A Critique Of Mark Butler's Speech from 11 December by Dianne.
"Minster of Health and Aged Care speech – 11 th December, 2024
First of all, thank you, Erin for the introduction, and thank you for pulling this event
together.
It’s a terrific gathering of people doing major pieces of work across the
Commonwealth with all states and territories in health and policing, criminal
intelligence."
You forgot to invite other experts such as:
As well as any adult consumers who have successfully quit smoking with
vapes.
"It's really reassuring for me, as the Minister, that there's such a level of energy and
expertise being brought to this devilishly difficult task that we have in front of us.
I come from the health portfolio.
At the Commonwealth level, we have our particular silos of policy responsibility.
Illicit tobacco, for largely revenue reasons, sits with Treasury.
I'm going to talk to you in particular about vaping, which has been my particular focus
over the last couple of years.
As you all know, several years ago now, here in Australia and across the world, a
supposedly terrific new product was launched."❌
Vaping was never launched in Australia, it was always illegal to sell vapes
containing nicotine. Smokers had to find vaping products to help them quit
smoking from mostly overseas sources. Those that did originally try to open
shops were shut down like this one in Western Australia. ✅
decided-in-appeal-case-at-perths-supreme-court-20160310-gnf91j.html
"It was marketed to help hardened smokers who've been smoking cigarettes for
decades finally kick the habit.
A terrific new tool in the toolbox, particularly for people who’d tried the patches, had
tried other nicotine replacement therapies but had gotten nowhere.
We were finally going to become free of cigarettes through this new tool."❓
In other countries such as the UK and NZ it was marketed this way and it
worked. NZ in particular reduced there smoking rates at a far faster rate than
Australia and is on track to becoming a smoke free nation by 2025.✅
"And it was apparently harmless, e-cigarettes or vapes."❌
Vaping has never been marketed as “harmless” it has been marketed as being
a far safer alternative for smokers. It’s called harm reduction.✅
smoking-and-do-they-have-any-unwanted-effects-when-used
"At some point, I'm not sure we can nominate a particular day, but at some point,
vaping morphed pretty quickly into a recreational product."❌
Like smoking & alcohol, vaping is an adult consumer product used by ex
smokers seeking a safer alternative to nicotine. It is not a medicine and should
not be called therapeutic.
adjective
1. relating to the healing of disease.
& "diagnostic and therapeutic facilities"
noun
1. 1.
the branch of medicine concerned with the treatment of disease and the action
of remedial agents.
2. 2.
a treatment, therapy, or drug.
"current therapeutics for asthma"✅
"For a number of years, it was really something at the fringes.
A bit weird, something you saw mainly among young people in some parts of our big
cities more than others.
It started to attach cultural names: ‘digital durries’, as opposed to ‘analogues’ and all
those sorts of things.
It wasn't really until the last few years, particularly under the cover of COVID, this
thing exploded."❌
This was nothing to do with to do with COVID, this was a direct result of the
former Health Minister Greg Hunt introducing legislation to try to ban the
importation of nicotine which was amended due to opposition of the
legislation by his own party.✅
nicotine-uptake-by-young-australians-with-prescription-based-vaping
Although the legislation was amended it still required adults to have a
prescription to import which many could not obtain. This fuelled an already
emerging black market profiting on the growing demand. If vaping had been
legally available in Australia many years prior this wouldn’t have happened.
The government was warned several times by leading experts this would
happen if they continued to prohibit access to consumers.✅
"In 2016 we think about 200,000 people were vaping, overwhelmingly very young
adults and teenagers."❌
Where is the proof that the estimated 200000 people in 2016 were very young
adults and teenagers?
Most people vaping back then I suspect were adults
like myself that sought to import vaping products as a safer alternative to
smoking. The black market didn’t start to become prominent with disposable
vapes until later when the enforcement of prescriptions was introduced. The
black market does not enforce ID checks which made it far easier for minors to
obtain them.✅
"But over the course of the following several years, that number exploded by about
700 per cent.
Our last Drug Household Survey in 2023 it had risen from about 200,000 to over one
and a half million - about a 700 per cent increase.
When you look at Roy Morgan polling by the end of last year it had exploded with
almost 2 million Australians vaping.
About the same numbers as people smoking cigarettes, which had continued to
come down albeit less than we were hoping for."❓
Did you ever think that this is a good thing that many people might have been
switching to vaping thanks to the availability of disposable nicotine vapes on
the black market? Imagine if we had gone down the same path as NZ and
made vaping legally available to adults, perhaps then we could have reduced
the smoking rates much faster!✅
"Over those years, certainly in my community in the west of Adelaide and others right
across the country, vape stores started opening.
Not tobacconists offering a range of different products, or convenience stores, but
vape only stores."❓
These were exclusive vape stores that were legally selling non-nicotine vapes
and complied with the law. These shops were NOT selling illegal products.
They were mostly owned by ex-smokers that had successfully quit smoking
themselves by switching to vaping. Every one I ever frequented always did ID
checks and had invaluable advice for smokers looking to quit smoking after
trying every other method available unsuccessfully.
These shops were forced
to close down with little warning with no compensation. Many have gone
bankrupt with having lease obligations left to fill and both themselves and
their employees unemployed. I have even heard that some attempted suicide.✅
"Nine out of 10 of them were opened in walking distance of school because they
knew that that was their target market."❌
Most of the exclusive vape stores I visited in WA were in industrial areas and
not opened deliberately near schools. In any case many shops selling
cigarettes and alcohol are most likely within walking distances from schools.
Most schools are within walking distance from shopping centres after all.✅
"There’s no doubt about it, you just have to look at the products.
We had some of them in the next room, ABF was good enough to collect and bring
them to us, seized at the border.
They're not the sort of product that's targeted at a middle aged, long-term smoker.
They are products targeted quite openly at kids.
They have cartoon characters on them and with ridiculous flavours.
Bubble gum and all the rest.
All to lure young people into this product."❓
These products you speak of that were seized at the border were not the type
of products exclusive vape stores were selling. In fact most of these stores
didn’t even sell disposables and none of them contained nicotine. They
complied with the law. The products that were seized were imported by a black
market that doesn’t care what or who they sell to as long as they make profits.
If vaping had been legalised and regulated properly, not by banning all
flavours except tobacco, mental and mint and only allowing pharmacies to sell
them but with sensible balanced restrictions like NZ perhaps. Flavours are an
important part of why vaping has successfully helped smokers quit.✅
"Meanwhile, the promotion of vapes through social media messages were utterly rife.
Health Authorities right around the world were being told these things were far from
harmless.
In and of themselves, they contain about 200 different chemicals, some of which are
used to make weed killer, nail polish remover and chemicals used to de-ice runways."❓
Cigarettes contain over 7000 different chemicals were as vapes contain
typically less than 200 at far lower doses than cigarettes. Although vaping is
not completely harmless they are far less harmful than cigarettes which you
fail to acknowledge.✅
(“In contrast, vapes heat a liquid into an aerosol, without tobacco, combustion
or smoke. The toxic constituents in smoke are either absent in vapour or, if
present, are mostly at levels significantly below 5% (mostly below 1%) of
doses from smoking and far below safety limits for occupational exposure.
and are at generally at much lower levels than in cigarette smoke. Studies
have found on average around 100-150 chemicals in vapour from an individual
device (eg Heywood review; Sleiman: Margham ).
A comprehensive systematic review in 2022 for England’s Office for Health
Improvements and Disparities concluded:
“Vaping poses only a small fraction of the risks of smoking and is ‘at least 95%
less harmful’ than smoking”
According to the UK Royal College of Physicians report in 2024:
“Vaping exposes vapers to a far narrower range of toxins than does smoking
cigarettes, and levels of toxins absorbed from vaping are generally low. It is
therefore likely that vaping poses only a small fraction of the risk of smoking”
A review by the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and
Medicine in 2018 concluded:
“While e-cigarettes are not without health risks, they are likely to be far less
harmful than combustible tobacco cigarettes”
The advice of the United Kingdom National Health Service is:
“Nicotine vaping is not risk-free, but it is substantially less harmful than
smoking”
According to the UK National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training:
“Anyone who switches from smoking to vaping is instantly improving their
current and future health”)
"Although this was a recent phenomenon, as you understand already, we're starting
to get research pretty regularly now, about the different health harms that vaping is
causing.
A reemergence of black gum disease among young people.
Cell DNA damage done in the cheeks that is quite consistent with the sort of cellular
DNA damage you see in lung cancer patients and so on and so forth.
Early studies, but studies pretty quickly, started to put to bed this myth that vaping
was harmless."❓
Vaping is not harmless but is 95% less harmful than cigarettes.✅
evidence-update/nicotine-vaping-in-england-2022-evidence-update-main-
findings
"Of course, the real harm is that this is a gateway to cigarettes."❌
“There is no good evidence that vaping is a gateway to youth smoking. Even if
a gateway exists for some youth, it is far outweighed by the number of young
people diverted away from smoking.” ✅
re_a_gateway_to_smoking
"And that was always the intention of Big Tobacco."❌
“Vaping is not a ploy by the evil tobacco industry to “hook a new generation of
Australian children on nicotine” as claimed by some anti-vaping activists and the
Health Minister Mark Butler. This is a convenient narrative by vaping opponents to
undermine vaping by poisoning it by association with Big Tobacco.”✅
"That's why they put these things into the marketplace.
The University of Sydney with its Generation Vape program has been producing
more and more research to demonstrate quite how wide that gateway has become.
Initially, we thought vaping youngsters were about three times as likely to take up
cigarettes.
The most recent research from the University, only in the last couple of months, says
that students who vape were about five times as likely to take up cigarettes.
Terrifyingly, 12-year-olds who vape, and there’s a lot of them, are 29 times more
likely to take up cigarettes than 12-year-olds who don’t vape."❌
“ONCE AGAIN, AUSTRALIAN RESEARCHERS have jumped on the bandwagon, making
alarmist claims that vaping causes young people to start smoking. But let’s be
clear: this study proves no such thing.”✅
"And that, of course, was the strategy all along for Big Tobacco.
Tragically, it's working."❌
Once again
“Vaping is not a ploy by the evil tobacco industry to “hook a new generation of
Australian children on nicotine” as claimed by some anti-vaping activists and the
Health Minister Mark Butler. This is a convenient narrative by vaping opponents to
undermine vaping by poisoning it by association with Big Tobacco.”✅
"The only cohort in our community now where cigarette smoking rates are going up
are the youngest Australians, very, very young."❓
“Authorities claim without evidence that the rise in teen vaping has caused teen
smoking to increase. If that is the cause, why has there been a decline in smoking in
young adults, who have the highest vaping rates? There was a 21% decline in
smoking in the 18-24 year age group (vaping rate 19.8%) and 17% decline in the 25-
34 year age group (vaping rate 17.4%).”✅
"For parents and for school leaders and school communities, this came out of
nowhere.
It&'s very quickly become the leading behavioural issue in schools."
I think there are far worse behavioural issues than youths vaping in Australia
at present.✅
approach/#:~:text=Recent%20data%20reveals%20a%20troubling,in%20the%20last
%20financial%20year.
“Recent data reveals a troubling trend in youth crime, with the number of juvenile
offenders in Australia rising for the first time in over a decade. The Australian Bureau
of Statistics data, obtained by the ABC, indicates a 6% increase in youth crime in the
last financial year. Even more concerning, recidivism among young offenders is also
on the rise, signalling potential shortcomings in current diversion programs.”
"Teachers are not just being rostered to stand outside school toilets, they're being
rostered to stand inside school toilets during lunch to try and police the vaping that
has become so rife in high schools.
Increasingly, this is happening in primary schools.
They're spending scarce school funds to install vape detectors in school toilets.
We hear stories at the end of year exams last year and in 2022, HSC exam students
were unable to get through a three hour exam without nicotine patches, such was
the level of their nicotine addiction now."❓
“Vaping is not “creating a new generation addicted to nicotine” as is often
claimed.
Nicotine dependence from vaping is uncommon in young people who have
never previously smoked. In Australian studies, about 3-8% of youth may have
nicotine dependence. (NDSHS 2023; ASSAD 2023)
3-5.5% of youth based on self-reports
ASSAD: 5.5% believed they would experience at least some difficulty
going without vaping
NDSHS: 3% report being “unable to stop or cut down”
7-8% based on frequent vaping
ASSAD: 7.8% (4.8% vape 20days or more per month + 3% vape daily)
NDSHS 7-8% (3.5% vape daily + estimated 3.5% frequent, but less than
daily)
However some of these are former or current smokers. Some would be
smokers if vaping was not available.”✅
"I can tell you, as a politician, parents are beside themselves.
They are really angry that we, governments, let this happen.
This just came out of nowhere for parents.
It exploded and they dont quite know how to deal with their teenager who is addicted
to nicotine.
The amount of nicotine these kids are ingesting is truly terrifying."❓
The kids are using illegal unregulated black market vapes and because of this
we don’t know how much nicotine is in them. The black market is a result of
prohibiting the sale of legal regulated vapes in a retail setting like cigarettes.✅
"Now I'm not a prohibitionist by nature, and the Prime Minister is not a prohibitionist
by nature.
When I came to the portfolio, or back to the portfolio after the 2022 election, I spent a
lot of time talking to tobacco control experts in this country.
We have some of the best in the world, we've led the world in this area.
Some of them have been doing this work for 50 years.
They came in and said to me, pretty quickly, you've got to shut this thing down.
You can't just regulate it a bit, or tax it a bit.
You've just got to get rid of it." ❓
This is the problem you have had ill advice from tobacco control experts by
looking at vaping in the same way as smoking. These advisers may have been
the best in the world in regards to tobacco control with smoking but vaping is
not smoking. We also have many best in the world harm reduction experts
(some listed above) that would have advised much differently and came up
with polices that would strike a balance of getting adult to switch from
smoking to the far safer vaping and at the same time restricting sales to
minors.✅
Prohibition never works.
"It is a public health menace aimed at the hearts and the lungs of young Australians,
and the window is closing - so stamp this thing out.
They made the point that if 100 years ago, we knew then, what we know now about
cigarettes, maybe governments might have taken a very different view about
cigarettes than they did 100 years ago."❓
“If cigarettes were invented today, we would know very quickly that they were
very, very harmful.”✅
"I had to chew that over because I was struggling with the question, why do you
prohibit vapes, but not prohibit cigarettes.
Over time, we came to the view, we had a lot of discussions as a group of health
ministers in every state and territory, and we came to the view that this is a particular
menace targeted right at our children.
That it does run the risk of undoing 50 years of hard work to get smoking rates down
that has saved literally millions and millions of lives."❓
Instead of looking at other countries policies that have embraced vaping and
reduced smoking rates like NZ?✅
"That doesn't mean it's going to be easy.
It's not, as you all know.
We are having to implement a whole lot of policy decisions that jurisdictions have
made.
We got really strong support from the Prime Minister and the Treasurer who was
particularly strong in his support of us bringing package to the to the Budget last
year.
He sees it in his community.
He's a parent of young kids, as so many of us are.
We're bringing that sort of personal experience to these jobs as all of you do too, I’m
sure."❓
Why did you not consult with adult vapers or read any of their submissions
about their personal experience with vaping. If you did you might of looked at
it from angle?✅
"We were able to put in place a package that reflected the views across jurisdictions
and within the federal government.
We were originally advised, we would have to have a piece of legislation in every
single parliament, which, as you all know, is not easy to deliver.
It's hard not to get something through our Senate let alone for all of the different
houses of parliament that sit at the state territory level.
But we now have a single piece of legislation; The Therapeutic Goods Act, that is
able to be enforced by the state authorities, that is really serious about stamping this
out.
Very, very serious penalties, fines of over $2 million for individuals, fines of over $20
million for corporations and very serious jail terms.
We put very substantial resources at the Commonwealth level behind that, with TGA
and ABF in particular, being resourced to do the Commonwealth’s part of this job,
and they've been doing a terrific job.
Today, as Erin indicated, I can announce an additional $107 million for those
Commonwealth agencies to double down on our enforcement and interception
activities, particularly through the ABFF and the TGA.
With additional resources to Commonwealth DPP so that they can go about their
work to bringing these criminals to justice.
Implementing penalties that the Parliament put in place several months ago."❓
This is an epic failure, the disposable black market is still going strong
because even border control admits that only a small amount coming into the
country is detected and that will not change. Perhaps consulting with an
expert criminologist would have been a good idea?✅
"And also looking at how we can keep researching and monitoring, what you know
better than me, is a really fast moving area of criminal enterprise.
Something that we need to ensure that we're able to help all of you come up with as
the criminal organisations are doing.
I said I knew it wouldn't be easy.
Again when Erin and I just stood up in front of the media just then, I got the
questions I get all the time:
”But you can still get a vape, you can still get one can’t
you?”
However, we understand this, we knew that this was not going to easy.
We've got 50 years of fighting Big Tobacco.
We know that they're a hard opponent, they’re a hard enemy.
I was a junior health minister, when we put in place plain packaging reforms.
We spent a long time in court, with what were world-leading reforms that have now
been adopted by dozens of countries and are saving lots and lots of lives across the
planet.
We know they are always a hard-fought win.
But now, we also happen to be dealing with serious organised crime.
This as a really lucrative source of high reward, until now, relatively low risk revenue
that they're able to deploy into their other criminal activities like drug trafficking, sex
trafficking and the like.
We knew from the start this was going to be hard.
I've tried as the person who does most of the communication on behalf of the
Federal Government on this, to be as honest as I can with the Australian people.
This was not a question of switching off the light switch.
This is going to be hard, slow work.
We're never going to get rid of every single vape any more than we've got rid of
every single bit of methamphetamine or cocaine in the country.
We have responsibilities to do our hardest, to make it as hard as possible for these
things to end up, particularly in the hands of young people.
Step one, as you know, weas to try and choke off supply.
We deliberately staged this in a way where we would start to choke the supply off
before we came to regulate or prohibit the sale of these things in recreational
settings.
I don't know if they had a particular number in mind, Erin and Tony, but the numbers
of disposable vapes that have been seized since the 1st of January certainly has
exceeded my expectation."❓
Yet this is still a drop in the ocean.✅
"We know there were millions of these things that were brought into the country in
readiness for these new regulations.
But we've seized well over 7 million."❓
Less than a week’s worth of what is being purchased illegally.✅
"We're constantly seizing more and joint operations between the TGA and officers at
state and territory level, means we're still seizing them at the border.
It is having an impact."❓
No, it isn’t, disposable vapes are just as easy to find as they were before they
were banned. A simple walk down any city street proves that.✅
:We know from the Chinese industry that has its own newsletter, that they think,
exports are down more than 90 per cent direct to Australia."❓
They think? Just because they aren’t coming directly from China doesn’t mean
they aren’t going through other countries. This is happening with several
products made in China.✅
"It doesn't mean they're not coming through third countries, but they now recognise
Australia as a hard export market because of the resources that we've brought to
bear at the border and within our borders."❓
Yes they are and some vape exporters are even offering insurance if your
import is seized?✅
"Step two, which is even harder than step one is enforcement.
Step three is enforcement, and step four is enforcement."
Step five, admit defeat and legalise and regulate vaping products like the NZ
model!✅
"That's the work that all of you are doing, and I'm so grateful for it.
As I said, it's going to be hard work.
In my electorate, there were seven vapes stores.
Every single one of them are now closed.
Now, that doesn't mean every vape store across the country is closed but instead of
parents walking their kids past the vape store to and from school, they're walking
them past a store that is available for lease or is now something other than a vape
store."❓
These were legal exclusive vape stores, they were not selling nicotine vaping
products and did not sell to minors. These stores were never the problem.✅
"And that is an important signal to the community.
But the really hard work now is those general stores.
The tobacconists, the convenience stores that have vapes under the counter, as they
have illegal cigarettes.
We know that that's going to be really hard, slow work."❓
It will be never ending work, for every store that is caught more are popping
up, there is far too much money involved for the black market to pack up and
give up. The fact that 200 stores have been fire bombed by turf wars by rival
gangs should give you a clue about how much money is involved in both
illegal tobacco and vaping products.✅
"Hundreds of operations have been undertaken either by state or territory authorities
themselves, or in partnership with the TGA and other Commonwealth agencies.
I’m really grateful for that work.
It has to continue and at some point we are going to have to have some high-profile
prosecutions to send a very clear message that this is no longer a low-risk activity,
that this is something that is that this is something that is going to cost you very
significant amounts of money and potentially end up in jail time as well.
I'm deadly serious about enforcing these laws.
The rest of our government is deadly serious about enforcing these laws, and we
know that you are serious about it too, which is why you're all here today.
I thought I'd say a few words, particularly for those of you not in health about what
we are also seeing on the demand side.
Particularly, the demand side, has been focused very much on young people.
We know that's the target market.
We know that is the cohort of community leaders with vaping in vast numbers.
There's a program that's been running now for about 20 years, out of the Matilda
Centre at the University of Sydney, called OurFutures.
It targets kids at their really impressionable age, years seven and eight, to teach
them behaviours around illicit drugs and alcohol.
It;s been running for a long time.
It&s subject to quite rigorous evaluation.
It conducts clinical trials in accordance with trial framework overseen by the
NHMRC.
It's a very rigorous health medical research-based program.
They did a trial over the course of the last 12 months, adapting their framework to
vaping.
It was evaluated in accordance with clinical trials standards and proved highly
successful.
It has been allocated funding to roll out next year to all schools and that is going to
be terrifically important.
It not only teaches young people about the harms associated with drugs or alcohol, it
teaches them behaviours about resisting peer pressure.
It teaches them behaviours about recognising where their mates might be engaging
in this and being able to talk to them peer to peer as well."❓
Sure, teach kids about vaping but be truthful about it, smoking, drugs and
alcohol are seriously more harmful than vaping. Kids are not stupid.✅
"At the media conference I was asked about the advertising campaigns.
When we came to Government, there hasn't been a population wide advertising
campaign around tobacco for a decade, funded by the Commonwealth.
We've been determined to change that.
You will see a whole lot of broad tobacco and vaping campaigns rolling out in the
traditional way.
But young people don't just watch free-to-air TV.
We had to go to where they are, which is social media."❓
Didn’t your government just pass laws to ban under 16’s from social media?✅
"We analysed social media, TikTok, Instagram, in particular, and the number of pro-
vaping messages from those social media platforms was mind blowing.
It runs to billions on TikTok, very high numbers on Instagram as well.
We had to do some innovative work in this area and, for the first time, we have
directly engaged social media influencers to get out there with anti-vaping
messages.
A number of them have created 36 pieces of content.
They've been viewed more than 8 million times.
They've been liked 650,000 times, and they've been shared in huge, huge numbers.
It is working.
It's getting messages out to counter what’s been on social media for the last several
years.
And we know, as we're evaluating that it's making a real difference.
For the first time ever also, the Commonwealth has advertised on TikTok.
It was a big decision for us to take.
It was a policy previously for us not to do that.
But if you're if you're wanting to get good public health messages out about vapes,
about skin cancer, we've got to be where young people are.
We've done that and it’s been highly successful.
We've put in place quit supports that have been really successful in traditional
cigarette smoking."❓
The focus should always be on cigarette smoking, in the UK they actually
handed out free vaping kits to help people quit the habit? Vaping has proven
to be the most successful tool to quit!✅
"In Victoria, for example, the QuitLine has received twice as many calls around
vaping as they did last year."❓
Could this be because more people are vaping in Australia than ever before,
you said yourself that it has increased by over 700% over the years?✅
"The MyQuit Buddy App, which has been reformulated to reflect vaping as well, has
been downloaded over tens and tens of thousands of times.
Providing users with support to get off the habit as well as a resource for schools and
parents
The key question though is, with all the data about number of impressions on social
media, and the number of operations that you guys have been conducting on the
ground, or the number of vapes seized for the border, is - are vaping rates going
down?
It is really early days, but research I've seen indicates that vaping rates are down this
year.
That Roy Morgan tracker that has been an important tracker for all of us, as well as
the official government trackers, shows that between December and July this year,
for the first time, vaping numbers dropped by some hundreds of thousands.
It’s reduced from close to 2 million down to about one and a half million.
That's still a lot of people, but I just remind you that year upon year over the last six
or seven years, these numbers have been doubling and doubling and doubling.
Any reduction is to be welcomed." ❓
But how many of those vapers have returned to deadly smoking?
Do you evencare?✅
"We’re getting anecdotal evidence that high schools are observing lower rates of
vaping in their school communities, but there's a long, long way to go.
I want to thank you for all of the work that you were doing.
Former Commissioner Outram and Susan Pearce who co-chaired this working group
brought together not just jurisdictions, which is often hard enough in itself, as we
understand, but different portfolio areas across all jurisdictions.
All of you have done terrific work, bringing together your different perspectives,
whether yours is public health or organised crime, with a single purpose, and that is
to get rid of this public health scourge that is not just hurting young people, but is
bank rolling really bad, serious, organised criminal gangs.
The way in which you've done that is just a reflection of the best traditions of public
service in Australia, and I want to thank you for it.
I feel sometimes we've just given you one more job to do.
You are all so busy, you all have so many important jobs to do, but this work is just
so important.
You should have a sense of pride that within this area we're leading the world again."❌
You are not world leading with these policies they have already failed!✅
"Many jurisdictions across the world have looked at what they have done over the
course of this year and changed their own approach.
We have a strong public health tradition, particularly in the area of tobacco control.
But this one's a tough one.
This has got characteristics that the traditional fight against cigarettes didn't have
over the last 50 years."❓
It is not SMOKING, it is a form of harm reduction and should be treated that
way!✅
"That's why this sort of forum, bringing together so many different areas of expertise
and experience is just so important."❓
Perhaps you should ask experience from adults that vape and harm reduction
experts or just simply look over to NZ who have successfully reduced their
smoking rates far faster than Australia by not banning vaping and creating a
massive black market!✅
"Thank you all very much for coming today and for the work that you do."