Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

clearly not us—but I'm not going to let Senator Hanson-Young's speech pass. I notice she made a big deal about the habitats of koalas being under threat by coalmines. I hope to hear the same passion from Senator Hanson-Young when we see koala habitats being descried through the development of wind turbine and solar farms with the at least 22,000 solar panels required every day. We need 22,000 solar panels every day and 40 wind turbines per month if we're to reach our renewable target, all of which will most likely be contributing to the depletion of koala habitat. And yet silence from the Greens. Never let hypocrisy get in the way of a good rant, but I digress. My first minute, but this is not what I'm here to speak to today.

The issue that I really want to speak to isn't just about policy, it's actually about Australian lives and the potential that we have, in this place, to save up to 20,000 Australian lives each and every year. This is a matter of public health and it's one where Australia is lagging behind when it comes to international best practice.

I wanted to have a discussion today about one global best practice situation that's occurring in Sweden. This Scandinavian country, with a population of just over 10 million, is currently on the cusp of achieving an extraordinary feat. It is about to become the first nation to effectively eradicate smoking. This nation stands on the cusp of achieving what we in Australia can only dream of at present, which is becoming the first smoke-free nation. How did they do this? WHO considers a country smoke-free when fewer than five per cent of the population smoke tobacco. As of November 2022, the Swedish authorities reported a smoking rate of just 5.6 per cent among those aged over 16 years. This is a benchmark that we in Australia have aimed to achieve by 2030, yet Sweden is set to meet it this year.

How has Sweden done it? The answer is both straightforward and damning of the approach taken by the Australian government. Sweden has made less harmful alternatives to cigarettes accessible, affordable and socially acceptable. Products such as snus, oral nicotine pouches and vaping products were introduced and embraced, leading to a health revolution. In just 14 years, from 2006 to 2020, these alternatives contributed to a striking 60 per cent decrease in Swedish smoking rates.

In stark contrast to that, we find ourselves grappling with the failures of the Australian government's outdated tobacco control framework. Despite world-leading measures such as the highest cigarette prices globally and plain packaging, data from the Cancer Council Victoria shows that there's been no significant decline in adult smoking over the past five years. This isn't progress. This is a damning indictment of the Australian government's misguided approach. I will acknowledge, and you won't actually hear that very often in this place, that Minister Hunt's prescription model has failed. It is a failed policy. It doesn't work. All it has done is fuel the black market. After more than a year in office, Labor's response to this is, of course, to not only embrace that policy but to double down on it. They have actually made it more difficult and will punish some of the most vulnerable Australians. Instead of observing and understanding and adopting successful strategies—lessons from Sweden's progress—the health minister persists in an approach of prohibition, banning the very products that have driven down smoking rates in Sweden.

Let's examine what's occurred since the health minister's chest-beating exercise last month, when he repeatedly stated he was determined to take strong action on vaping. In the May budget there was no funding allocated to enforce this misguided vape prohibition plan. This critical oversight is indicative of a government that's willing to make grand media statements but lacks any commitment to seeing them through. Further, the head of Border Force has publicly stated that banning vapes at the border won't be enough to stamp out a rampant black market, as his organisation was already only managing to detect a quarter of illicit drugs making their way to Australia. Let's have a think about it. Do we want Border Force focused on stopping heroin, cocaine and guns coming into Australia or do we want them focused on blueberry vapes? Furthermore, state governments have voiced their concerns about the practicality and costs of enforcing this ban. In fact New South Wales Labor Premier Chris Minns has conceded that the vape ban will be difficult to enforce and has indicated his government would seek support from the Commonwealth. The Labor Victorian Premier has said he's concerned that the Commonwealth government would push costs on to the states. The Police Federation of Australia CEO has publicly stated that officers are already under-resourced at a state and territory level, meaning resources to enforce vape bans will likely be redirected from other critical policing efforts such as domestic violence, organised crime and firearm offences.

These concerns paint a pretty bleak picture of the Labor government's ill-conceived policy. It's not just the prescription-only model that's failing Australia. It's a policy that lacks any planning, adequate funding and a reasonable understanding of its enforceability. Where does this leave us? It leaves us at the mercy of the Albanese government's failed approach. It's a government that, despite evidence to the contrary, is doubling down on a policy that's proven unsuccessful. It's a government that is choosing to ignore the success of nations like Sweden, where a different approach has delivered remarkable results.

I know those opposite, those that seem to have vaping as their raison d'etre for screaming, are going to accuse me and others who support the legal right of adults to ingest nicotine in any way they choose, whether it is a cigarette, a legal product; a spray; a patch; a gum; an inhaler. There is no reason vapes should not be considered the same as a consumer product. But what has happened under this failed prescription model is a black market has flourished. If you want to talk about organised crime, that's where the vapes are coming from at the moment. They are imported from China. They're not stopped at the border. And, even if they are stopped, there's a fine. There's no jail term. So it's actually safer for them to move their business model to vapes than to drugs or guns in some ways, because there's no jail time associated with it. It's actually putting pressure on the small-business owners and manufacturers in Australia who produce the juice that is used in vaping without the nicotine; they will be unable to survive.

What happens when legal entities are pushed out of the market through failed policy? It means that the black market continues to grow. We know that those opposite are panicking about the reduction in the cigarette excise that they are currently able to access, and that's because cigarette rates are dropping because vaping is an incredibly successful smoking cessation tool. In fact, they are successful to the point that over in the UK they are offering financial incentives to pregnant women to stop smoking and to go to e-cigarettes or vapes. They're actually providing them at hospitals. New Zealand is streets ahead of us when it comes to declines in smoking rates because they have embraced vaping as a smoking cessation tool.

They also have significantly lower rates of youth vaping, because it is regulated correctly. Rather than the government looking at a failed policy—and I've already said that I'll accept responsibility that Minister Hunt put it in. Senator Canavan and I in particular argued very strongly against it. You can look at our recommendations in the report. What we want to see is a regulated and licensed market. We want to make sure that there's quality control. We don't want people being able to access their Wuhan sticks about which they don't know where anything has been produced, they don't know what's in them and there are no nicotine levels. We want a product that has a quality control. We want a product about which Australians can be sure of its safety and efficacy.

We want to see that it's sold as a consumer product in the same way that cigarettes and alcohol are. We have pretty good success when it comes to keeping under-18s away from cigarettes and alcohol, probably as best as we can. Teenagers can be nightmares. That's what they do. But, as best as we can, we do pretty good generally at keeping under-18s away from cigarettes and alcohol. There are big fines if you sell them to under-18s. So why don't we do the same with vaping?

At a time when we are facing gaps in our budget, under a pharmacy model, there's no GST because it's a medicine. But, if we move to a consumer model, not only can we put an excise on it; it gets GST. So, for all of these reforms we're talking about, when it comes to policing vaping, there will actually be some money in the budget, unlike what those opposite have done where there's no money in the budget. They're all talk with no follow through. All they are going to do is put legitimate businesses out of business, boost the black market and increase the access that our children have because they refuse to accept reality.