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

Just for the sake of being absolutely clear about what I'm talking about here, I am talking about a decision that was communicated to the Australian public on Monday that a deal had been reached between the government and the Australian Greens to move the model by which Australians can access vapes from requiring a prescription from a GP or a nurse practitioner to no longer requiring that. The requirement now, according to the government's amendments to this legislation, is that pharmacies around Australia will be asked to supply vapes to Australians without a script, and they will also be required to be the disposal point for vapes once they've been used. Now, this is a significant change in what has been out as public consultation. The exposure draft of the bill for the entire time that it out in community consultation was predicated on a prescription model, and that prescription model is something that has been in place in Australia for a very long time. What we've seen is a significant change.

I want to make it very clear, minister: you are conflating two issues that are not the same. I'm asking you about the change of position by the government that was announced to the Australian public on Monday. I'm not talking about consultation that happened prior to that. I'm not talking about what guild may have referred to or commented about, or about the previous position of the government. I am very keen to understand what has transpired prior to the decision of the government to agree with the Greens to change the model of prescription, dispensing and disposal of vapes in Australia that was announced on Monday.

It's pretty clear, if you read the media over the last two days, that the Pharmacy Guild and the Pharmacy Society of Australia do not want to sell vapes. They do not want to be the disposal units for used vapes. They've made it very clear. While I understand that you're not the minister and you can only report what you have been advised from the senior minister in this place, I think it is very disingenuous for the government to suggest that the pharmacies across Australia are supportive of the decision by the government to do a deal with the Greens to change the way vapes are available in Australia. But what is worse than this is, despite your preparedness to admit to it, the Pharmacy Guild, the Pharmacy Society and the 6,000 businesses that make up our frontline community pharmacists around this country did not know anything about the deal that you had done with the Greens until they saw the release from the Greens on Monday afternoon. On Monday afternoon the Greens made a release to say that they had done a deal, and that was when Australia found out that you were going to change the mechanism through which vapes were going to be made available in Australia. Subsequent to that, pharmacies have come out and said they don't want to sell. They say it's completely unworkable, and there are a whole heap of concerns that are now coming out, because there has been no consultation with the pharmacy sector.

Once again, we have got a government making a policy change that affects 6,000 small businesses around the country, and they haven't even bothered to speak to them. They have not bothered to speak to them, they have not bothered to hear their concerns, they have not even bothered to think through the logistical implications of doing this. Minister, what is the maximum quantity of a vaping product that a pharmacist can supply to a patient in a single transaction?