Wendy Askew (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak on the Therapeutic Goods and Other Legislation Amendment (Vaping Reforms) Bill 2024. I can see the argument for the use of therapeutic vapes where they are being used to help somebody give up smoking. I can see the benefit of that. However I, like millions around the country, are concerned about the level of access children have to vaping products, and it's this primary point that I intend to address tonight.

My biggest concern about vaping is that children can access vaping products at school, at the local corner shop or worse, online—with products purchased from anonymous offenders and delivered right to them. This is not a situation that should be allowed to continue. The message is simple: children should not have access to vaping products and, by extension, children should not be living in a society where they can become addicted to vaping products.

The Albanese government's failure to control the illegal vaping market is its failure to protect our children. Constituents have told me their children speak about the pretty coloured vaping packaging they have seen littered around their schools. They were even more disturbed to learn their children are refusing to use the toilets at school because they are crammed full of students vaping. You can even buy body sprays that smell like your favourite vape so, when teachers ask if you are vaping, you can produce the body spray and use that as an excuse for the smell.

An entire industry has developed around poisoning our children, encouraging them to become addicted to vapes. Earlier this year, the education minister, Jason Clare, told members of the Matilda Centre at the University of Sydney that vaping is a menace. He said, 'Principals say vaping is the biggest behavioural issue in our schools at the moment.' Vaping should not be considered cool or fun or smoking for kids; it is a dangerous habit that will lead to lifelong health problems.

A Kidsafe Western Australia witness told committee members the proliferation of these unregulated devices into the market has raised some concerns, particularly for young children, around nicotine poisoning, because small amounts of high levels of nicotine can have major effects on a child. Advice from the Royal Childrens' Hospital Melbourne confirms that even small volumes of liquid nicotine solutions, such as used in vapes, can cause life-threatening toxicity in children. Impacts from nicotine on children can include nausea and vomiting, changes in their heart rate—either too fast or too slow—wheezing and shortness of breath, seizures, respiratory failure, and they can even slip into a coma.

The most critical issue we must consider in scrutinising this legislation is that children are still able to access bubblegum, berry and mango-flavoured vapes in fun, coloured packaging. The issue of vaping must be viewed through the lens of protecting our children from these harms. In its national drug strategy household survey in 2022-23, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found that, despite the retail sale of nicotine cigarettes to children never being legal in Australia, the rate of young people aged 14 to 17 who have ever used vapes or e-cigarettes has increased from 9.6 per cent in 2019 to 28 per cent in 2022-23. That's almost three times the rate in less than four years. Of those young people who said they had ever used a vape, more than half, or 55 per cent, said the last one they used contained nicotine. More concerning is that those aged 14 to 17 years were the most likely from the age groups surveyed by the AIHW to report they didn't know whether the last vape they used contained nicotine, making it likely the number 14-to-17-year-olds nicotine vapers is much higher than the 55 per cent stated.

The impact analysis of the proposed reforms to the regulation of vapes found the number of adult vapers who have a nicotine prescription for a therapeutic vape could be as low as three per cent. So in addition to the volume of young people who know they are using nicotine vapes, it is obvious that almost all adult vapers are using unregulated products bought from black-market operators too. It is clear the prescription-only model has failed to address the unfettered growth of underage vaping in communities around Australia. Even the Therapeutic Goods Administration acknowledges the prescription-only model has not achieved its aims. Indeed, at the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee's public hearing for this bill, criminologist Dr James Martin outlined just how dire the situation had become. He said:

The consequences of this ban have been disastrous, with nine out of 10 vapers having already rejected the prescription model and instead sourcing their products from the black market.

The ban has allowed a situation to develop where now around 1.5 million Australians are vaping illegally, a situation that amounts to the second-largest illegal drug market in the country behind cannabis.

Instead of stamping out recreational vaping, as health minister Mark Butler said the ban would do, this action has allowed a black market to thrive. In Mr Butler's own words, this black market 'is a lucrative source of revenue for criminal gangs who use it to bankroll drug trafficking, sex trafficking and all of their other criminal activities'. This black market is estimated to be worth $1 billion, fuelled by the sale of millions of imported and stockpiled disposable devices. Dr Martin also said that increasing the penalties for ignoring the ban or policing it further won't actually stop criminals from entering this vaping black market. He said:

They simply allow them to charge more for their services and increase the profits available to organised crime.

Further, he said:

… markets adapt, and supply goes underground, where it is even more difficult to police.

Experience tells us that black markets are unregulated, and in this case Dr Martin said that 'unregulated' means that the vapes that are being sold on the black market are 'more potent, more addictive and more dangerous than their legal alternatives'. That means the vapes that are finding their way into the hands of our children fall into the highly addictive and dangerous category.

This bill will not stop children having access to vaping products and will likely allow the underground market to continue. Western Australia has banned the sale of all vapes—both nicotine and non-nicotine vapes—but the vapes can still be brought into the state. In February, the West Australian published an article stating that, despite the ban, vape stores are still operating within metres of schools. Even more concerning was the revelation that, when the journalist asked for a berry flavoured vape containing nicotine, they could buy it in eight stores. This is happening out in the open despite laws prohibiting such sales.

The ban is not working, and one of the major reasons for that is the lack of resourcing. Our state police and Border Force officers are already stretched, but now they have to conduct enforcement action against illegal pop-up vaping stores and online vape ordering and delivery services. On top of the difficulty our police are having in enforcing the vaping ban, resourcing around Australia's borders and at the point of sale is also insufficient.

In a move that signals that they also know the retail sales ban has failed, Labor and the Greens made a dirty deal to get this bill through, allowing vapes to be sold at pharmacies without a prescription in the near future. So, once Minister Butler has deemed that enough time has passed, you can just pop down to your local chemist, have a chat with the pharmacist and pick up a flavoured bait when you get your sleeping tablets or Sudafed. That's a long way away from a complete ban and even further away from a generation of children who cannot access vapes.

Despite this deal, these vaping reforms do not explain how the legislation we're debating today will stop children accessing vaping products, how it will avoid continuing to fuel the black-market further or how the government will ensure enforcement measures will be adequately funded. We don't even know how the government plans to measure this policy, so how will we know whether it's a failure or a success?

To add to this list of concerns, the government has not established or funded the illicit tobacco and e-cigarette commissioner that was promised when it supported the coalition's earlier amendments. The commissioner was supposed to operate from within Australian Border Force to support strategies to address illicit tobacco and vapes and enforce existing regulations. Labor had not even considered that a commissioner was needed before the coalition's amendment, which highlights its lack of action on enforcement. It's time this role was set up, because it is clear a commissioner is needed to adequately address the burgeoning tobacco black market.

My coalition colleagues on the Community Affairs Legislation Committee raised concerns about the way the inquiry into this bill was managed. More than 60 of the 200 submissions received were published less than two days before the public hearings, making it difficult to understand all the different views presented before witnesses gave evidence. This process is yet another example of the Labor government's contempt for the committee process, its rejection of carefully considered policymaking and its poor attitude towards those stakeholders who are genuinely uneasy about the reforms presented in this bill. More than a third of the submissions received concerned the fire bombings and homicides that have escalated since this black-market trade in nicotine products exploded. Small-business owners who have been running their enterprises lawfully have been the targets of violent attacks, many of which were perpetrated in Melbourne suburbs, but none of these submitters were invited to give evidence in person.

Additionally, a number of international experts made submissions to the inquiry pointing out the differences in Australia's approach to restricting access to nicotine vaping products to prescription only when compared to other countries. None of these international experts were invited to provide evidence that the committee hearings either. The submission from Action for Smokefree 2020 Aotearoa New Zealand pointed out:

New Zealand has seen very little evidence of an organised illicit vape market … due to … competition from the legal marketplace.

New Zealand's regulated model provides more safety for consumers and supports people using vaping to quit smoking. We could have learned much from one of our closest neighbours, but they were not invited to expand on their evidence.

Professor Ann McNeill from King's College in London said:

The medical prescription requirement appears cumbersome and unlikely to be a workable option for people who smoke.

Professor Nancy Rigotti from Harvard Medical School said that Australia's regulatory models for vapes failed to make them readily available to smokers whose lives could be saved. This international expert, who sits on the Tobacco Policy Scientific Advisory Committee, urged Australia to switch to a risk-proportionate model, as other Western countries have done. The World Health Organization's former director of research policy and cooperation, Professor Tikki Pangestu, said in countries where vapes are regulated—such as New Zealand, the USA and the UK—they have had 'significant reductions in youth vaping numbers'. He said:

Regretfully, such reductions have not been observed in Australia and perhaps there are lessons to be learnt from these other countries with regards to strategies and policies which are effective in reducing the incidence of youth vaping.

In markets where a total ban applies to vaping products, it is inevitable that an illicit 'black market' will become a major problem for the government.

None of these experts, who have vast experience in this space between them, were invited to speak during the inquiry, yet what they had to say makes a lot of sense.

To this end, I am pleased the coalition confirmed its stance on this issue when Senator Ruston and Senator Paterson outlined our preference for a regulated model to address illegal vaping earlier today. This sensible approach will reform the mess that illegal nicotine vapes have created in Australia and will disrupt the vape trade to our children. We know that without additional enforcement action we cannot protect children from vapes, so we're putting more support behind a new Australian Federal Police task force which will be established to deal with the illegal vape and tobacco black market.

The key result from any vaping reform must be to halt kids vaping. We must do more to stop the myriad of ways children can access vapes. Easy access is leading to poor behaviour at school, vaping addiction and long-term health problems—some of which we are yet to fully understand. Illicit vaping is out of control in Australia and our children are at risk. Making vapes available via prescription or a chat with a pharmacist will not address the growing black market trade in illegal vapes because it is still easier to go to one of the many vape shops that have been set up in communities in every state and territory and select from the wide array of colourful, flavoured options on offer. A regulated model is the solution to this dire problem and that is what will keep our children safe.