Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

There's a question that I have to put to the minister. Before I do, I just want to clear up a couple of things at least from the Greens perspective and as a member of the committee which conducted the inquiry into the bill. The Greens were very supportive of the bill going to inquiry so that the committee had the opportunity to give feedback on the bill. One of the processes that we as a committee go through is identifying the witnesses that we believe need to be called to give evidence before the inquiry to enable the various ramifications of the legislation to be fully understood. When we sent out our list of invites for witnesses to give evidence to the committee, the Pharmacy Guild of Australia was on that list. They as an organisation then formally declined to give evidence to the committee. Their declining to give evidence came back to us as committee members and I prioritised a further request to the guild that they give evidence to the committee precisely because I wanted to ensure that the views of the guild in relation to the bill or any proposed changes to the bill were clearly understood and that they had the opportunity to give their views on this legislation. They did not take that opportunity.

So, in my role as health spokesperson for the Greens, I took a meeting with the guild as to their view on the legislation. In that meeting, they articulated that their preferred approach to this area of policy was not to have vaping products listed under schedule 3, which is a perfectly legitimate position for them to put to us in their capacity as a peak body. What I cannot cop and what I must use this opportunity to call out is the argument that the opposition of the guild to schedule 3 is based around a concern that the substances may not be appropriate for use under schedule 3 because they, in the view of the guild, are not safe. Let me say very clearly: the view the guild put to me and my team in our meeting was that they would support schedule 4 of these substances or they would support schedule 2 of these substances. They did not support schedule 3. So to come into this debate and propose that they oppose this scheduling because they are concerned about the safety of the substance is very disingenuous, given that schedule 2 would have made it easier for young people and adults to access vaping products. It would have made them an 'in front of the counter' substance without the requirement to engage in a therapeutic conversation with the pharmacist or to demonstrate proof of age. There's a lot that I will cop in this debate, but I will not cop that perspective from the guild, and I think they need to be more transparent with the Australian public in relation to this debate.

I also want to put on the record that we sit here today about to pass one of the most significant public policy reforms of this parliament. It is historic, what we are about to do. We are about to establish a world-leading scheme to tackle a serious area of public health concern, and I pay tribute to my incredible team, who through the course of this legislative debate, through the course of our consideration of the government's proposal, have demonstrated the most incredible capacity to engage with a complex policy area, to negotiate among many varied perspectives, to bring the community into the conversation and to ensure that the legislation's details were fully understood and known. I thank them for their incredible dedication and work in this area. I specifically acknowledge that this has taken a lot of time—as it should, commensurate with its importance—but I think it is really vital, as we get to this moment today, to acknowledge that, while the people officially on the other side of the golden bar, you would hope, played a role in getting the legislation to where it is, there are whole teams of people who have also given up their weekends, their evenings and their days off to get this to where it is today. We as MPs have a responsibility to ensure that the public has a clear view that what we contribute to these spaces is the product of the team's collective work.

Now I shall get to my question for the minister. Minister, under this legislation, what does the government expect will be the threshold of reasonable suspicion a police officer will have to meet to conduct a search of a person?