Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Ashlin McGee. This is seven am.
Speaker 1: If we were to tell you that there was an
Speaker 1: issue that's exposing divides within our political parties that pits
Speaker 1: their traditional supporters against each other and fractures the electorate,
Speaker 1: your first thought might not be vapes.
Speaker 2: But that's exactly what.
Speaker 1: The government's new vaping band is doing to both the
Speaker 1: Greens and the Coalition as they decide whether to vote
Speaker 1: for it. Parents sick of seeing their kids sneaking a
Speaker 1: vapor putting pressure on the Coalition, while the Greens don't
Speaker 1: want to look like squares to their younger voters. Today
Speaker 1: the Saturday Papers, Jason katsukis on the politics of the
Speaker 1: new band and why it'll be so hard to police.
Speaker 2: It's Friday, June seven. Jason.
Speaker 1: If the Health Minister Mark Butler has his there'll be
Speaker 1: some massive changes around who can buy vapes and where
Speaker 1: you can buy them in about a month from now.
Speaker 2: Tell me more about this plan.
Speaker 3: So, when vapes first came onto the market around twenty
Speaker 3: years ago, the pitch was that vapes were another alternative
Speaker 3: to cigarette smoking.
Speaker 4: And a friend of mine who was a get concerned
Speaker 4: about about my switched back to smoking cigarettes, So what
Speaker 4: are you doing when you try vaping? So since I
Speaker 4: switched to vaping, I've been able to walk upstairs a
Speaker 4: lot easier, and.
Speaker 3: That offered a pathway to quit smoking, and they were
Speaker 3: sold as a therapeutic good.
Speaker 5: I tried vaping and I just switched instantly. I've never
Speaker 5: had a cigarette since that day, and I've never craved
Speaker 5: a cigarette.
Speaker 3: But over the last twenty years, we've seen people take
Speaker 3: up vaping, not to quit smoking, but just as an
Speaker 3: entirely new habit Here.
Speaker 6: We are Paris a vape expot twenty twenty four. It's
Speaker 6: a show that I've never been to before, and I've
Speaker 6: always wanted to.
Speaker 3: And we've got to the point where there's around one
Speaker 3: point seven million people who are vaping on a regular basis.
Speaker 3: We've seen a surge in the number of teenagers aged
Speaker 3: fourteen to seventeen take up vaping. I think it's now
Speaker 3: up to around ten percent. The previous government decided not
Speaker 3: to band vapes, and when this government came into power
Speaker 3: in around two years ago, the government is under a
Speaker 3: lot of pressure from peak medical bodies, also from the
Speaker 3: education sector and just ordinary constituents.
Speaker 7: This is one of the.
Speaker 3: Top issues that MPs say that voters engage them on.
Speaker 3: You know, why aren't you doing something to stop vaping.
Speaker 8: This is what a New South Wales principal said last
Speaker 8: year quote, students are so desperate to have the next
Speaker 8: vape or get money to have the next vape, that
Speaker 8: students have become more aggressive, more agitated, less cooperatively, less cooperative,
Speaker 8: less engaged with their school work.
Speaker 3: Mark Butler's introduced new regulations. He's banned the importation of
Speaker 3: vapes at the border.
Speaker 6: In the last few days the Australian government had the
Speaker 6: Health Minister, mister Mark but Head. Butler made some announcements
Speaker 6: in the mainstream media that they will be bringing in
Speaker 6: some of these planned tough regulations.
Speaker 3: He's introduced other regulations so that you can only get
Speaker 3: nicotine vapes through a pharmacy.
Speaker 9: They've been flooding into the last several years, literally flooding in,
Speaker 9: and we gave them those ready sources and in just
Speaker 9: the first two months or not quite two months of
Speaker 9: the ban being an effect, they've seized amind by more
Speaker 9: than three hundred and sixty thousand disposable vapes, so now illegal.
Speaker 7: At the moment tobacco shops.
Speaker 3: Convenience stores are allowed to solve vapes that don't contain nicotine.
Speaker 3: The trouble is it's very difficult to police. We don't
Speaker 3: have enough police or customs officials to go around testing
Speaker 3: every vape in every shop. Marc Butler wants to stop that,
Speaker 3: and he thinks the best way to do that is
Speaker 3: just to.
Speaker 7: Ban all vapes.
Speaker 10: If Labors Planned successfully navigates Parliament, Australia would have the
Speaker 10: world's toughest anti vaping laws, and with one in four
Speaker 10: young adults using these cigarettes in Australia, health experts say
Speaker 10: it's desperately needed.
Speaker 3: Thanks so after that first wave of regulatory changes, we're
Speaker 3: now at the second stage of reforms. If this law
Speaker 3: passes the Senate, you won't be able to go into
Speaker 3: a convenience store or any other retail outlet and buy
Speaker 3: a vape anymore. All those specialty vape shops that have
Speaker 3: sprung up in shopping malls and shopping strips around the
Speaker 3: country over the last ten years, they'll be forced out
Speaker 3: of business overnight, so that the only place you can
Speaker 3: get a vape is at a pharmacy. And while that
Speaker 3: may sound like a fairly simple idea. It's actually quite
Speaker 3: a complex issue for all the different parties that will
Speaker 3: be debating this issue when it actually goes into the
Speaker 3: Senate for a vote.
Speaker 1: So, the legislation to ban vapes, like you said, it's
Speaker 1: before the Senate at the moment, and the government's presumably
Speaker 1: in talks with the other parties to get the support.
Speaker 2: It needs to pass it.
Speaker 1: Where does the coalition sit on this, because that's the
Speaker 1: easiest route to pass in this legislation.
Speaker 7: Right, that's right.
Speaker 3: The Coalition is actually quite divided on this issue. A
Speaker 3: significant number of Coalition members and senators believe that vapes
Speaker 3: should be regulated like any.
Speaker 7: Other tobacco product.
Speaker 3: David Little Proud, the Nationals leader, Yeah, he's come out
Speaker 3: very strongly in favor of allowing vapes to be sold
Speaker 3: over the counter.
Speaker 11: But the reality is is that prohibition hasn't worked.
Speaker 3: The National Party has been seen over the years to
Speaker 3: be quite close to the tobacco industry, so their position
Speaker 3: is clear and they will vote against this legislation work.
Speaker 11: And when we did regulate cigarettes through point of sale
Speaker 11: to eighteen years plus through licensed premises, then what happens
Speaker 11: is as well as controlling the ingredients and the packaging.
Speaker 11: We saw an eighty percent reduction of juvenile use of cigarettes.
Speaker 11: And then you collect that GST, you collect that xcize
Speaker 11: and you can put that.
Speaker 3: But then you have other coalition members and senators who
Speaker 3: are concerned about the health impact of vaping. I mean,
Speaker 3: what's really interesting to me about this issue is how
Speaker 3: vaping is probably one of the issues that is of
Speaker 3: most concern to professional women and one of the things
Speaker 3: that has really seen a decline in the coalition's vote
Speaker 3: over the last ten to fifteen years is professional women
Speaker 3: leaving the Liberal Party And if the Coalition votes against
Speaker 3: this legislation, then I think that's really going to hurt
Speaker 3: the coalition with professional women voters.
Speaker 7: And so there are.
Speaker 3: A significant number of Liberal Party MPs who are really
Speaker 3: worried about how that's going to look if the Coalition
Speaker 3: votes against this legislation.
Speaker 7: I think it's a tricky dilemma.
Speaker 3: For Peter Dutton because if he backs voting for this legislation,
Speaker 3: then the law will pass and that is essentially a
Speaker 3: loss for David Littlproud and the NATS. And because the
Speaker 3: Nationals party room is so divided, there's those that still
Speaker 3: believe Barnaby Joyce should be the leader. I think there's
Speaker 3: no doubt that he would like to become the Leader
Speaker 3: of the Nationals once again if he gets the chance,
Speaker 3: and if this legislation becomes law. There are some Liberal
Speaker 3: Party MPs and senators who are worried that this would
Speaker 3: give a bit of a win for Barnaby Joyce and
Speaker 3: could unsettle a coalition.
Speaker 1: Okay, so negotiating with the coalition is one path the
Speaker 1: government has and potentially the easiest. But what about one
Speaker 1: of the other paths, and that's talking to the Greens.
Speaker 1: Where do they sit on this ban?
Speaker 3: Well, the Greens are very concerned that they don't want
Speaker 3: to see vaping prohibited, so they don't want to see
Speaker 3: any sort of circumstance where it becomes that if you
Speaker 3: are vaping, that you are committing a crime.
Speaker 7: So there's no way that they will allow that to happen.
Speaker 7: And I think.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of Green's voters who are probably vapors.
Speaker 6: We need them to hear that this is important to us.
Speaker 6: At the last election, the Greens stole quite a few
Speaker 6: seats off of Labor and if they want to do
Speaker 6: a little bit more of that, then getting support of
Speaker 6: the vapors is something I'm sure they'll be interested in,
Speaker 6: So please, guys, this is our last chance.
Speaker 7: We've got a week or two.
Speaker 3: My guess is that the Greens will end up supporting
Speaker 3: this legislation with some important amendments, and that in return
Speaker 3: for that they're going to get a win on some
Speaker 3: other piece of legislation that they want to amend in
Speaker 3: a certain way. That's my sense of how the Greens
Speaker 3: are going to handle this. The Coalition, I think to
Speaker 3: be quite a difficult debate for the party room, and
Speaker 3: I genuinely don't know how they're going to come down
Speaker 3: on this one. I do think it would be very
Speaker 3: hard for the Coalition to vote against this legislation.
Speaker 7: But having said.
Speaker 3: That, there are a lot of Coalition MPs and senators
Speaker 3: who don't want this legislation to become law.
Speaker 1: After the break, he'll be in charge of enforcing a
Speaker 1: ban and who's going to copy fine.
Speaker 2: Jason.
Speaker 1: Given the proliferation of vapes and tobacco shops and corner
Speaker 1: store is selling vapes, it doesn't sound like this will
Speaker 1: be the easiest of bands to enforce. So talk to
Speaker 1: me about the logistics of how they're saying they'll.
Speaker 3: Actually do it, we don't actually have the logistical plan yet,
Speaker 3: and it is going to be in credib difficult to
Speaker 3: enforce it because it's not just a matter of banning
Speaker 3: vapes and they go away. Firstly, you've got to try
Speaker 3: to stop vapes getting into the country, and that's almost impossible.
Speaker 3: If the Australian Border Force wanted to, they could fill
Speaker 3: your whole warehouses full of illegal vapes being imported into
Speaker 3: the country every month, but they just don't have the
Speaker 3: policing power to stop all the vapes getting through the border.
Speaker 3: While they do have sophisticated detection technology, they just don't
Speaker 3: have enough to stop vapes coming into the country. And
Speaker 3: also there's a question as to whether it's worth it
Speaker 3: because there's other things that are perhaps a more serious.
Speaker 7: Threat to society than vapes.
Speaker 3: And then because there's so many shops and convenience stores
Speaker 3: that are selling vapes, it's going to be very difficult
Speaker 3: to suddenly go around to each store and police whether
Speaker 3: they are selling vapes over the counter or under the counter.
Speaker 3: It's become so much a part of daily life it's
Speaker 3: going to be very difficult to stamp it.
Speaker 7: Out.
Speaker 3: You know, the big stick here is the fines and
Speaker 3: possible prison centers that will apply to people who are
Speaker 3: selling the vapes on a commercial level, a commercial quantity.
Speaker 7: So it wouldn't be somebody who gives you one or
Speaker 7: two vapes.
Speaker 3: It would be that convenience store that is selling vapes
Speaker 3: on a regular basis, or someone that's organizing or facilitating
Speaker 3: the importation of vapes to sell online, et cetera. That's
Speaker 3: who will be targeted by this new law. Exactly how
Speaker 3: they're going to do that though it's not yet clear.
Speaker 1: It's been more than a year now since Mike Butler
Speaker 1: first spoke about banning vapes. Why has it taken both
Speaker 1: so long? And also you know why now is there
Speaker 1: this rush to push it through the Senate before the
Speaker 1: winter break.
Speaker 3: I think the government wants to have a legislative victory
Speaker 3: before the winter break. It's another it's something else that
Speaker 3: they consult to voters as look, we're taking action, where
Speaker 3: moving to fix something that a lot of people are
Speaker 3: concerned about. And I think the government is under a
Speaker 3: lot of pressure from the Australian Medical Association and various
Speaker 3: other leading health groups. They went to see the new
Speaker 3: Health Minister Mark Butler and urged him to try to
Speaker 3: do everything he could to stamp out the growth of
Speaker 3: vaping his a habit.
Speaker 1: It's interesting talking to you about the internal machinations of
Speaker 1: the Coalition and the Greens around this. What does it
Speaker 1: tell you about how these types of issues percolate internally.
Speaker 3: I think this is one of those issues where it
Speaker 3: completely crosses the traditional kind of party divides, and people
Speaker 3: across the Parliament, no matter which party they're in, have
Speaker 3: very different views about this, and that is what is
Speaker 3: going to make it so difficult to resolve. One thing
Speaker 3: that really did surprise me when I started doing this
Speaker 3: story was the number of submissions that I read, you know,
Speaker 3: argued passionately in favor of making vapes available just as
Speaker 3: cigarettes are available.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 3: One of the most interesting, but was certainly quite valid,
Speaker 3: was from Fiona Patten, the former Victorian Upper House MP,
Speaker 3: and she made an argument that vapes had really helped
Speaker 3: her finally quit smoking and that by banning vapes we're
Speaker 3: doing her and many others like her. She argued a
Speaker 3: real kind of disservice and that forcing her to go
Speaker 3: to a GP is just not going to work, and
Speaker 3: it's not going to work for all those other people
Speaker 3: that are using vapes as a substitute for smoking. So
Speaker 3: that really struck me just how complex this issue is.
Speaker 3: At first, I had thought, well, you know, vaping is
Speaker 3: an evil that we must stamp out, but I think
Speaker 3: it's it is more complex than that.
Speaker 2: It's essentially two stories in one, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Like You've got people like Fiona Pattern and people like
Speaker 1: that who use it to stop smoking, and then you've
Speaker 1: got teenagers and they can't vote, their parents vote, and
Speaker 1: their parents are mad.
Speaker 7: Yeah, well that's exactly right.
Speaker 3: And I think what Mark Butler is saying is we
Speaker 3: don't want teenagers taking up vaping and becoming addicted to
Speaker 3: something new for the rest of their lives, something that's
Speaker 3: not good for them. We know that vaping does damage,
Speaker 3: and when you read some of the chemicals that are
Speaker 3: contained in vapes, they can't be good for you. So
Speaker 3: what he's arguing is we've got to do something to
Speaker 3: create a whole new health problem for our country ten
Speaker 3: twenty thirty years down the track, and that the only
Speaker 3: way that we can stamp this art is through your
Speaker 3: tough legislative action. I think there's no easy way to
Speaker 3: regulate vapes, because because this issue crosses all party lines
Speaker 3: and there's no kind of coherent ideology here which says
Speaker 3: that it's a good or bad thing to vape, a
Speaker 3: lot of different groups of people have completely different views
Speaker 3: about that vaping.
Speaker 2: Jason, thanks so much for your time today, Ashland.
Speaker 7: Always a pleasure.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me on seven AM.
Speaker 1: Also in the news today, Green's leader Adam Band is
Speaker 1: threatening legal action against the Attorney General over comments Band
Speaker 1: claims were defametory to him and the Greens party. Both
Speaker 1: the government and opposition joined together in the House of
Speaker 1: Representatives to accuse the Greens of inciting pro Palestinian protesters
Speaker 1: that have targeted the officers of some politicians, but in
Speaker 1: comments made outside of parliamentary privilege, Attorney General Mark Dreyfus
Speaker 1: claimed the Greens have been encouraging criminal damage of MP's
Speaker 1: electorate officers and New South Waleses Premier Chris Mins has
Speaker 1: formally apologized on behalf of the government to people convicted
Speaker 1: of homosexual acts. Forty years after the state decriminalized homosexual activity.
Speaker 1: New South Wales is the last Dake to issue an apology.
Speaker 1: Seven Am is a daily show from Schwartz Media and
Speaker 1: The Saturday Paper.
Speaker 2: It's produced by.
Speaker 1: Kara Jensen, McKinnon, Shane Anderson and Salton Fecho. Our senior
Speaker 1: producer is Chris Dengate. Our technical producer is Atticus Bastow.
Speaker 1: Our editor is Scott Mitchell. Sarah mcviee is our head
Speaker 1: of audio. Eric Jensen is our editor in chief. Mixing
Speaker 1: by Travis Evans and Atticus Bastow. Our theme music is
Speaker 1: by Ned Buckley and Josh Hogan of Envelope Ordio. My
Speaker 1: name's Ashlin McGhee. Thanks for your company this week. We'll
Speaker 1: see you again on Monday.