Dissenting Report - National Party Senators

1.1National Party Senators agree with the Coalition’s additional comments and make these additional comments.

1.2Black market vaping products are already rife through our community through a prescription model for nicotine, and the Therapeutic Goods and Other Legislation Amendment (Vaping Reforms) Bill 2024 will further exacerbate the problem. With 9 out of 10 vapers already bypassing the prescription model by buying potentially dangerous black market products it’s clear that the genie is already out of the bottle on vaping. We need to be trying to ensure that we use proven methods to stop children from vaping as we have with alcohol and tobacco products with regulated markets.

1.3Instead of continuing with the same failed prohibition model that has increased the vaping rate among young people aged 14-17 from 1.8% in 2019 to a record high of 9.7% in 2022-23, we urge the Albanese Government to strictly regulate all vaping products under a similar framework as tobacco which has proven to work to reduce youth smoking with the following elements:

Licensed retail stores operating under similar rules and regulations to the sale of alcohol and tobacco products;

Vaping products sold through these licensed retailers to be approved by government regulators to give parents and adult vapers more confidence they are not sold with dangerous foreign additives such as rat poison or illicit drugs;

Vaping products to be sold in plain packaging with health warnings similar to the sale of tobacco products;

Vaping products to be regulated not to contain flavours or colours that are deliberately marketed for children;

The proceeds of taxation revenue to be quarantined for additional funding for public hospitals, education campaigns to stop youth vaping (particularly through social media channels) and law enforcement measures targeting the black-market.

1.4That the Therapeutic Goods and Other Legislation Amendment (Vaping Reforms) Bill 2024 not be passed.

Senator Ross Cadell Senator Matthew Canavan