Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move my amendment on sheet 2217:

(1) Page 130 (after line 9), after Chapter 3, insert:

Chapter 3A — Vaping regulation

Part 3A.1 — Introduction

124A Simplified outline of this Chapter

This Chapter regulates e-cigarette products that contain nicotine to reduce the health risk to consumers by prescribing the amount of nicotine that can be used in e-cigarette products and prohibiting the use of harmful chemicals in e-cigarette products. Plain packaging and health warnings will also be required on all e-cigarette products.

This Chapter also makes it an offence to sell e-cigarette products to minors.

Part 3A.2 — E-cigarette product regulation

124B E-cigarette product requirements

E-cigarette products manufactured, imported, distributed, supplied or sold in Australian must comply with the requirements in this Chapter.

124C Nicotine

(1) Nicotine for use in e-cigarette products is removed from and cannot be included in the Poisons Standard made under Therapeutic Goods Act 1989.

(2) Subsection (1) has effect notwithstanding anything in the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989 or the Poisons Standard made under the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989 at the date this section takes effect.

(3) The regulations may prescribe the nicotine concentration that must not be exceeded in e-cigarette products.

(4) In this section:

Poisons Standard means the current Poisons Standard as defined in the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989.

124D Harmful chemicals

The regulations may prescribe chemicals or ingredients that are harmful to health (other than nicotine) that must not be included in e-cigarette products.

124E Appearance and physical features of e-cigarette products

(1) The appearance and physical features of the retail packaging of e-cigarette products must comply with the requirements (if any) prescribed by regulations made for the purposes of this subsection.

(2) Without limiting subsection (1), the regulations may prescribe requirements in relation to:

(a) the colour and finish of retail packaging;

(b) mandatory health warnings;

(c) prohibited terms and other marks;

(d) prohibited images;

(e) restrictions on the use of brand names or variant names; and

(f) flavourings and the use of flavour descriptors.

Part 3A.3 — General offences and civil penalty provisions for non-compliant e-cigarette products

124F Selling or supplying e-cigarette products to minors

(1) A person contravenes this section if the person sells, offers to sell or supplies an e-cigarette product to a person under the age of 18.

Fault-based offence

(2) A person commits an offence if the person contravenes subsection (1).

Penalty:

(a) in the case of a natural person—2,000 penalty units; and

(b) in the case of a body corporate—20,000 penalty units.

Strict liability offence

(3) A person commits an offence of strict liability if the person contravenes subsection (1).

Penalty:

(a) in the case of a natural person—60 penalty units; and

(b) in the case of a body corporate—600 penalty units.

Civil penalty provision

(4) A person is liable to a civil penalty if the person contravenes subsection (1).

Penalty:

(a) in the case of a natural person—2,000 penalty units; and

(b) in the case of a body corporate—20,000 penalty units.

124G Retail of e-cigarettes products in non-compliant packaging

(1) A person contravenes this section if the person manufactures, packages for retail sale, sells, offers to sell, supplies or offers to supply an e-cigarette product that does not comply with subsection 124E(1).

Fault-based offence

(2) A person commits an offence if the person contravenes subsection (1).

Penalty:

(a) in the case of a natural person—2,000 penalty units; and

(b) in the case of a body corporate—20,000 penalty units.

Strict liability offence

(3) A person commits an offence of strict liability if the person contravenes subsection (1).

Penalty:

(a) in the case of a natural person—60 penalty units; and

(b) in the case of a body corporate—600 penalty units.

Civil penalty provision

(4) A person is liable to a civil penalty if the person contravenes subsection (1).

Penalty:

(a) in the case of a natural person—2,000 penalty units; and

(b) in the case of a body corporate—20,000 penalty units.

Chapter 3B — E-cigarette product take back scheme

Part 3B.1 — Introduction

124H Simplified outline of this Chapter

This Chapter requires e-cigarette product manufacturers, importers, distributors and retailers (relevant suppliers) to establish collection points for the collection of used e-cigarette products. Relevant suppliers are required to maintain an electronic register of collection points that is accessible by the public. Relevant suppliers are responsible for the collection of e-cigarette products from collection points.

E-cigarette products must contain a deposit marking which states that the product must be returned to a collection point.

A relevant supplier who disposes of an e-cigarette product at a landfill site, or in any other prohibited manner, commits an offence.

Part 3B.2 — Definitions

124J Definitions

In this Part:

automated collection point means a collection point that consists of a machine or other device that involves inserting used e-cigarette products into the device, whether or not some other action is required to activate the device.

collection point arrangement means an arrangement between a relevant supplier of e-cigarette products and a retailer under which the relevant supplier collects used e-cigarette products from the retailer.

collection point means a designated place where a consumer may deposit the relevant supplier's used e-cigarettes product and includes an automated collection point.

relevant supplier in relation to an e-cigarette product means a manufacturer, importer or distributer of e-cigarette products.

used e-cigarette product means an e-cigarette product ordered, purchased or used by a consumer, and includes an e-cigarette product that remains in its original packaging.

Part 3B.3 — E-cigarette take back scheme

124K Relevant supplier must establish collection points and collect e-cigarette products

(1) A relevant supplier of e-cigarette products must establish collection points in accordance with the requirements (if any) prescribed by regulations made for the purposes of this subsection.

(2) Without limiting subsection (1), a relevant supplier of e-cigarette products may establish a collection point under subsection (1) by entering into a collection point arrangement with a retailer.

(3) A relevant supplier of e-cigarette products must collect the relevant supplier's used e-cigarette products collected at collection points that the relevant supplier has established under subsection (1).

Offences

(4) A person commits an offence if:

(a) the person is a relevant supplier of e-cigarette products; and

(b) the person has not established collection points in accordance with subsection (1).

Penalty:

(a) in the case of a natural person—2,000 penalty units; and

(b) in the case of a body corporate—20,000 penalty units.

(5) A person commits an offence if:

(a) the person is a relevant supplier of e-cigarette products; and

(b) the person refuses or fails to collect the person's used e-cigarette products from a collection point in accordance with subsection (3).

Penalty:

(a) in the case of a natural person—2,000 penalty units; and

(b) in the case of a body corporate—20,000 penalty units.

124L Requirements for collection point arrangements

A collection point arrangement must meet the requirements (if any) prescribed by regulations made for the purposes of this section.

124M Relevant supplier of e-cigarette products to maintain a register of collection points

(1) A relevant supplier of e-cigarette products must maintain a register of collection points that the relevant supplier has established under section 124K.

(2) The register must be:

(a) kept in an electronic form on the relevant supplier's website; and

(b) accessible by the public; and

(c) searchable.

(3) The register must include the following in relation to each collection point:

(a) the location;

(b) the hours the collection point is accessible to the public;

(c) any other information prescribed by regulations made for the purposes of this paragraph.

124N Requirements for collection point arrangements

None of the following communications, of themselves, constitute an e-cigarette advertisement:

(a) notification to consumers that an e-cigarette product may be returned to a collection point;

(b) notification to consumers of incentives to return e-cigarette products to a collection point.

124P E-cigarette product must bear collection point return markings

(1) An e-cigarette product must contain, on its external packaging, a written statement that:

(a) states that the e-cigarette product must be returned to a collection point; and

(b) includes a hyperlink to the website with the relevant supplier's list of collection points established under section 124K; and

(c) any other information or graphics prescribed by regulations made for the purposes of this paragraph.

Note: Chapter 3A sets out additional packaging requirements for e-cigarette products.

(2) A relevant supplier must not sell an e-cigarette product to another person to use or consume, or to sell for use, consumption or further sale unless the container displays the markings required by subsection (1).

Offence

(3) A person commits an offence if the person contravenes subsection (2).

Penalty:

(a) in the case of a natural person—2,000 penalty units; and

(b) in the case of a body corporate—20,000 penalty units.

Part 3B.4 — Disposal of e-cigarette products

124Q Offence to dispose of an e-cigarette product

(1) A person commits an offence if:

(a) the person is a relevant supplier of e-cigarette products; and

(b) the person disposes of the person's used e-cigarette product:

(i) at a landfill site; or

(ii) in any other manner prohibited by regulations made for the purposes of this subparagraph.

Penalty:

(a) in the case of a natural person—2,000 penalty units; and

(b) in the case of a body corporate—20,000 penalty units.

(2) A person commits an offence if:

(a) the person is a retailer; and

(b) the person disposes of an e-cigarette product:

(i) at a landfill site; or

(ii) in any other manner prohibited by regulations made for the purposes of this subparagraph.

Penalty:

(a) in the case of a natural person—2,000 penalty units; and

(b) in the case of a body corporate—20,000 penalty units.

In doing so, I will briefly outline what it pertains too. I went through this in brief during my second reading contribution as well. The amendment does three simple things. Firstly, it removes liquid nicotine from schedule 4 of the Poisons Standard. I note that, at the moment, schedule 4 means that to obtain liquid nicotine you need to do so with a prescription in this country.

So it's listed with lots of other drugs that are prescription-only medicines. That approach is clearly not working, because a lot of pharmacists are simply not stocking liquid nicotine. When I asked a question earlier, the minister could not even say what percentage of pharmacies stock liquid nicotine or vaping products. Clearly, a lot of pharmacists don't want to be in the business of supplying liquid nicotine. That's their right; we can understand that. They're in the business of health products. Liquid nicotine is a drug. There's no doubt about that. It's a drug that I don't think should be encouraged. But as it has been clearly proven over the last few years as this regime has been in place—it's been added to schedule 4—it's not been working.

Of course, I should add that tobacco, which is a much more harmful drug than liquid nicotine, is not in schedule 4 of the Poisons Standard. It's therefore much more freely available to any adult over the age of 18 at service stations and supermarkets. Pretty much wherever you like to go in Australia, if you're over 18, you can get tobacco, but liquid nicotine is on the Poisons Standard. That seems out of whack to me, so my amendment would move that. I recognise if we were to remove it from the Poisons Standard it shouldn't be a free-for-all. We shouldn't allow liquid nicotine to be sold everywhere just like any other product. We have a very good regime in this country—a ready-made regime—to regulate the sale of liquid nicotine and e-cigarettes. We just have to do what we do with smoking. It works. It's a good system, where we require cigarettes to be behind locked cabinets and not on display. We don't have any flash packaging. It's all plain packaging. I think the one difference in the case of e-cigarettes is that there would be a need to regulate the flavourings and descriptions of those, although we do have similar regulations with smoking with regard to the content of nicotine and the various flavours allowed as well. So we can do all of those things.

The second part of my amendments gives the minister power to regulate all of those aspects of the vaping market and to do so in a way similar to how smoking is regulated in this country. We absolutely should crack down on any sale of vaping products that are clearly marketed to children—these fairy floss, candy-type flavours that are infesting the black market, as we currently see. Let's focus our efforts on getting rid of those and keeping them away from our kids and from being attractive to our children rather than trying to regulate the choices of all adult Australians. I should add that I've missed part of that second part. Of course, my amendments would make it a crime to sell e-cigarettes to minors, and penalties associated with anyone who does so would be equivalent to those that are there for smoking.

Finally, the third part of my amendments would establish an industry fund. Those who are selling e-cigarettes would have to fund a disposable vapes collection scheme. There is a problem emerging from the amount of waste being generated by disposable vapes. Most of that waste currently comes from a black market, and therefore the disposal of those vapes is completely unregulated. It's going into general waste and causing a lot of issues there. This would set up an industry funded scheme, which would require collection points to be established where vapes are sold, where people could drop off their disposable vapes and make sure they are disposed of in an environmentally safe way. I recognise and thank Senator Steele-John for indicating earlier that the Greens are somewhat attracted to looking at that type of scheme.

I'm trying to move the debate forward here. Obviously, I'm going to go down in a ball of flames—like I'm used to doing in this place—but I'm just trying to move the Overton window on this a little bit, because there's a lot of rhetoric and a lot of slogans right now about wanting to prohibit vapes and get rid of them. I think it's just completely unrealistic. We are not going to move to a world where people do not vape. We have too many people doing it now. The genie is out of the bottle. It is about making sure that we regulate it and do our best to keep it out of schools or marketed towards children. That's what our focus should be on.

We can see that all around the world. Anyone who travels now would see that everywhere else in the world—every other developed country in the world—has a growing and thriving vaping market. I don't think all of those countries are doing a good thing. I've been in Europe recently where vaping products are on supermarket shelves and at the checkout. I don't want to see that. We should get this right. As I said, we've got a very good model in this country to do that, to replicate our smoking regulations—our strict regulations—on this market. We should not try to double guess the choices of adult Australians but focus our enforcement on protecting our children.