David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I want to start by acknowledging the work of my colleague Senator Steele-John on behalf of the Greens in navigating a pathway through what is a wicked social problem. The Greens came to the issue of vaping with a set of solid principles behind the politics of it, based upon the experience of regulating other drugs. That experience is not just one the Greens have seen but anyone with their eyes open can see. That's why the Greens' position acknowledges the harm and the addiction possible through vaping and wants to do what we can to treat it as a public health concern and, in treating it as a public health concern, also acknowledge the lessons from the failed efforts to prohibit other drugs.

Taking that public health and public interest perspective together, we have worked with the government to deliver a set of reforms that we hope gets the balance right. Nobody can suggest that you can just magically put the genie back in the bottle without any disruption after well over a decade of inaction. And we hear from the coalition that this package is not perfect. They say that they have some other better solution to it. I think they came up with that solution at about 12:15 pm today, a bit after midday.

I think the coalition—after nearly a decade in government—finally came up with their solution a bit after midday today, and it's the Coles and Woolies approach to it. They want to have vapes available through Coles and Woolies. That's the coalition's solution to this quite vexed and difficult social problem. After a decade in government, they had nothing. They literally left this market totally unregulated. They let millions of Australians get addicted to an unregulated product and now they're solution is to give it to Coles and Woolies. That's actually what they're saying! It's not a serious response to a serious issue.

The package that has been negotiated is a serious response to a serious issue. What does that look like? First of all, that looks like ensuring that nobody will go to jail for personal possession of a vape, and for the Greens that was a non-negotiable element in the discussion. We must learn the lessons of previous efforts—and some current and ongoing efforts—to prohibit drugs and to punish people because they have an addiction or because they have a drug in their possession that one politician doesn't like. That would not work and will not work. The idea that we would criminalise people for the personal possession of vapes was a nonstarter for our party. Thankfully, the package of reforms that has now been negotiated means that that will not happen.

Nobody will go to jail. Nobody will be having an unfortunate interaction with police. Nobody can be stopped and searched simply because they've got vapes in their possession. That should offer a degree of comfort to young males out in Western Sydney, who know they're often targeted by police. Police use stop-and-search powers in relation to cannabis, for example, to stop, search and prevent them from just walking down the street. That will not happen with vapes as a result of the Greens amendments that have been negotiated. People will be protected. Whether the vapes that they have in their possession were legally or illegally purchased, people will not be able to be stopped and searched by police and prosecuted on that basis. That is an essential protection that we have negotiated through these changes.

The Greens have also looked at the initial government proposal for a prescription-only market—for individuals to have to go to a GP to get a script, take the script to the chemist and then get it through that process. Indeed, if you listen to some of the coalition's responses, you can see that a vast amount of evidence suggests that that was going to be deeply problematic. That was going to inevitably drive a large and unregulated black market, and it was going to exclude many particularly vulnerable people from having access to legal and well-regulated vapes. The Greens could see the difficulty in that.

The question is: what's a pathway that gets the balance right—not the Coles and Woolies pathway that the coalition is proposing but the pathway that gets the balance right? That is why the pharmacy model has been incorporated into this, after good faith negotiations—and, again, I give credit to my colleague Senator Steele-John for helping navigate this pathway. That will mean that people won't need to get a prescription. They won't have to pay—sometimes $50 or $100—to visit their GP in order to get a script so they can go to the chemist and get vapes through that pathway. That was going to be such a barrier, particularly to young adults, particularly to people with less income and particularly to people in rural and regional parts of the country, where it is so hard to get to see a doctor, even for a serious ailment. That wasn't going to work.

What's another pathway that isn't the coalition's Coles and Woolies approach but is a pathway that has people able to access vapes in a regulated, legal market, where they can gain some advice about the addictive qualities of it and, potentially, other options but still have access to a legal and regulated market, without all those barriers? That's where the pharmacy model came in. As with pseudoephedrine and a variety of other pharmacy-only medicines, it's a pathway we know will work. It's a pathway that we know is practical, and it's a pathway that is available wherever there's a pharmacy across the country. That is an extraordinary opportunity.

If there's one thing I've learned in politics, from watching the Pharmacy Guild over the last decade or more, it is that the Pharmacy Guild can normally tell where a profit will be, and if they can make a profit from a market they will. That's a basic truism, if you've followed the path of the Pharmacy Guild over the last couple of decades. If they can make a profit from a product, they will.

We heard from healthcare professionals, but we also listened to young people. We also listened to the experience of people who had been criminalised for things like the possession of cannabis, and we did not want to repeat that mistake. That would be an inexcusable act from this parliament. We haven't repeated it; we've found the pathway through that gets that balance right to do everything we can to ensure that kids do not get access to vapes.

Can you say that, as part of this package of reform, no child will ever get access to a vape? Of course, you can't. Might there be a continuing black market available for some of the flavoured vapes? There probably will be, to some extent, and we'll need to constantly review this scheme and work with regulators to refine the package over time. That's one of the reasons why the Greens negotiated a statutory review, not 20 years into the future but three years into the future so we have some experience. We should be actively looking at the international experience, too. We should be following what is happening in New Zealand, the UK and other jurisdictions, and learn from that other experience as well. This reform that we're backing in that will become law because of good faith negotiations between the government and the Greens is a reform that has the best chance that we can see to get that balance right, to do everything we can to stop kids having access to vapes, to do what we can to have a regulated, legal supply where people know what's in the product that they're consuming, to try and put a lid on and reverse the scale of addiction to vapes over the next few years, and to try and get that public health, public interest lens right so that we're listening to the health professionals and also learning from the experience of other efforts to prohibit drugs.

I again want to end by commending the work of my colleague Senator Steele-John. He worked with the Greens party room and he worked with our stakeholders around the country. What I hope is that the coalition gives up on their plan to hand it to Coles and Woolies. I hope they actually try and do long-term decision-making and policy-setting that doesn't end up with them to only get their final position at a quarter past midday on the day that the legislation's being voted on in the Senate. I hope that what we can do with other hard, public policy decisions like this is follow the evidence, follow the experience and try to get that balance right.