Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the government's decision to ban the importation, manufacture and sale of vapes except when doctors prescribe them. I acknowledge the comments of the member for Maranoa on the difficulty in this policy area, and this will require close monitoring to see if there are unintended consequences. But the parents that I meet in Goldstein are so concerned about the plague that vaping has become. Vapes are widely distributed at schools. Smoke shops selling vapes have been located too close to schools. Peer pressure is creating teenage addicts of a substance that could well kill them—and now the data is in.

Generation Vape is a research project led by the Cancer Council New South Wales in partnership with the Daffodil Centre and the University of Sydney, and funded by the government. The survey of more than 700 teenagers aged 14-17 has confirmed an explosion in the use of vapes over recent years, with an increase of more than 50 per cent in the five years since 2017. The survey found that 32 per cent of those surveyed have used vapes and 54 per cent had never smoked a cigarette before starting to vape. Access to vapes for these young people has been all too simple. Generation Vape reported that: 80 per cent of the teenagers surveyed declared it easy to access vapes; 31 per cent of those who bought a vape did so from a retail outlet, a tobacconist, a servo, a vape shop or a convenience store; and, disturbingly, 49 per cent of those who bought a vape did so from a friend—or what the survey termed 'a dealer'. Equally disturbingly, 80 per cent of those who did not buy the vape themselves got it from a friend.

This rise in vaping among teenagers is hardly surprising given the extent to which manufacturers have been producing to designed to attract the young. Flavours include chewing gum, fruits, sweets and soft drink. Indeed, one is called 'Juicy Fruity', and it pretty much looks like Juicy Fruit chewing gum. The last Labor government's decision to escalate taxation of cigarettes has had a significant impact on the number of people smoking in Australia. According to the ABS, the prevalence of regular smoking is confined to just 10.2 per cent of people over the age of 15 and has declined by more than 50 per cent since the mid-1990s, so it's no surprise that tobacco companies should have turned their attention to finding a new profit centre, and that is vapes.

No wonder parents are deeply concerned. In the Generation Vape survey, 83 per cent of parents declared their concern about their children vaping, 72 per cent suspected their children were using a vape, and four out of five regarded preventing their children from vaping as a priority. So it is too with teachers—not surprisingly, given that they're in the front line here, spending nearly as much time with children in their care as parents. Forty-three per cent of teachers reported having confiscated two or more vapes a week over a six-month period, 93 per cent declared concern about their students vaping and three out of four considered addressing vaping as a high priority.

The tactics used by tobacco companies have similarities with those being used by gambling interests. Associate Professor Becky Freeman, a public health expert from Sydney University and one of the Generation Vape researchers, makes a number of highly valid points about this vaping legislation. She says it will stop non-prescription e-cigarettes being freely available in our communities, strengthening and streamlining the prescription pathway. But these reforms will make it easier for authorities to stop retailers illegally supplying vapes to kids and non-smokers by limiting access to only people with a valid prescription—and then only from a pharmacy with the personalised support of a doctor to help them quit. Retailers will no longer be able to advertise, supply or commercially possess non-prescription and disposable vapes. The Therapeutic Goods and Other Legislation Amendment (Vaping Reforms) Bill 2024 introduces minimum-quality standards on flavours, colours and ingredients, as well as pharmaceutical-like packaging and limits on allowable nicotine contents to make vapes less appealing to kids and to people who don't smoke. When passed, these laws will stop the Australian manufacture, advertisement, supply and commercial possession of any non-prescription vape.

I acknowledge that some people in my electorate of Goldstein have contacted me to encourage my opposition to this legislation. I have read several stories of vapes paving the way to quitting smoking. While seeing fewer people smoke is the objective, we should also share in this place that vaping is no genuine alternative. It has insidiously invaded the lives of our children, purposefully targeting them over aspiring cigarette quitters. It has been linked to heart and lung damage, including some cases that have resulted in death. Vapes are addictive but far more accessible even than cigarettes owing to the significantly lower price point. Their use as a smoking deterrent simply results in swapping one damaging habit for another. To be clear, those who are using vapes for genuinely therapeutic reasons will be able to obtain a prescription, with the model being that nicotine content is gradually reduced.

One question that I do have before I close is whether the government has allocated sufficient resources to police and enforce these restrictions. The government's committed an extra $25 million to the Australian Border Force and $57 million to the Therapeutic Goods Administration over the next two years to introduce and enforce the reforms. As we know from the illegal trade in cigarettes, that enforcement is a challenge and will be with these restrictions on vapes. ABF commissioner Michael Outram has acknowledged that his organisation is 'pretty stretched', telling Senate estimates last year that wastewater analysis indicated that it was detecting only 20 to 25 per cent of drugs at the border.

That's a pointed reminder, I would suggest, that it will require the best efforts and the complete cooperation of both federal and state law enforcement agencies to ensure that the black market in vapes is minimised, if not eliminated. It will be incumbent on all of us to ensure that this legislation does not have an unintended consequence and create an unregulated black market in which it's even more difficult to manage risks to our children. That said, I will support this bill.

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