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

The Greens will be supporting both the Excise Tariff Amendment (Tobacco) Bill 2024 and the Customs Tariff Amendment (Tobacco) Bill 2024, and we will continue to support wider efforts to reduce the harmful impact of tobacco. The current smoking situation in Australia is the best it has ever been, but there is still a way to go to further reduce smoking rates.

Since 1991, smoking rates in Australia have gone down from 24 per cent to 8.3 per cent. The percentage of Australians who have never tried tobacco has risen from 49 per cent to 65 per cent. Tobacco use is still a significant burden, however, on our health system, with 44 per cent of cancer cases being linked to tobacco usage. Australia has long been a world leader in tobacco control. Back in 2012, Australia was the first country in the world to implement plain packaging, a bold step that has become the norm—a significant public health achievement. In our collective efforts in ensuring our community is not exposed to the harms of tobacco, we must continue to make efforts to adapt our policy settings in pursuit of this goal.

This bill will achieve a further reduction in smoking rates in line with the National Tobacco Strategy. It is important to recognise that this bill on its own does not go far enough to tackle smoking rates, especially among young people. The rise of vaping amongst young people has resulted in a resurgence of tobacco usage, with research showing that young people who vape are more likely to also take up smoking. This is a significant risk to the public health gains that have been made in the last decades. I was proud to watch the Therapeutic Goods and Other Legislation Amendment (Vaping Reforms) Bill pass through this place this week. As a parliament, we have secured a huge step forward for tackling vaping amongst young people.

Vaping and smoking go hand in hand, and we must ensure that, alongside these laws that reduce supply, adequate support is also given to those affected by these laws. The Greens would like to see the government invest in more public health education campaigns to ensure that the health effects of smoking continue to be well understood. We cannot take the gains we have made in the previous decades for granted. The government should also increase the funding provided to quit supports, especially for young people and other vulnerable populations.

Fundamentally, it is the Greens' view that the government should not bank the income of this bill and save it for a rainy day. It is paramount that this funding is invested in supports for our community. While we're at it, it'd be great to get some more money for research, education, evaluation and other forms of healthcare cost-of-living relief by—and I make these suggestions quite often in this place—ending the currently supported tax cuts for billionaires and those corporations that receive subsidies from this government while burning down the planet. The Greens want the federal government, along with the states and territories, to invest these funds in public health care. I reaffirm that the Australian Greens will support this bill in the Senate.