Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the last parliament, we came in here and passed health amendment laws that dealt with vaping and illicit tobacco in this country. At that time, I was very concerned that 1.4 million vapers in Australia would have to become criminals to be able to meet their need, to get their fix, to help them stay off tobacco. Nothing has changed, my point of view. There has been a crackdown on the law and order supply of the illegal shops, but it isn't working. I found out overnight that a shop found selling illegal tobacco and vapes in the Newcastle area was served with a three-month closure order. The Maitland and Rutherford tobacco store received a three-month ban, and what happened five days later? They were open again. Five days after they were shut down—a yellow notice stuck up—this store is open.

There is no enforcement of the laws we have in this country. So many of the issues we deal with here on law and order, terrorism and all of these things are because we aren't doing our job as a government by enforcing these laws. We have driven honest Australians out there into the arms of large organised crime who are importing these vapes and illegal tobacco. People are leaving vaping to go back to tobacco. Tobacco levels are increasing in our water supplies because of our actions.

It is not what we wanted, but it is what we have done. That is the way we should be judged as a nation: not on what we want and what we say but on what happens here. We can't say we are tough when a three-month closure order is ignored and the shop is open five days later, trading at night from 6 pm to 9 pm up there in the Hunter Valley, where I come from. We can't say we are helping people when we are driving people from vaping back to tobacco. We can't say we're helping when we're driving millions and millions of dollars into the bank accounts of organised crime. They're burning down tobacconists across the country—300 at last count. We have done this wrongly, and it needs to be revisited.