Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Wentworth for her contribution and for the contribution of all members, but the member for Wentworth has been a strong advocate for action in this area. She talks about her experience of a vape store setting up just down the road from her old school, and you think, 'What a coincidence, Deirdre Chambers!' But the experience across the country is that nine out of 10 vaping stores have been set up in walking distance of schools, and it's not a coincidence. It's a deliberate decision because those stores know that their target market are schoolkids, and it's an absolute outrage.

Today, I'm summing up the Therapeutic Goods and Other Legislation Amendment (Vaping Reforms) Bill 2024. This bill builds on Australia's pioneering tobacco control reforms that go back 50 years but also include our world-first tobacco plain-packaging reforms and the Public Health (Tobacco and Other Products) Act 2023 that was passed in parliament just before we rose in December. Consistent with these reforms, the Australian government is now introducing world-leading vaping reforms to prevent serious current and future population health risks.

Vaping is a public health menace. The rapid rise in vaping among young people is particularly alarming. The latest national data showed that in the year to June 2023 one in six high school students had recently vaped—a fourfold increase since the previous survey in 2017. This underscores widespread and serious concern among public health advocates, policymakers, practitioners, parents and school communities about vaping in this country. Strong and decisive action is needed to arrest and reverse this increase in vaping and to prevent long-term adverse effects on population health before it is too late.

The Therapeutic Goods and Other Legislation Amendment (Vaping Reforms) Bill 2024 addresses these concerns through stronger regulation and enforcement. The bill is the centrepiece of our reform package and supplements import controls that were instituted at the border earlier this year. Specifically, the bill bans the importation, manufacture, supply and commercial possession of disposable single-use and non-therapeutic vapes while preserving legitimate patient access to therapeutic vapes through pharmacy settings for smoking cessation and the management of nicotine dependence, where clinically appropriate.

To achieve this outcome, the bill extends the operation of the Therapeutic Goods Act to all vapes, irrespective of nicotine content or therapeutic claims. This is appropriate and necessary in the circumstances to address strategies used by companies and criminal syndicates to avoid detection and seizure by mislabelling vapes to conceal nicotine content. Such tactics, for so long, have frustrated compliance and enforcement efforts by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, border authorities and the states and territories by requiring laboratory testing of the vapes before any action can be taken.

Vapes are marketed to young people aggressively in online advertising and other youth focused media channels, with product flavouring and design explicitly intended to contribute to their appeal and their uptake among young people. This is unacceptable, particularly noting the highly addictive nature of nicotine and the exposure to other dangerous chemicals. This is a crisis that deserves our national attention. The Commonwealth and all states and territories, Liberal and Labor alike, are committed to collaboration on compliance and enforcement activities. This is reflected in the establishment of the National Vaping Working Group, comprising Commonwealth, state and territory health and policing departments, the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Border Force. This working group is responsible for developing the national vaping enforcement framework, which will support a collaborative, coordinated and nationally consistent approach to enforcement.

Under the bill, there are significant penalties for the importation, manufacture, supply and commercial possession of disposable single-use and non-therapeutic vapes. Consistent with the federal cooperative scheme, the Commonwealth will take responsibility for enforcing importation, manufacture, sponsor, supply and advertisement. The states and territories will take responsibility for enforcing wholesale supply, retail supply and commercial possession. The Australian Border Force will lead enforcement at the border. The Therapeutic Goods Administration and state and territory health officers will exercise powers and functions in concert with police authorities as required, and that will be particularly when organised crime is involved.

The focus of the bill is to criminalise unlawful advertisement and supply. Strengthening the regulation of all vapes through enhancing border controls, banning all disposable single-use and non-therapeutic vapes and ending the supply of vapes outside of pharmacy settings will make it easier to identify and disrupt the illicit supply and advertisement of vapes and to take appropriate enforcement action. This is needed to protect young Australians, in particular.

For the first time, under the Therapeutic Goods Act there will be offences and civil penalties for the commercial possession of vapes outside of appropriate clinical settings. We're not interested in penalising vape users. These offences and penalties are aimed squarely at unlawful retailers and operators of warehouses, as well as other persons with significant quantities of vapes who deny any involvement in commercial supply. These are tiered offences, with higher maximum penalties depending on the quantities of vapes that are possessed.

The new ban on possession includes an exception for personal use, including by young Australians, who are deliberately being targeted by companies and criminal syndicates determined to make a profit. This bill is not about penalising persons who are using vapes, whether they are adults or children. It is about ensuring strong deterrence from illegal conduct that may harm an entire generation and future generations of Australians.

This bill has been through a process of extensive consultation and input from the Australian community, including from public health experts, cancer groups, tobacco control groups and many, many others besides. A lot of work has gone into the development of the bill to ensure that it appropriately responds to the scale of the public health issue that it seeks to address. I want to acknowledge the immense effort given by all of those who had a part in its development, including stakeholders from across the community as well as officials from the Therapeutic Goods Administration, the Australian Border Force and the Department of Health and Aged Care, to name but a few. A lot of people have worked very hard to get us to this point on behalf of generations of young people, both today and into the future. To all those who did, I say this: you have the thanks and the gratitude of the Australian people and, most particularly, from young Australians and their parents, their teachers and their school communities.

I'd also like to acknowledge the engagement of all those in this place who have spoken in support of the bill, particularly those members of the crossbench who have been such strident and vocal supporters of these reforms. Parents and young Australians are grateful for the support that you gave, both inside and outside this place, and that support will be particularly important if we now pass the baton to our colleagues in the other place. I was pleased to see that the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee did recommend that this bill be passed. Their support gives me faith that the Senate will do the right thing and support its passage when the time comes.

Vapes were sold to the Australian community as therapeutic goods that would aid those seeking to quit cigarette smoking, and so it is entirely appropriate to regulate them as therapeutic goods, through controls that simultaneously ensure legitimate access for patients and provide sound public protection, particularly for our children. We must act now to stop the importation, manufacture, supply and advertisement of recreational vapes in Australia, vapes that are not being used for legitimate therapeutic use, to prevent a whole new generation of Australians with nicotine dependence. This bill will provide comprehensive and effective deterrence measures.

It will come as no surprise to those opposite that the government will not be supporting the second reading amendment moved by the member for Cowper. I don't need to hold the House too long in my explanation for that, except to acknowledge that the former Minister for Health and Aged Care, the former member for Flinders, to his credit, did try—and I've acknowledged this publicly—to put in place importation controls on disposable vapes. Unfortunately, after he did that his party room took a different decision and, within a couple of weeks, forced him to revoke those regulations, as I understand it. So, when the member for Cowper moves an amendment complaining about the existing regulatory framework for vapes, I advise him and any of those who might be seeking to support his second reading amendment: have a look at the record of your own government, because that is why we are in the complete mess that is causing such alarm to Australian parents, Australian school communities and Australian health leaders.

I thank members for their contributions to the debate on this bill, and I commend it to the House.

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