Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In an inquiry regarding therapeutic amendments for vaping three months ago, at the end of the inquiry I asked the department, 'What does failure look like?' They said, 'We haven't looked at that.' Well, they can look out the window and they can see what failure looks like now. Failure is 150 firebombings of businesses throughout Australia. Failure is only 3½ thousand vapes going across the counter at pharmacists in the last month. Failure is one in 100 pharmacists agreeing to do it because they don't want to be firebombed. Failure is 400,000 vapes a month being caught illegally, and that's only the tip of the iceberg.

I'm all for small government, but when it comes to outsourcing our nicotine consumption, I do not want to give it to organised crime. I do not want to outsource what goes into nicotine products to organised crime gangs, most of which have come out of China. I don't want to outsource what they give our kids and what they give people in Australia who are trying to get off nicotine and smoking.

Since this inquiry, it's estimated 100,000 vapers have gone back to smoking. I hear the government say, 'We are fighting big tobacco.' You are driving people back to big tobacco; you are driving people to criminal enterprises. This is what failure looks like. We look at Sweden in comparison. For the first time they are equivalent to smoke-free, less than five per cent of their population is smoking. They have done it through pouches, they have done it through vapes, they have done it through other nicotine replacement therapies. That is what success looks like.

What we have now is an absolute abrogation of our duty to keep our people safe, keep our businesses safe, keep our pharmacists safe. I have a constituent in Newcastle who does not have a vape store in a commercial building—they have a hairdresser and some residents—but they cannot get insurance because next door to them is a vape store. What are we becoming when honest businesses can't get insurance because of government policies?