Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week at the National Press Club we saw the Minister for Health and Aged Care get up and declare himself as Australia's new vape tsar. He pledged that he was going to stop kids vaping and getting addicted to these products by banning them for everyone.

Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Wow!

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Absolutely, Senator Green: wow! Unfortunately, this policy is going to have exactly the opposite effect. It's going to make the black market worse and it's going to lead to even more young people vaping, and this, of course, is very sad. It's sad because there's actually a very simple solution to this: vaping needs to be regulated. It needs to be licensed and it needs to be taxed as a consumer product, because that's what it is. It's an adult consumer product, in the same way that cigarettes and alcohol are adult consumer products.

We know that the vaping prohibition model has already failed. In fact, since the implementation of the prescription model, we have seen the vaping black market only increase. Of course, this was always going to happen, because when you create a black market you create the conditions for crime syndicates to flourish. And, to nobody's surprise, it turns out that criminal syndicates are more than happy to supply kids with vapes. There is an easy way out of this: we need to regulate it; we need to license it; we need to tax it. Instead, those opposite, who claim to look after the vulnerable, are looking at a further excise on tobacco, which we know is only going to hurt those in the most disadvantaged and lowest socio-economic groups.