Dan Repacholi (Hunter, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Therapeutic Goods and Other Legislation Amendment (Vaping Reforms) Bill 2024. The Albanese Labor government is taking world-leading action to tackle vaping. Our reforms will protect Australians from the harms of vaping and nicotine dependence while ensuring that those with a legitimate need to access therapeutic vapes can continue to do so.

Vaping is an issue that affects people all across Australian society. What is especially worrying, though, is that there has been a huge increase in the number of young people accessing and using vapes. In my electorate, teachers and parents have been worried and frustrated about why it has been so easy for their children to access vapes for so long. Vapes have been advertised with flavours and colours that completely misrepresent how harmful they are. Given how much progress we had made in Australia against young people smoking, it has been frustrating to see how quickly vapes have caught on with young people.

The link between vaping and smoking is very clear. Young Australians who vape are around three times more likely to take up tobacco smoking compared to young Australians who have never vaped. The Australian Secondary Students Alcohol and Drug Survey shows that about one in eight 12- to 15-year-olds and one in five 16- to17-year-olds have vaped in the past month. A factor that is alarming health professionals, parents and teachers so deeply is how young people are when they are accessing these vapes. Nearly one-third of students tried vaping for the first time when they were aged 15 or 16, while 23 per cent of students reported being 12 years or younger. That's 23 per cent of students reporting being 12 years or younger; that's absolutely disgusting.

Vaping is creating a whole new generation of nicotine dependency in our community. Vaping is a major threat to our success in tobacco control. The Albanese Labor government is not going to stand by and let this happen. Enough is enough. The vital reform in this bill will protect our youth from the harms of vaping whilst still ensuring that those struggling with nicotine dependency who have legitimate needs to access therapeutic vapes can continue to do so. Labor is proud to have been the party to keep Australia at the forefront of world-leading health policy. In 2012, we introduced world-leading plain packaging. Labor's world-leading measures have helped Australians to ditch the harmful practice of smoking, and now, in 2024, we seek to lead the world again with these measures against vapes.

While we were out of office, the coalition dropped the ball on this big issue. Big tobacco was allowed to walk in, bringing nicotine dependency back into Australian life. Big tobacco sold vaping around the world as a therapeutic product to help long-term smokers quit. What they didn't mention was that the vapes would also be a recreational product, especially targeted to our kids, but that is what vapes have become.

The Labor government will put Australia back at the front of the pack with a world-leading policy to combat vapes. Labor will put us back on track for a healthier future. We have already closed illegal loopholes used to sell vapes in shops. We have already banned the import of vapes unless they are strictly for a therapeutic purpose and accompanied by an import licence. We are clamping right down. These measures are no joke. Australian Border Force is regularly seizing illegal vapes at the border, and, in early February, a joint law enforcement exercise in Sydney resulted in the confiscation of approximately 210,000 disposable vapes as part of a seizure of $12.5 million of black-market nicotine goods. This additional round of vaping reforms will break bad habits early and strongly reduce access.

This bill bans the importation, manufacture, supply, advertising and commercial possession of non-therapeutic vapes. For those who have struggled with kicking the habit of smoking and have a legitimate reason to use therapeutic vapes to break that habit, this bill ensures that therapeutic vaping goods will still be available through the medical system. This is how it should have always been. The Labor government is also increasing funding to services which will help people kick their habits. Quitline, the national hotline, provides counsellors who can help Australians quit smoking or vaping

With the second stage of vaping reforms, the Albanese Labor government will blow the whole vaping industry away. Goodbye, vaping; we won't miss you. I have a nine-year-old daughter and another daughter, who is about to turn 11, and I can tell you: the threat is real that my daughters will end up vaping one day, and I really hope they don't. This bill will help stop that. We can't buy them at service stations anymore. You can't buy them at a local shop around the corner. This is really good. It's really good for Australia and really good for Australians.

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