Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

Chair, I am really clear, I think, in my questioning to the minister so far, but what we've seen this morning is the minister completely and utterly ducking and weaving and refusing to answer the question. I, like everybody that's sitting on this side of the chamber, want to see smoking rates in Australia reduced, particularly amongst younger Australians but for all Australians, because we understand the massive health implications of people who smoke and the significantly higher risk that they have to get conditions and illnesses that are directly related to cigarette smoking. So I want to just put it on the record that, no matter what minister might be saying, there is not a person on this side of the chamber that does not want to see smoking rates and the associated health damage that is associated with smoking reduced. I am merely asking the government to undertake, to make a commitment or to provide some evidence about how they're going to measure the changes, because we know that there is no enforcement built into this piece of legislation. It has no enforcement in it at all. So, in the absence of actually dealing with enforcement, all of the issues that were outlined by Senator Canavan in his contribution in the second reading are not being addressed. We're not addressing the issues around the lack of excise and revenue that's being generated for the Taxation Office. We're not addressing the black market and the organised crime that sits behind that black market, which has much more sinister outcomes because of the massive amounts of money that are being earned through the illegal trade by the crime gangs that are currently running it, and we're seeing massive amounts of disruption in our communities where crime gangs are having wars about who's getting to sell the most illicit tobacco. What I merely want to ask is: is the legislation that is before us designed to reduce the amount of tobacco consumption? That's what the minister for health has said. In order for us to understand the implications of this, we need to be able to measure it. The first basis and benchmark and baseline that we need to understand if we are to measure the success of the changes that have been proposed by this is what the black market is at the moment.

If we have 11 per cent of Australians currently smoking, how many of those people are accessing their tobacco or their cigarettes via the normal regulated channels that are completely legal in Australia and how many of them are accessing it by the black market? Merely coming in here and saying that we have seen a reduction in the amount of legal smoking does not necessarily translate into a reduction in smoking. If all we are doing because of the lack of enforcement that is built into this is forcing people who currently are purchasing their cigarettes by the legal, regulated market into an illegal, crime-gang run, illicit market then we haven't actually achieved anything.

I'm just keen to understand what the government's baseline is in terms of how it intends to measure the success of this particular piece of legislation. So, Minister, I will ask you once again: how are you going to measure the success of this piece of legislation when you quite clearly have no idea—and your officials are providing you with no evidence or advice as to what it is—about the size of the existing black market in Australia? Do you have a measure to determine whether that black market is going to increase or decrease as a result of this bill?