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

I want to circle back to the legal requirements. We've got an example from Queensland about having to record names and stick people's names on products for schedule 3 medicines. The Victorian government, as I've just pointed out, requires e-cigarettes to not be visible and to be stored in lockable containers. There's almost a juxtaposition. You're saying, 'We respect the discretion of the pharmacies and their professional health authorities,' and I absolutely think our pharmacists are fabulous, but they have legal requirements. They are the laws of the states and territories of Australia. They have a legal requirement to comply with the laws of those states. Yet you are not giving me any response.

So we have to have non-visible, lockable containers in which vapes must be stored and the only time they can be opened is to actually get the vape out and sell it to the customer. Who is going to be the one responsible for these particular storage units? Who is going to pay for them? What discussions have been had with the pharmacy owners—not pharmacists but the pharmacy owners—about actually doing something? It's but one of the practical implications that exist around dropping a policy like this on the sector at the very last minute. I would reiterate that we're talking about 6,000 largely small businesses around Australia who are the front line of primary care in this country. You and I both come from rural, regional and remote Australia, and we both know they're often the only health professional in town. Who's been working with these people to understand what the consequences of this are, and who is going to pay?