Cassandra Fernando (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. What action is the Albanese Labor government taking to tackle the public health menace of vaping? Why is urgent action required? What approaches have been rejected?

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

I thank the member for Holt for her question and for her support of these reforms. Vaping is a scourge. It is a public health menace, particularly for children and for young people. A product that was presented as a therapeutic good that would help hardened smokers finally kick the habit has actually been deployed by big tobacco as a tool to recruit a new generation to nicotine addiction.

You just have to look at the products—brightly coloured with cartoon characters on them and with ridiculous flavours like 'bubblegum ice'. They are often designed as highlighter pens or USB sticks so that they can be hidden in pencil cases, away from the eyes of teachers and parents. And you just have to look at where they're being sold: nine out of 10 vape stores are located within walking distance of schools. That is deliberate, because that is exactly their target market.

The tragedy is that big tobacco is winning this war. One in six high school students are vaping. One in four very young adults are vaping, and it is causing them real harm. Parents are having to manage kids with serious nicotine addictions. Teachers are being rostered not just to stand outside of toilets but inside school toilets during lunch breaks and recess to police vaping in their schools. They are, all of them, asking us in this building, 'How on earth did this happen?'

To his credit, Greg Hunt tried to stop the flood of imported vapes into this country, but he was rolled by his party room within a matter of days. They kept on flooding in until 1 January, when our government finally banned the import of disposal vapes. In those six months we have seized more than 2.8 million vapes, taking them out of the hands of our kids finally. Today, parliament passed the next phase of our reforms: to ban the sale and the supply of vapes outside therapeutic settings. Remember, this was supposed to be a therapeutic good. From Monday, you'll only be able to buy a vape from a therapeutic place for therapeutic reasons—

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

Abolition always works!

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

Order! The member for Cowper will cease interjecting.

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

from a pharmacy and after a conversation with a qualified health professional; not in the vape stores, not in convenient stores and not in other retail settings.

This is a real change. The College of General Practitioners said:

This is about saving children's lungs and younger generations from getting hooked on nicotine.

Every now and then, this place has a real opportunity to do something meaningful and lasting for the health of young Australians; today was one of those days, and we did it.