Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A recent ANU study found that people are three times more likely to take up smoking if they've tried vaping. Three times—that's a scary number. After Labor governments have put in so much work to reduce rates of smoking, from banning advertising to plain packaging, to let vaping go unchecked now could undo a lot of that hard work. It's obvious vaping is being driven by big tobacco to try and increase smoking and drive up profits.

Cynically, it's targeting young people with flavoured vapes and funky designs, such as looking like highlighters you can put in your pencil case and having unicorns on them. All sensible people know that government should do something. However, the Nationals propose letting people flog vapes in every supermarket in Australia. It's said that where there's smoke, there's fire, but where there's nicotine, there are the Nationals. The Nationals Party is still taking donations from big tobacco. Did this policy come directly from the tobacco lobbyists who want more kids hooked on their products? When Greg Hunt tried to do something to place import controls on vapes, he got rolled by those opposite, surely led by the tobacco funded Nationals. I support Minister Butler's move to work with the states to put a stop to kids taking up vaping because, unlike the Nationals, I don't want to see a rise in smoking rates and the disastrous consequences this has on the health of Australians and the pressures on our health systems. Talk to your local schools and you will find that vaping is taking place in every toilet in every school. We need to stop this.