Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

As stated earlier by Senator Ruston, the coalition is supporting the Public Health (Tobacco and Other Products) Bill 2023 for what's in it and the harm minimisation scheme, but I want to talk today about what's not in it.

It seems that this government and the minister have decided to, in Douglas Adams's words, paint it pink and put an SEP filter—a somebody else's problem filter—on the problem of harm minimisation for tobacco. This makes it tough for big tobacco—it does. A health warning is going to be printed on every cigarette packet. There's going to be a reduction in flavours, and all sorts of things will be put on it. But what we're forgetting is that up to half of tobacco in Australia now is illegal. It is chop-chop. It's not a couple of guys out of West Wyalong growing a few plants and putting some out in the local market. It is big industry—just as big as big tobacco—in countries such as China and the countries of the Middle East, in tax-free zones. That's how they're looked at. They are producing tobacco, and gangs, not companies, are bringing it into the country and selling it. You can go down to a shop here. I don't smoke. I never smoked. I don't even know where to buy it. I bought Barnaby a pack in a campaign once. I asked for two packs and put 50 bucks on the table, and they laughed at me. So they're pretty expensive. I don't know what they're going for. But it is half the price you pay down at the local stores here.

This is what's going on. They've got this massive thing going on: 'Look at what we're doing to big tobacco. How tough are we? We're stopping this.' But the laws aren't applying to illegal tobacco. We've taxed tobacco to a point now where the profit motive to do this illegally—bring in illegal tobacco and sell it cheaply, or buy a pack from China or buy a pack of illegal stuff at your local thing—is there. We're not getting the statistics. You can't improve what you can't measure. I'm not sure that Mr and Mrs Organised Crime are getting their business activity statements in and putting, 'This is how many packets we sold last week.' I think their biggest problem is trying to deal with the cash—trying to find enough pokies to put the cash through and clean it. We can say all these great things: 'Aren't we good?' But are we doing this to fix a political problem for ourselves or doing it to fix a health problem for the country? I think this bill only does the first. It makes us look tough on what we're doing, without doing the real things.

What is the cost of doing business? If you get caught with a shipment of drugs or anything like that, you go to jail for a long time. Recently in Australia, those involved in importing a container full of illicit nicotine, $9 million worth on the street, got a $5,000 fine. That is the cost of doing business. I'm not sure you can get a speeding fine that high, but you can get a fine like that for many other things. That's just not right. This doesn't touch that. This doesn't touch the fact that there are now copy cigarettes that are so popular that there are copies of copy cigarettes. Fakers and wrong stuff are now being copied. You can go to any store down here. This is just like the movie The Untouchables. We don't want to address it because it's too hard. We have prohibited so much in Australia, but the flow is there and we just don't want to know. We get aspects of it: 'Smoking has reduced in Australia. Tobacco sales are down.'

We've got IGA members and all sorts of shops saying that they're selling less but they see their customers still smoking—smoking more, smoking different, smoking illegal. But what do we say? We say, 'Well done.' We say, 'Big tobacco, we showed you. Print the labels and the other things. Do that.' We have to do more on harm minimisation. It is the same with vaping. It is exactly the same as with nicotine. We don't touch that. We don't go near it in this bill. I have had people come to me and say that their kid would rather get detention for wearing their sports uniform to school all day than get changed in the bathroom, because there are people vaping in there all day, and he cops abuse. He'd rather get detention than cop that. That is where we're at, and what does this bill do about that? Nothing. Not a thing.

Who brings all these illegal vaping products in? Organised crime, again. It's getting to the point where we as a parliament are the protection racket for organised crime in Australia. We are the marketing arm. We make it so hard for the legal business, restricting them—when they have their board meetings and try and make things better—that organised crime is the beneficiary. And we are their enforcement arm. The decisions we make make their business model viable. They make it possible. And what do these people put in their products? We don't know. If any of these big tobacco companies do something wrong—they can't put a flavour bomb in the products now—there is action taken against them in court. Police do things. This parliament takes action. But what if organised crime does it? Nothing. There is no accountability, and we are driving people into the arms of this.

We need Kevin Costner and Sean Connery out there on the field again, finding these bad people, just like The Untouchables, and saying that it has to stop. It is here. When every OECD country in the world other than us and Turkiye say it is legal, it's the same problem they had in Chicago when Canada and Mexico were across the border: you can't stop what goes in. We heard in Queensland that there is arsenic, formaldehyde and all sorts of things in these vapes. What goes into tobacco? Where is it grown? How is it grown? In the countries it comes from, what they do is not illegal. These products are being produced legally and brought here illegally.

But 'How good,' we say, 'we've got a tobacco bill in front of us. We'll show big tobacco who's boss.' Good. Harm minimisation should be there. But what are we doing about the real problem? Half-price smokes are attractive to kids. Cheap vapes are available anywhere. I've made lots of Untouchables references, Acting Deputy President, but remember the scene where the taxidriver says, 'If you want to see alcohol, I'll show you where it is,' and he takes him to a pub, goes in and gets it straightaway? I've never smoked, never vaped, but 10 minutes from here I'm able to buy one with a card at a convenience store. It's the same for Chinese chop-chop.

So let's stop kidding ourselves and pretending that this bill does anything other than tighten things for the people who already obey the rules. With this bill, we're creating a bigger market for the illegal crime gangs. With this bill, we're creating a bigger market for those who prey on our youth and put things in their products that cause them harm. I bet you everything I've got that kids who fall sick with vapes aren't falling sick from things that are prescribed by a doctor and bought from New Zealand. They are falling sick from vapes accessed illegally.

And what about the taxpayer? It is estimated that there could be $6 billion in revenue from tax on the illegal tobacco market. In here, we throw numbers around willy-nilly. Six billion dollars is a lot. How many cops and Border Force security would $6 billion pay for, to make our kids safer? But that's not a concern, because we look tough. This legislation will be supported by us, because it's better than not supporting it, and it's better to make the legal products safer. But this government has to get real on all sorts of nicotine, both tobacco and vapes, and bring forward things that will make our schools safer, our streets safer and our kids safer. It should bring in things that will make a transition from tobacco dependency easier.

In the committee inquiry into this legislation, we spoke to police officers, and their morale is low because they see these things happening and they have very little ability to do anything. They can't police everyone with a vape.

Someone in Western Australia got arrested the other day, and there was an outcry. Step 30 metres either side of this chamber and you'll find people with vapes that were not purchased on prescription, but we pretend and pretend and pretend.

So let's get this done. Let's vote for this as quickly as we can so that we can get onto the real problems of the criminals, the gangs and the crime families that profit off the government being their protection arm and off the government making their business model.