Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Therapeutic Goods and Other Legislation Amendment (Vaping Reforms) Bill 2024 amends the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989 to ban the importation, domestic manufacture, supply, commercial possession and advertisement of disposable, single-use and non-therapeutic vapes. The bill preserves patient access to therapeutic vapes for smoking cessation and the management of nicotine dependence under clinical conditions. The bill will impact the sale and supply of non-nicotine vaping products, with vapes containing nicotine already subject to restrictions under the Poisons Standard classification.

The coalition will not stand in the way of this legislation passing through the House today so that we can thoroughly scrutinise this critical issue through a Senate committee inquiry. No-one wants to see Australian children having access to vaping products or becoming addicted to vaping. The coalition's primary concern is preventing children from getting access to these products. We're also focused on stamping out the black market driven by organised crime that is supplying these illegal vapes to children. The Albanese Labor government has failed to control the illicit vaping market and has failed to protect children against the proliferation of vaping products. This makes greater scrutiny of this legislation absolutely essential. Right now, it is illegal to buy a nicotine vape without a prescription, yet kids are still getting ready access to flavoured vapes in coloured packaging that contain nicotine.

The latest National Drug Strategy household survey found that one in 10 Australians under 18 are current vapers. This represents a fourfold increase since 2019. This is unacceptable. It is clear that the prescription-only model being pursued by this government is failing. Right now, only around 10 per cent of Australian vapers are purchasing their product legally through a prescription. Even the TGA has acknowledged that the prescription-only model has not achieved its goals. We're very concerned that entrenching this existing failing model will not prevent children from having access to vaping products.

Historically, prohibition has not been effective in getting black market activity under control. That's why we're also very concerned that the government's approach will further drive the sale of these products to the black market.

It is also clear that the resourcing of enforcement measures at the borders and the point of sale has been grossly insufficient. Currently, the vaping black market is estimated to be worth well in excess of $1 billion and is being fuelled by the importation of more than 100 million illicit disposable devices each year. In Victoria alone, the black market for vapes has been valued at up to $500 million. The government has failed to establish or fund its promised Illicit Tobacco and E-Cigarette Commissioner to seek to get this thriving black market under control.

The Albanese government proved last year that they're not up to the job of cracking down on organised crime, as they sought to pass their Public Health (Tobacco and Other Products) Bill 2023 without addressing the thriving illicit tobacco trade. In clear acknowledgement of their lack of action on enforcement, the government supported the coalition's amendment to establish a new Illicit Tobacco and E-Cigarette Commissioner within the Australian Border Force. The coalition welcomed the government's decision to support our amendment in clear acknowledgement of our strong leadership on protecting Australians from the growing black market in both illicit tobacco and illicit vapes.

The commissioner will support developing and implementing strategies for addressing illicit tobacco and e-cigarettes and enforcing existing regulations. We called on the government to act quickly to set up the commissioner so they can adequately and urgently address the illicit tobacco and vaping black markets. Since the government announced they would act on our amendment in January, we have not seen any evidence that this critically important commissioner has actually been established. They must now come clean on what work has been done to establish an Illicit Tobacco and E-Cigarette Commissioner, to crack down on these thriving black markets. If they fail to do so, then it's clear that they're not serious about preventing children's access to illegal vaping products.

Enforcement is a critical component of cracking down on this issue, but the government has failed to explain how this legislation before us today will not further fuel the black market or how it will adequately fund enforcement measures both at the border and at the point of sale.

The government has also failed to explain how this bill will prevent children from accessing vaping products and how they will measure the success or failure of their policy. The government must provide Australians with these details. Importantly, they must be transparent so that Australian parents know what is being done to ensure that their children are protected from the harms of vaping. That is why the coalition will seek to refer this bill to a Senate committee of inquiry to ensure full and proper scrutiny.

The government has failed to control the illicit vaping market, and they have failed to ensure that children do not have access to vaping products. The coalition does not want to see this continue to get worse. The coalition will not stand in the way of this legislation passing through the House today. However, we will be moving an amendment to make it clear that we expect the government to address the clear failures of the current prescription-only model.

Emma McBride (Dobell, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak in support of the Therapeutic Goods and Other Legislation Amendment (Vaping Reforms) Bill 2024 as Assistant Health Minister and also on behalf of the people of my community on the Central Coast of New South Wales. The bill goes to the heart of protecting Australians—particularly young people—from the harms associated with vaping and nicotine. It builds on the Albanese government's strong focus on preventative and public health, and I thank Minister Butler for his leadership on this issue.

Health and education ministers across Australia and across political parties agree on the need for urgent action on this public health issue right now. I'm sure all of us in this parliament have had parents raise concerns about the impacts of vapes in schools and on the lives of their children. This legislation is an important step for the parliament to take in combating this public health risk, and I urge all members and senators to support this important reform.

The latest data from the Australian secondary school students alcohol and drug survey shows that about one in eight 12-to-15-year-olds and one in five 16-to-17-year-olds had vaped in the past month. Approximately 80 per cent of these young people were using disposable vaping devices. Nearly one-third of students tried vaping for the first time when they were aged 15 or 16, while 23 per cent—almost a quarter of students—reported being 12 years old or younger when first trying vapes. Young people are attracted to illicit vapes because they are aggressively, deliberately and intentionally marketed to them with packaging and flavours. Parents and teachers are concerned about vape shops opening up in close proximity to schools right across the country.

Worryingly, Australians who are have vaped are around three times more likely to take up tobacco smoking than those who have not vaped. Numerous studies have highlighted the concerns about potential adverse effects, including on adolescent brain development, worsening pregnancy outcomes, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease and cancer. Critically, the long-term health risks of vaping are still unknown. Nicotine vapes may worsen mental health, amplifying stress, anxiety and depressive symptoms. Vapes have been found to include more than 200 different chemicals, including listed poisons, heavy metals and chemical by-products produced during heating. Some of these chemicals, as the Minister for Health and Aged Care has said, are used in weedkiller and nail polish remover, and in embalming. A range of other health risks are associated with vape use, including severe burns, poisoning and seizures.

In my electorate of Dobell on the New South Wales Central Coast, I've heard from teachers, parents and young people. Just last week I had primary school students come to the parliament and speak to me about their deep concern about the impact that vaping is having on their school community, their families, their children and their friends. A group of young primary school students came to the parliament from my electorate last week, and they raised with me their concerns about the impacts of vaping on their friends' physical health and their mental health. For those young people and for Australians right around the country, the reforms introduced in this bill should be supported by those across the House. They're designed to complement a wider set of actions to reduce the rates of tobacco and vape use, including public health information campaigns and smoking and vaping cessation services. Penalties applied in relation to importation, manufacture, supply, possession and advertisement offences will align with penalty provisions applied to counterfeit therapeutic goods under the Therapeutic Goods Act. Individuals will still be able to access vaping products as part of smoking cessation treatments, but this will be limited to clinical settings, with therapeutic vaping products available at pharmacies via a prescription from a doctor. This means that Australians who are legitimately using vaping products to quit smoking will still be able to do so under clinical supervision while we remove vaping access to kids.

As a pharmacist who's trained in nicotine addiction and smoking cessation, and who has spent much of my working life working in acute adult mental health inpatient units, I understand the risks associated with vaping and the urgent need to combat this public health emergency and environmental hazard. The community sentiment is clear in my community and in communities right around Australia. Anyone who has been to a P&C meeting, has been at school pickup, has heard from a parent or a teacher or a school principal is deeply concerned about the impact of vaping on students' learning and on behaviour. We cannot have vape shops on street corners targeting young Australians, creating a generation of nicotine addicts.

Substantial consultation was undertaken on these policy proposals with the public health sector, which has provided unequivocal support to urgently and comprehensively addressing the impact of vaping across Australia. The reforms to the regulation of vapes are appropriately supported by a commitment between the Commonwealth and all states and territories to collaborate on compliance and enforcement activities.

It was Labor, back in 2012, that introduced world-first tobacco plain-packaging laws, under the then health minister Nicola Roxon. Now, in 2024, we have an opportunity to lead the world again with vaping reforms. I had the chance, just a fortnight ago, to represent the Australian government at the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs, and Australia is seen as a world leader. This is a chance, again, for us to be leading globally in reducing the harmful impacts of vapes, particularly on young Australians. I urge everyone in this House—and now we that understand it'll be sent to the Senate and to a committee—to listen to the evidence and to hear from their local communities to understand the urgency. If we act now, we can stamp out this public health menace and this environmental hazard. We can, once again, be global leaders in public health reform around nicotine and the impacts of vaping. So I urge everyone to get behind this significant reform to protect the health of Australians, particularly that of young people, from the dangerous effects of vaping.

Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1) criticises the Government for failing to control the illicit vaping market and failing to protect children against the proliferation of vaping products that have exploded in availability through a black market driven by organised crime;

(2) expresses its alarm that the current prescription-only model is failing, with only approximately 10 per cent of vapers purchasing their product legally through prescriptions;

(3) acknowledges the existence and strength of the $1 billion black market vape trade in Australia, which is fuelled by the importation of more than 100 million illicit disposable devices each year;

(4) recognises that resourcing of enforcement measures at the borders and the point of sale has been grossly insufficient and that policy measures such as prohibition have historically not worked;

(5) calls on the Government to consider all policies to prevent children from accessing and becoming addicted to vaping products; and

(6) further criticises the Government for failing to establish or fund its promised illicit tobacco and vaping commissioner".

One thing we're very good at in this House is celebrating when a policy works well. We'll bring it out time and time again. We'll pat ourselves on the back and point out, if it's continued by another government, that it was our policy in the first place, and we'll throw out statistics and anecdotes galore in self-congratulation. One thing that we don't do well is highlight, or put a spotlight on, policy that has not worked and has not yielded the results that we had hoped for or intended. We do that well from the opposition seats when the government fails, but we don't do it enough when a policy we introduced fails.

We introduced the prescription-only vaping policy that we see continued today by the Labor government. State and federal governments, since that time, have tinkered at the edges, but, overall, the premise has remained the same: essentially, a prohibition model. The only exception is through a prescription from a GP to assist smokers in quitting.

When we did this, on paper it made sense. It was touted as an aid to quitting, and we went ahead. We agreed that vaping wasn't risk free but that evidence showed that e-cigarettes were more effective than other nicotine replacement therapies to help smokers quit, so we went ahead. But we ignored human nature and the confusion among the Australian public around the continually evolving state and federal policies. We ignored the perceived hypocrisy that we were banning the sale of nicotine in a form that we ourselves had promoted as less harmful while allowing a more harmful product to be sold in petrol stations and corner stores around the country. Logically, to those wanting to move away from cigarettes and onto vapes, this seems to be simply mixed messaging.

Based on the surveys and estimates, we know that up to 1.7 million people in this country are currently using vapes, and only eight to 10 per cent are doing so legally, and by 'legally' I mean through a prescription. That means that more than 1.5 million people in this country are currently purchasing unregulated vapes via the black market, either through illegal retail outlets run by organised crime syndicates or online, arriving from overseas, clearing Border Force. We have to acknowledge the existence and the strength of the black market vape trade, which is estimated to be worth $1 billion a year, and we have to acknowledge who runs it, and that is criminal syndicates.

More than 100 million illicit and potentially dangerous disposable devices are estimated to be imported every year by organised crime gangs from China and are freely sold, unregulated, from retail outlets and online, including through social media, to adults and young people alike. State and federal bans have been in place for two years. You need only walk around the streets and walk around this place to see that people don't know that these products have been banned and how easily you can get your hands on them. But we have to admit now, after trial and error, that this mechanism for control hasn't worked, and prohibition will never work. We need to think of better ways to ensure that these products are as safe as possible and are not ending up in the hands of our kids.

As a former operative and detective, having been in the Drug Enforcement Agency for five years, I am acutely aware of the realities and challenges that our law enforcement agencies at all levels are struggling against in this arena. Combating all black market operations in illicit substances, including tobacco and vapes, is a constant uphill battle, and currently these agencies are certainly not equipped with enough manageable parameters so that they can operate effectively. We've seen serious escalations of turf wars from organised crime groups, including personal violence and firebombings of tobacconist stores in Brisbane and Melbourne. And we know that the same organised criminal groups are utilising their existing networks to include the importation and distribution of vape products. The strength of the current black market has seen criminal entities get richer while law enforcement gets harder. In addition, by banning this we have created a barrier to entry for those wanting to easily switch from smoking to vaping, undermining the health and safety of Australians accessing these products.

A coordinated law enforcement approach is required to tackle the entire network. In fact, the 2020 PJCLE report recommended the following:

The committee recommends the development of a National Illicit Tobacco strategy, in conjunction with state and territory police forces, as a co-ordinated, national law enforcement-led response …

We are always beyond the headlines in this place. We've heard that we're taking a strong stance on vaping, and yet we see disposable vapes flagrantly sold in retail premises around the country without oversight or enforcement, which the public appears to continue buying. Seizures have had little impact. I don't raise this to call out any of the law enforcement agencies, because they work hard—but they're under-resourced. Again, history has told us that prohibition does not work. And the genie is out of the bottle.

In addition, expecting members of the TGA or health department workers to undertake inspections leaves them in potentially dangerous positions, dealing with organised crime groups. Any suggestion of this method of control is not only ridiculous but ignores the duty of care to them.

The EU introduced regulation for vaping in 2016 which has been adapted and implemented in various member countries. It has seen a swift reduction in tobacco use and black-market activity. A regulated vaping approach is supported by health and tobacco control agencies in organisations across the EU, including in Sweden, and in other comparable western countries, such as the UK, the USA, Canada and New Zealand.

The countries that have made vapes more difficult to access than cigarettes have seen a considerably slower smoking quit rate than the other countries. For example, the introduction of regulated vaping policy has resulted in more than 50,000 smokers in the UK stopping smoking with the assistance from a vaping product, with a 33 per cent reduction in smoking in the four years to 2022. Since vaping was legalised and regulated in November 2020 in New Zealand, there has been a 39 per cent decline in the smoking rate over three years. Smoking prevalence amongst Maoris declined by 35 per cent. Two Canadian surveys indicated a 15 per cent reduction for those aged 15-plus, and in the 15 to 24 years cohort there was a reduction of 32 per cent in males and 52 per cent in females.

Why would we ignore these successful examples from around the world? Is it arrogance or is it idealism? Whatever the motive, we cannot stick our heads in the sand and pretend that we are somehow not subjected to the same criminal elements, the same basic human nature and the same pressures that other First World countries have seen.

The Nationals are committed to true harm minimisation for all Australians when it comes to vaping and e-cigarettes. Protecting all of our young people is our main goal. We believe that vaping needs to be viewed in the full context of law enforcement and harm reduction, by reducing the impacts and cost burden of traditional cigarettes and smoking on our health system, stopping the funding of organised crime organisations, stopping the availability of unregulated and unsafe products to the community, implementing plain packaging, regulating flavours, enforcing market bans and issuing stronger enforceable penalties for those caught conducting businesses outside those parameters.

We believe in providing our law enforcement agencies with a workable framework to help truly make a dent in the illicit trade. We also believe that this can be achieved through a regulated model that follows the same principles as alcohol and cigarette sales and reduces the strength of the black market by providing a safer and more accessible product to those who need it. It's time to recognise that ideology isn't working and it's time to bring some common sense to this issue if we hope to protect our young people and all Australians. It's our responsibility to make the necessary changes now if we're going to have any hope of controlling this into the future.

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We're working on the Therapeutic Goods and Other Legislation Amendment (Vaping Reforms) Bill 2024 bill because we want to make sure that we change the lives of Australians—in particular young Australians. Asthma, lung scarring, organ damage, nausea, mouth irritation, chest pains, heart palpitations, seizure and toxicity are just some of the health problems that are caused by vaping, in which people use battery operated devices to inhale an aerosol which contains nicotine, flavouring and other chemicals. Among these serious side effects and health problems, vaping is also regarded as a gateway to more harmful drugs. It's a big problem, and that's why I am proud the government—led by the health minister, who is passionate about this issue—is taking strong action. I know we must act urgently to stamp it out.

Vaping creates a new generation of nicotine addicts. It's highly addictive, and rates are soaring. Public data shows this. Cancer Council WA reported that in 2020 two per cent of 14- to 17-year-olds were vaping. By 2022, that number had skyrocketed, with a sixfold increase to 12 per cent. For 18- to 24-year-olds, the proportion of people quadrupled to more than 20 per cent in the same period.

We also know that one in three people who start vaping go on to smoke, and we are seeing more young people taking up vaping and then smoking. It's no surprise that people under 25 are now the only cohort showing an increase in smoking. After decades and decades of decline in smoking, it's now a major public health issue. We have campaigns and advocacy around this, and we must address it. We must address it before it's too late.

In preparation for the last time I talked about the government's tobacco control measures, I caught up with Professor Mike Daube, who works out of Curtin University in my electorate of Swan. I'm grateful to him for sharing his time and his views on vaping. Professor Daube has been a leader in tobacco control and public health for over four decades. Back in 2008, he was appointed by the Labor Minister for Health and Ageing, Nicola Roxon, to chair the National Preventative Health Taskforce. In response to its recommendations, Australia became the first country in the world to implement the plain packaging of tobacco products, which helped reduce smoking. Professor Daube warns that the major issue that we're facing right now is vaping. To quote Professor Daube, 'We are facing an extraordinary tobacco resurgence.' He said today that, while Australia has been a world leader in tobacco control, the development of e-cigarettes and other novel products threatens to undo much of the progress that we have made. Australia proudly led the way on tobacco reform. Others looked to Australia for inspiration on how to take on big tobacco. Now Professor Daube says that we must lead the way again and we must do everything that we can do to prevent another generation getting hooked on nicotine.

What I will say is that, at the end of the day, big tobacco is a business that's driven by profit. When they were losing customers, when people were quitting smoking, they needed to come up something new to attract customers and to bring others back. Some in this place will recognise the term 'Kodak moment', but there's a whole generation of people that don't even know what a Kodak camera is. What we saw with Kodak is that they didn't innovate, and now so many people have digital cameras in their hands. The photography industry innovated, and now people have cameras in their hands, but, for classic Kodak moments, people aren't getting their film developed. Similarly, for tobacco they had the classic analog cigarette and, after a decline in rates of smoking, they wanted to revamp, and they did this through the use of e-cigarettes and vaping products. They're developing newer nicotine and tobacco products, and what they're doing, very intentionally, is targeting the most impressionable of our society—that is, young people.

Debate interrupted.