and that's what we're dealing with.

The member for Maranoa and the coalition were wrong about a decade ago on tackling smoking and tobacco rates and nicotine dependency. For nine years they did virtually nothing in this space. They were wrong in that nine years, and their attitude to this scourge could be characterised by indolence and inertia. We're tackling this issue in a respectful but therapeutic way, but also engaging law enforcement and making sure that people can tackle this issue in the right way. That's why what we're doing is making sure that we're introducing new offences and other civil penalties relating to the importation, manufacture, supply, commercial possession and advertisement of vaping goods. We're also banning the supply and commercial possession of vaping goods unless those are included in the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods or notified to the TGA as being only for smoking cessation or the management of nicotine dependence. We're listening to doctors, listening to law enforcement and building on what we did in government last.

Those opposite come in here and, if you listen to their speeches—I've listened to one or two of them already—you can't quite work out what they really want to do. They want to tackle this issue, but they don't want to do anything about it—and didn't do anything about it for nine years. They left it up to us to take the action. I still can't work out precisely what they want to do. Do they want to educate people? Do they want to do advertisements? I don't think that's what they want to do. If you look at what they did, it was nothing. You've got to believe in politics, society, familial life and domestic life in this country. You've got to look at what people do, not what they say. It's the doers who are righteous. It's the doers who do the right thing. Those opposite have a shocking record in this place.

We are taking steps that listen to the AMA and listen to respected doctors, like Dr Cath Hester in my electorate. We're taking steps. That's why what we're doing here is the right thing to do. Those opposite should not be sitting on a morass of equivocation. They should not be sitting like Humpty Dumpty on the wall waiting for their position to fall one way or the other. They should actually come on board and support it. Learn from the lessons of a decade ago and stop procrastinating. Support it. There is a pathway forward, and they should be supporting this legislation.

I commend the legislation to the chamber, and I condemn those opposite for their failures over nine years in this space. They have let young people fester in this morass and this drug dependency that they should tackle each and every day. That's why this legislation is so critical to the health of our young people. Those opposite should be condemned for their failure.

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