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

I move:

That the amendments be agreed to.

This is incredibly important legislation. I've said that the House and the Senate have had the opportunity this week to do something meaningful and lasting for the health of young Australians, and I genuinely meant that. Vaping has become a very serious public health scourge in this country. Not only is it a health scourge but it is consistently rated as the number one behavioural issue in schools by school communities and by school leaders.

I want to thank the Senate for the way in which they conducted this debate. I particularly want to thank Senator Lambie, Senator Pocock and Senator Jordon Steele-John for their long, constructive discussions with the government, and with me particularly, about the way in which we can make a serious regulatory scheme work. I also want to thank a long list of outside stakeholders for their support here. This is a package of amendments not just from the Commonwealth but a package agreed between all governments. This has been a regular topic of discussion between state, territory and Commonwealth health ministers now for more than 12 months. We have a vaping enforcement working group that is co-chaired by the head of NSW Health and by Commissioner Outram, head of the Australian Border Force, that brings together not just health authorities but policing authorities. This is genuinely an intergovernmental package of reforms. These reforms are Commonwealth legislation, but they will be enforced by state and territory authorities.

I particularly want to thank officers, particularly the legal counsel of the TGA. I want to thank the tobacco branch in our department. Tony Lawler, the head of the TGA, played a direct role in the construction of these reforms. And there's a long list of groups which have fought for better tobacco control in this country for five decades: the Cancer Council; the AMA; the Australian Council on Smoking & Health; the Public Health Association; and a range of academics—in particular, Emily Banks from the ANU, who has been such a strong public advocate, as well as Becky Freeman and many others as well. I want to thank all of them for their support for this package of reforms.

The amendments to the bill that were passed in the Senate very much keep faith with the original intention of our reform. They ensure legitimate access to therapeutic goods is not unduly obstructed while recreational vaping in general retail settings is abolished in this country. If the House accepts these amendments, that abolition will take place from Monday 1 July.

This product was sold to us as a therapeutic good. It was never presented as a recreational product, particularly not one that would be so cynically and transparently marketed to our children. The tragedy of this subterfuge is that it's working. One in six high school kids is vaping; one in four young adults is vaping. We know that vaping in and of itself is unhealthy. Almost every month we are gathering new evidence about the harms that vaping is causing to young lungs and the harms that particularly nicotine addiction is causing to the mental health of young Australians, to their learning behaviours and to their socialisation. Most insidiously, we know this is a gateway to cigarettes, and that was the intention of big tobacco. I'm very confident that in the coming months and years around the world, just as their attitude to smoking control was eventually unmasked—to their shame—we will learn that this was the strategy all along from big tobacco to recruit a new generation to nicotine addiction. We are determined in this government, and I know many members of parliament in this chamber and the other share this determination. We are not going to stand by and let a new generation be recruited to nicotine addiction—not after all of the deaths, dislocation and grief that we have seen for decades and decades because of tobacco.

I strongly commend these amendments to the House. I want to thank everyone who has worked really hard in this building and beyond—in state governments and in the NGO sector in public health groups—for their support of our determination to take this very important public health measure. As I said, parliament doesn't always get an opportunity like this to do something as meaningful and as lasting for the health of the youngest members of our community as we have today. I urge the House to support these amendments.

Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Unfortunately, I must strongly disagree with the minister. These amendments do not, in effect, change the importance and strength of the original bill, which I voted in support of and commended the government for taking such a strong stance on such a scourge that is impacting young people, leading them to be addicted and hooked on nicotine, which leads them to smoking. We know vaping is a strategy of big tobacco. I absolutely welcomed the government's willingness to ban it and to make it incredibly hard to obtain—in particular, for it to be done only through a prescription—to ensure that it was very much limited in how people over 18 could access it. Unfortunately, the Greens, the crossbench and the Senate's amendments have diluted a lot of the effects of the legislation.

My understanding is that we now have a situation where everyone, including people under 18, will be able to have nine items on them per person, and there is no limit per day or on a situation. Essentially, you can still have a situation of a person with a lot of items on them, and there will be no consequence for that, and that can be repeated day after day. In a situation where the minister says we have one in six high school children vaping, what does that mean if they can have nine on their person each day? That is still a system where you are going to see the on-sale of vapes and a black market of vapes. You are allowing too many vapes to be in the hands of children and adults. I would ask the minister: what measures are you going to put in place to reassure parents that they are not still going to see vapes everywhere in the schools? I would ask the Greens party, who have asked for these amendments and pushed for this to happen: how will you assure parents that we're not going see this mass of vapes still for our children, impacting them in their schools?

Now we are in a situation where we're going to see pharmacies essentially take on the role of a tobacconist—those horrendous shops that we've seen pop up all around our communities, as close to schools as they possibly can be, in areas that appeal to children, young people and young adults. We now have a situation where pharmacies are going to be asked to sell behind the counter a product that we know from a health perspective is dangerous—that has a negative impact on people's health. I cannot see how it is a positive development for the government to have caved in to these amendments. I strongly support the bill as it originally stood. I am incredibly disappointed with the crossbench in the Senate and, in particular, the Greens party for having pushed for these amendments rather than supporting a strong ban that genuinely puts the health of children, young people and adults at the heart of the legislation.

I ask the minister, since this is the process for it: what protections and additional measures is the government considering to ensure we don't see that kind of onsale of vapes between children and a black market emerging? What measures will be put in place to ensure, with the sales from behind the counter in pharmacies, that there is the smoking cessation aspect and also the cessation of vaping? What measures will be put in place to ensure people are not addicted to vaping and actually reduce their reliance on vaping?

Sophie Scamps (Mackellar, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, I'd like to thank the government and commend them for the work that they have done to eradicate vaping in the way that they can. There's been so much hard work done behind the scenes from public health agencies and health promotion agencies.

Vaping with single-use vapes was an absolute scourge—it is an absolute scourge, I should say—and one that targeted our children in a way that was extremely cynical, so much so that schools in my electorate have had to install vape detectors in bathrooms because children were leaving classrooms to go and vape. The impact that has had on children's behaviour, their concentration and their ability to learn has been absolutely horrific.

What I would like to say, however, is that I am disappointed at the watering down of what was a really incredible bill. I am disappointed. It is sad because it was, I guess, a once-in-a-generation opportunity to really end the scourge of vapes and the targeting of our children with that. My concern is that the ability for vapes to be bought without a prescription by people over the age of 18—and the ability to buy over nine—will mean that people will go from pharmacy to pharmacy to pharmacy. Just as people doctor shopped to get certain prescription medications, they will be shopping around their pharmacists. They'll be able to get a large amount, and they'll be able to onsell those to their friends. Their 18-year-old friends will be able to sell to the children who are already addicted to nicotine.

We know that nicotine is one of the most addictive substances known to mankind. The large majority of children are already addicted to nicotine. When it becomes expensive, having to buy those vapes, they will simply turn to smoking cigarettes. It is a gateway. It leaves the door open for vaping to continue, and it leaves the door open for that move towards cigarettes. It is a cynical ploy by the big tobacco companies who want to start manufacturing these vapes. It is a cynical ploy to continue to get people hooked on nicotine, which is a gateway to smoking.

Although I really support the measures that the government is trying to implement, I'm very disappointed that it's been watered down in this way, because I think it will only leave the door open to more smoking in our young people.

Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to express disappointment at the watering down of this incredibly important legislation. Members of the crossbench in this House were very supportive of the government bringing on what was a really courageous innovation. It's really unfortunate that it's been necessary for the government to make these concessions in the Senate.

I'd like to make the point that one of the reasons why that has been necessary is that Senators Lambie and Tyrrell, in the Senate, have consistently expressed real concerns about the fact that Medicare services in this country are not sufficient to provide the support that people who want to give up smoking need. For GPs to be able to provide that sort of service, they need to have time, they need to have the relevant training and they need to be able to give people who want to get off cigarettes the support that they need. It's not a simple process. It's not as simple as just writing a script for vapes. What we know is that people can't access GP services in many parts of this country, and, when they do, many people are forced to deal with an out-of-pocket fee that they simply cannot afford. The need to water down this legislation in the way that we've seen in recent weeks reflects a failure of our Medicare services, which is heartbreaking to see because all of us in this place, I think, agree that smoking is a bad thing and that vapes are a bad thing. Almost all of us—I will come to the Nationals in a moment. So it is incredibly disappointing seen this problem with Medicare and its deficiencies, and, as a result of that, the need to water down this legislation.

I'd also make the point that at the moment we're seeing many Australians resorting to online providers of prescriptions, who are in many cases also going on to provide vapes to people who are looking to smoking cessation. I think this is a failure of our regulatory system which also warrants review by the minister. We're not providing best-practice care when people can go online and get a prescription for vapes which is, essentially, sent out by the script provider. That is not a situation where people are receiving best-practice care for smoking cessation.

Finally, I would like to address some concerns that many Australians have about the fact that one of the major political parties in this country continues to receive significant donations from the tobacco lobby—which is the same as the vaping lobby. I would call out the Nationals political party, which is a very bad tail, essentially, wagging the Liberal Party dog in its decision to oppose this legislation, and which has forced the government to deal with the crossbench in the Senate as it has. It's an absolute disgrace when a major political party in this country continues to receive donations from the tobacco and vaping lobby. I think that Australians should continue to consider that and that they should always take it into account every time they think about the National Party and whether or not it's reflecting the best interests of them and of their children.

I'm sorry that I can't support these amendments in this House. I'd love to; I'm very happy to see the vaping legislation go forward, but it's very disappointing that it has had to be watered down in the way that it has.

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to back in the arguments put forward by my crossbench colleagues on these amendments. I too congratulate the government on the hard work they undertook to get these vaping laws to the point that they did when they went to the Senate. I have been loud and encouraging in my support of the government's actions in stamping out the scourge of vaping for our young people. We're also aware—incredibly aware—that our professional bodies, like the Australian Public Health Association, VicHealth and so many other professionals associations, are applauding the government on difficult work in stamping out another gateway, another pathway, to addict our young people into an unhealthy habit which has profound impacts on their further lives. It beggars belief, really, that we can do such good work in politics but that it then, ultimately, comes down to the decisions of a small few in the Senate who have the power to change the course of history in a way that has such long-term impacts on our nation.

So I am very disappointed; I didn't expect to be in the position where I would be voting against something in the House today when it comes to vapes. I'm very disappointed in the argument that was put by the Greens in the Senate, and I also want to commend the member for Kooyong in calling out the National Party in accepting political donations from big tobacco. While we have political donations laws in this country that enable this to happen, and while we have a lack of ethics from a major party in accepting political donations which can influence policy in such a way, then we have a real problem in this country. We have a real problem when it affects the long-term health of our kids. So I thank the member for Kooyong for pointing that out. I do say to the government that it's deeply disappointing that you have had to compromise in this way.

I also want to acknowledge the concerns of our pharmacists across the nation. We've probably talked more about pharmacies in this term of parliament than we have in any other time that I've been a member of parliament, so I can understand why they're very angry about this and why they're asking questions about why they weren't consulted and why they're now shouldering responsibilities when it comes to dispensing—it's not dispensing, of course, it's the sale—of vapes. I think that is deeply problematic, and I will be voting against these amendments in the House today. I'm disappointed to be in such a position where I must do that, and I want to put on the record that I voted strongly in favour of the original law that was put to us in the House of Representatives.

Sophie Scamps (Mackellar, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I support the Greens' amendment to decriminalise the possession of small numbers of vapes. One thing that I do want to say, though, picks up on the fact that no data will be collected from people purchasing vapes. That opens the door, as I said previously, for pharmacy shopping—to buy nine from one pharmacy and another nine from another pharmacy and to continue on like that. There does need to be data collected on people who are purchasing vapes, otherwise that will open the door to on selling of vapes in the future to young people.

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

I thank members of the crossbench for their advocacy on these reforms in a broad sense and their contribution today. I just want to clarify a couple of things. People cannot buy nine vapes. If you look at the legislation, it says you will only be able to buy one month's supply, which, given that they're reusable, will generally be pods. So people cannot go in and buy nine vapes from a pharmacy. I need to dispel that. The member for Mackellar said that a couple of times.

I hear the disappointment from members of the crossbench, but let me just reiterate what we have done here. We came to this area saying we intended to wipe out recreational vaping, but we intended to allow genuine therapeutic access to vapes that were not just sort of flooding into this country with who knows what in them and a variety of levels of nicotine. To be sold, a vape must not be disposable and must comply with standards that have been put in place in March by the TGA around nicotine content and content for a range of other chemicals. They must have a permit from the Office of Drug Control.

So this is a very different situation to the one we faced only a few months ago. Already we have seized more than 2½ million disposable vapes at the border. We are already starting to choke off supply. These measures, the third wave of our reforms, if they pass the House today, will see these vape stores that have deliberately opened up down the road from schools start to shut down. There is no change to our intention to wipe out the retail element of this market and the recreational vaping market in broad terms.

There are different views about whether a schedule 3 medicine is a therapeutic pathway. I disagree with members of the crossbench who imply at the very least that a schedule 3 pathway is not consistent with our view about this being a therapeutic good. This is not retail supply. This is not, in contrast to the member for Warringah's description, making pharmacists tobacconists. Using that language, frankly, is quite misleading. There is no suggestion that pharmacists would ever be able to supply tobacco or stock tobacco.

As to consultation, and the Senate debate I heard: there have been Senate committee inquiries here, and everybody, including the pharmacists' business lobby, has been able to participate in those inquiries. They've been in the corridors meeting with crossbenchers in the other place. I heard in the debate yesterday that one of the suggestions from that group was that this be a schedule 2, not a schedule 3—so it would be available over the counter, taken off the shelf, provided to the pharmacy assistant or retail assistant. That is very different to what is before the House right now. This requires a conversation with a qualified health professional. It is a pharmacist. It is the same discussion you would have to access the morning-after pill, a range of serious asthma medicines, pseudoephedrine and a range of things like that. I reject the idea this is some retail model. This is a therapeutic model. It might not be model the crossbench likes or the model that was in the original bill but it is still very much a therapeutic model. The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia—not the business group but the professional body for pharmacists—has said, as it should, that if this legislation passes it will work with the government to update its clinical practice guidelines. Pharmacists have been having these discussions for years with their patients and customers. They provide a whole range of other smoking cessation supports and nicotine replacement therapies, as particularly the doctors on the crossbench understand very well.

I understand the disappointment from those in this place and outside who would like to see the bill retained in its original form—that it would be a doctor or nurse practitioner prescription only model. This was an alternative pathway that had been discussed openly by health ministers over the last 12 months who were concerned about access issues; the member for Kooyong rightly raised them. There are difficulties getting in to see a GP not just in rural and regional Australia but in many cities as well. These are fine questions of balance. I accept reasonable people who come to this debate with goodwill can disagree, but I reject any idea that the amendments before the House now are anything other than consistent with our intention to provide only a therapeutic pathway to these goods.

Max Chandler-Mather (Griffith, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will address two issues, and I thank the minister for his comments. The first is the criminalisation of possession, and I think this is quite a crucial point. We have seen in the past, especially when it comes to kids in my home state of Queensland, that First Nations kids in particular are often overpoliced in their communities and possession charges are often used as an excuse to go after them, harass them or discriminate against them. The Greens are very proud of the fact we've managed to get rid of criminalisation for possession or at least ensure that a kid with one or two vapes isn't harassed by the police over basic possession. That's crucial because prohibition at that scale has never worked. The government cannot even keep drugs out of prisons, so I'm not sure what we would gain out of increasing the criminalisation or overpolicing often of vulnerable communities and in particular of marginalised children.

I think this is a huge significant gain because it means that, right now, for the lives of kids, if they are using vapes, it is a health issue. Surely it's not an issue that should involve the police or the criminal justice system. Pushing kids into a situation where they have to hide the fact that they vape, lest they worry about being criminalised, surely makes it less likely that they might get health support in the future. Kids should be treated completely differently in that situation; I support that.

The second thing around the shift to the pharmacy model is, again, all prohibition has done in the past, even with alcohol and in other countries around the world, is create a black market. It has pushed people to seek out criminals—some of the worst people in the world—and the illegal drug trade to seek out drugs that they are always going to seek out. The state has never been able to successfully stamp out any illicit drug. Never. In this situation it's a good thing that we at least ensure people don't have to think about either paying huge gap to go and see a GP that they already struggle to get to see, to get access to a vape because, with that level a barrier, it will mean more people end up trying to access them illegally.

It is a genuinely positive thing that the minister said that when they do go to purchase a vape that they will have to have a conversation with their pharmacist but they don't have to cross another financial barrier and another logistical barrier to get something that, let's be frank, a lot of people are already going to try and get. So I think this has been a genuinely good process of negotiation between the government and the Greens and parts of the crossbench that has led to a fine balancing out in this parliament of differing views about how we regulate drugs in our society through acknowledging the evidence. If anyone can point to me to a moment in history, in any country around the world, where prohibition to that level has worked to stamp out the usage of illicit drugs, I will be happy to look at it.

What prohibition has often resulted in is the over-policing of marginalised communities, in particular in my home state of Queensland, massive increases in incarceration rates for First Nations children in particular, who, let's be clear, are kids. What on earth is interacting with a police officer who has a go at them for having a couple of vapes going to achieve other than further marginalising them and further pushing them into a criminal justice system they should not have to interact with?

I think there are a lot of positives in this shift and I wanted to get up and defend them.

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Griffith for that contribution to the debate. I agree with him. I do not want to see young people criminalised or been subjected to the criminal justice system. I think one of the problems with what we're being asked to consider today is that we have a block of amendments. It is difficult to vote for everything when you have problems with elements of these amendments. I want to put on the record that I agree with him, I agree with the Greens' amendments about ensuring that we do not criminalise people with vapes for personal use; although I still have concerns in regard to the number of nine. I take the minister's point that he made in regard to the number of vapes and it isn't nine actual vapes, if we talk about the covering material.

But I just want to say that this is a block of amendments with many implications that take us away from the primary bill that we voted in favour of, and I thank the member for Griffith for his explanation just now.

Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to echo the sentiments of the member for Indi. I strongly agree; I don't want to see the criminalisation of youth. That is a major problem, especially when it comes to First Nations children and their overrepresentation in our criminal system and all of that. But I do have concerns with the number of what is considered to be personal use and I would like a better explanation from the minister as to why a personal quantity has been considered to be nine, and how does that extrapolate over a period of time? Because even if you are talking about one item with a refill, is that a situation where a person can have nine refills on them each day? But there is essential cap on an amount that a person can have access to over a period of a month or something like that.

Because the concern is if you are allowing somebody over 18 to go to a pharmacy, as the member for Mackellar has said, what protections will there be if there is no data being recorded for that situation of going pharmacy shopping? And that does, with respect, result in that comparison between pharmacies and tobacconists. They become similar to a tobacconist in the sense that they are providing a highly addictive and dangerous item without there being any caps or limits. I don't understand that there is any monthly cap, or anything like that, on people being able to access this. If there is no record being kept, then a person does go from pharmacy to pharmacy to get that supply. I do have an issue with the concept that personal use is nine vapes, unless a better explanation can be provided as to what that quantifies, what that reflects over a period of time and whether any caps are going to be in place. What measures are going to be in place to ensure that we don't have pharmacy shopping—jumping from one to the other—and an excessive amount being available to people?

This is a highly addictive substance—or process. We know that people get addicted to it. We know it's incredibly hard for people to stop smoking. We know it's probably going to be incredibly hard for people to stop vaping. So what assistance are we generally providing? What measures are we generally putting in place now, as a result of these amendments, to ensure we are not just leading people down another pathway of addiction?

Sophie Scamps (Mackellar, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd also like to thank the member for Griffith for his contribution to this debate. So many of us here do not want to see the possession of small amounts of vaping material criminalised. I concur with that fully. I'd like to also concur with the member for Warringah in asking what the data collection will be around the purchase of vapes from pharmacies—because, really, that is required so that it is truly a therapeutic relationship and it's not being misused. I'd like to hear from the minister, if possible, about what the data collection from pharmacies will be.

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

I thank members for their further contributions. This question of possession has been a process of discussion and consideration. As members know, particularly when it comes to the pods—because all of these will be reusable vapes; you will not be able to buy disposable vapes anymore—we're conscious that, when we set regulations about these things, the industry tries to readjust their product to get around them. So these are, again, matters of judgement.

What we have sought to do is to set those offence provisions, or the number of devices, at a level that does not lead to users being potentially targeted or potentially in breach of offence provisions here, to allow for a range of different scenarios. One of the matters that were put to us quite strongly in the Senate debate was that people in rural and regional Australia will often buy additional supplies so that they don't have to keep going back every month. So we're trying to take account of a range of things.

This is a new area. I think one of the really positive things about the Senate amendments is the legislated review of this. Because this new regime is quite different—it's very different to the way in which we've managed tobacco; it's quite world leading—I don't think any of us pretend to know exactly how it will roll out or whether, three years down the track, we as a parliament won't say that there are not ways in which we would want to tweak a range of things and maybe change it substantially. I think that's been a constructive part of the amendments coming through from the Senate.

As to data collection, again, this is something that was the subject of discussion over in the other place. Many members of the crossbench, particularly the member for Mackellar, who is a GP, know of Project STOP, the model for pseudoephedrine, which was also set up as a schedule 3 medicine so that obtaining it requires a discussion with a pharmacist. You're not always successful in obtaining pseudoephedrine-containing products when you go and have that discussion with a pharmacist. I can attest to that from a personal experience earlier this year—being marched out of my local pharmacy on a Sunday morning on the basis that I did not meet all of the conditions for access to cold and flu tablets that contain pseudoephedrine. It was rather humiliating, I must say, as the country's health minister! But I can attest that that discussion does work. The data entry requirements of Project STOP for pseudoephedrine were put in place because of law enforcement concerns around what was happening to pseudoephedrine—it was being cut up for methamphetamine manufacture—so there was a particular law enforcement imperative, or motivation, for that measure. We considered that there was not the thing here same here.

There is a concern about people going into multiple pharmacies, potentially, buying more than one vape in a month and then onselling them. Balanced against that was for pharmacists to focus their the time on the therapeutic discussion rather than on data entry—generally, that's for schedule 3 medicines, with really only the exception of pseudoephedrine because of the law enforcement concern. To be effective, that would then have to be linked to other pharmacies and have some other monitoring regime, which we were not convinced was really going to be proper regulation. If that judgement is not proven out over time then we'll have the opportunity to continue to talk about that, but I thought I'd give members of the crossbench some explanation about where we landed on that.

Sophie Scamps (Mackellar, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to talk about that linking of data information between pharmacies, because if that data is not being collected now then we're not going to be able to make a decision later as to whether that is actually occurring or not.

The other thing I'd like to say—being a health professional myself—is, as you mentioned, that those conversations take a lot of time. They take a lot of investment. What I can see happening is the pharmacists having to have a lot of those conversations—sometimes needlessly, if there are people who are going from pharmacy to pharmacy. It does take a lot of time. And people do that; people do go to various doctors and doctor shop, and it takes a lot of time and investment. What I think we need to know is if that information will be collected upfront so that we can make a decision in a couple of years' time as to whether that is actually occurring?

I would encourage the minister to look at implementing that linking of pharmacy data now so that we can actually make a decision in the future. If we don't have the data now, we are simply unable to make that judgement in the future.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question before the House is that the Senate amendments be agreed to.