Minister for Health and Aged Care – press conference – 25 June 2024

MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE, MARK BUTLER: Last year, I made clear this Government's determination to stamp out recreational vaping in this country and our determination to take vapes, particularly out of the hands of our kids. This was a product sold to our Government here in Australia, some years ago, and governments right around the world, as a therapeutic product – a product that could be used by hardened smokers, finally, to kick the habit – smokers who'd been on cigarettes, usually for decades. What we now know, some years down the track, is that this is nothing more, nothing less than an insidious device designed to recruit a new generation to nicotine addiction. And the tragedy is: here in Australia and in so many countries around the world, it is working. About one in 6 high school students are vaping. About one in 4 very young adults in their late teens and early 20s are vaping, as well. And almost every month, new evidence emerges of the health harms that vaping, in and of itself, is causing to young people, and also of the gateway that it is presenting to cigarette smoking. We know that vapers are around 3 times more likely to take up cigarettes as non-vapers. This week, the Senate has an opportunity to back in our determination, it has an opportunity to do something really meaningful and lasting for the health of young Australians. I want to urge all senators to back the Government's vaping reforms this week, something that I note, over the last hour or so, has also been urged upon senators by the Cancer Council, by the College of General Practitioners, by the Australian Medical Association, and by the Public Health Association of Australia.
 
This will be the third wave of our vaping reforms. On the 1st of January, I introduced an import control that would ban the import of any disposable vape into this country. We also provided significant additional resourcing to the Border Force and to the Therapeutic Goods Administration to enforce that ban and I’m very pleased to say that, in just a few short months since then, more than 2.5 million vapes have been seized, taken out of the hands of our young children. These are vapes that are so deliberately designed to be marketed towards them: they have pink unicorns on them, they are bubblegum flavoured. They’re often disguised as USB sticks or highlighter pens, so that kids can hide them in their pencil cases, hide them from their parents, hide them from their teachers.
 
The second wave of our reforms took effect in March and that provides that non-therapeutic vapes will be outlawed more generally for sale and supply. In order to introduce and enforce that ban, the TGA – the Therapeutic Goods Administration – has issued very clear standards for the type of vape that will be able to be sold in Australia as a therapeutic product. It will have a prescribed nicotine content. It has prescribed contents on chemicals. It is designed to be pharmaceutically-styled packaged, not presented as a recreational product that is attractive to kids. It will only be able to have 3 flavours: tobacco, mint or menthol. Gone will be the variety of different ridiculous flavours: the combination of different fruits and bubblegums that are obviously designed, not to help a hardened smoker in their 40s, 50s, or 60s, but to recruit kids into nicotine addiction, and then, into cigarette smoking.
 
The third wave of our reforms is before the Senate this week. It's passed the House of Representatives and, if passed by the Senate, it will, from the coming Monday, outlaw the sale and the supply of vapes outside of pharmacies.
 
This has been something I telegraphed from last year. This is something that has had the support of every health minister in the country, from all jurisdictions, whether they are Liberal Party or Labor Party controlled. It has very broad support in the public health sector. And I'm determined to see it pass this week.
 
School communities and parents have had enough of having to deal with this scourge, this public health threat to young children. But also, what we now know from school communities is this is the number one behavioural issue that school communities are facing. School communities tell me they're now having to roster teachers, not just outside of school toilets during recess and lunch breaks, but actually in school toilets, to enforce the vaping bans that they have there. It is time that the Parliament acted to support the parents in the school communities of Australia. And this week, the Parliament has the opportunity to do that.
 
Now what I have been absolutely clear about, from the time I first announced our intentions in this area, is our determination to return vapes to their original intention and that is: a therapeutic product. I said that vapes in Australia would only be able to be legally purchased from a pharmacy in a therapeutic pathway. It has already been revealed that the Government will, when the legislation comes before the Senate this week, the Government will move amendments that will allow, from the 1st of October, a legal vape that complies with TGA standards, not only to be obtained through a pharmacy on prescription from a doctor, but also to be obtained as a so-called 'Schedule 3' medicine. This is a very common therapeutic pathway that allows certain medicines like the morning after pill, pseudoephedrine, various asthma medicines, to be obtained through a discussion with a pharmacist – not a retail assistant or pharmacy assistant in the pharmacy – but with a fully qualified pharmacist. Some of those very important healthcare professionals that Australians rely on every single day for their health advice. This is a very common pathway and very much part of our healthcare system here in Australia.
 
Now, we've been discussing this for some time as a possible alternative pathway, with health ministers and with different stakeholders in the sector. I said, as far back as last November, that we were, “as health ministers, interested” – these are my words – “interested in exploring, for example, whether there is a pharmacist-only pathway to get a vape” to deal with the access issues that we think are very clearly there for a therapeutic need that an adult seeking smoking cessation advice and support might need, particularly as we start to shut down the retail settings that maybe they've been relying upon.
 
So this is a significant amendment that we will be proposing to the Senate, but one that very much keeps faith with the original intention of our reforms, which are: to wipe out the recreational vaping market. to wipe this out from retail settings, and to return this product to its original intention. Only therapeutic vapes will be able to be sold from the 1st of July, and they will only be able to be sold in therapeutic settings, namely pharmacies. Happy to take questions.
 
JOURNALIST: Can I read you out something from the Pharmacy Guild, they put a statement out saying: no vaping product has been approved from the TGA based on its safety, efficacy or performance, no vaping product is listed on the Australian Register of the Therapeutic Goods. Is that correct from your understanding? And by July 1, October 1, will there be those sort of therapeutic goods available to people? Can I also get you to reflect on the Coalition's policy just announced in the last half an hour?
 
BUTLER: Your first question first. Pharmacies have been selling vapes for some considerable time, and it was always proposed that they would continue to sell vapes under the reforms that Government has put together. Before March, there were no standards about the range of vapes that could be sold in pharmacy settings or in retail settings more broadly, the vape stores that have opened up down the road from our schools, retail stores, as well. Because of our reforms, the only vapes that will be able to be sold in pharmacies will have to have obtained a permit from the Office of Drug Control and will have to be able to demonstrate through surveillance by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, that those vapes comply with standards set by the TGA. I went through them, nicotine content, the sorts of chemicals that they will contain, and obviously the packaging that is presented in the flavours. So this is the first time – because of our reforms – the first time there has been any control, any standards, on the type of vapes that have been sold anywhere, and that includes in pharmacies. So it is right that there is not currently a vape on the Register of Therapeutic Goods. But we have put in place for the first time very clear standards, overseen by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, overseen by the Office of Drug Control, to ensure that the vapes that are being sold through pharmacies comply with the strictest possible standards.
 
JOURNALIST: Obviously, the Pharmacy Guild aren’t particularly happy about this. Are chemists going to be forced to stock vapes and if they’re not, if there’s not enough uptake, then what’s the point?
 
BUTLER: Pharmacies are already stocking vapes. They’re already selling vapes and they have been for some time. They were always intended to under these reforms. This is, I think, a sensible balance between access and serious reform, to return this product to its original intention, which was a therapeutic good. Of course, pharmacies aren't owned by the Government, so they can't be directed by the Government what they sell. You know, some pharmacies choose to offer methadone treatment, some don't. This will obviously be a decision by individual pharmacies.
 
But I know pharmacists right around the country for a considerable period of time have been having careful, professional discussions with their customers about smoking cessation support. They do that now, they've done it for a very long time. This is an additional tool in the toolkit for smoking cessation. The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia – which is the professional body for pharmacists, not the business lobby – the professional body for pharmacists, has long had clinical guidelines about the way in which pharmacists should have those discussions with their customers, and hardworking pharmacists right across Australia do this every day. Right now those guidelines include guidelines about how to have a discussion with their customers about vaping. Now we will continue to work with the PSA, the professional body, on updating those guidelines to reflect any changes the Senate sees fit to make over the course of this week. But this is not new. Vapes have been sold for a long time in pharmacies. We're just updating the standards to make sure they're strict. Pharmacists have been having conversations with their customers about smoking cessation support, and a range of different nicotine replacement therapies for years and years. That's something they do every single day.
 
JOURNALIST: Minister, given prescriptions will be needed from July 1 but not October 1. What makes a vape safer on October 1 than it is on July 1?
 
BUTLER: This is really a question of our ability to get in place operational guidance for amendments that have been proposed the week before July 1. Really, it's about being practical, and us being able to ensure that pharmacists have access to the best possible advice about the way in which to deal with these new laws. Doctors have had that advice since late last year. We funded the College of General Practitioners to update their clinical guidelines to their members, late last year. There was a big expansion in access through doctors from the 1st of January that reflected the timing of the import ban. So we're very confident we've got good arrangements in place to support GPs. We want to make sure we've got those same arrangements to support pharmacists and that 3-month introduction will allow us to do that.
 
JOURNALIST: One of the things that our audience keeps telling us, it's just how difficult it is to quit and how addictive these substances are. Given that part of this change is to, presumably, move people into thinking about quitting or reducing their intake, are there going to be any more resources to put towards quitting services therapy that might help people get off these substances?
 
BUTLER: A couple of weeks ago, I launched $30 million of additional quit supports that we announced in the Budget last year, as part of our package of reforms to tobacco laws, but particularly to vaping. A lot of those services are delivered through state governments, through services that were very familiar to your listeners and viewers: the Quit support services, often supported, particularly by the Cancer Council of Victoria. They will get the opportunity to expand their services. They're already doing that. But also to introduce new services targeted at young people, because we know how many young people have become addicted to nicotine through these vapes.
 
I mean, the amount of nicotine that our kids are ingesting through this product is terrifying, it is just terrifying. Parents are talking about this to members of parliament every single day. We heard stories late last year of kids who are unable to get through an exam without a nicotine patch on, such as their level of nicotine addiction. So there is additional support to the traditional services, if you like here. But we recognise there’s a new market, unfortunately, that is: young people. So we've funded these services with very substantial additional resources to support those groups. There are substantial information resources going through school communities right now, to support teachers and to support parents about what their kids, their teenagers in particular, are going through. We're also putting together new digital apps through the My QuitBuddy App, and new information campaigns with more than $60 million last year allocated to fund new information campaigns. Now, they're happening in very different ways, frankly, to the Commonwealth. We used social media influences some months ago to try and get some positive anti-vaping messages out there through social media influencers, including on platforms like TikTok. Because we know TikTok is awash, other social media platforms are awash, with pro-vaping messages. I announced a couple of weeks ago that we would be directly advertising on TikTok, that would be the first time the Commonwealth ever does that, to put clear anti-vaping messages funded by the Commonwealth on TikTok and other social media platforms because we know that's where young people get their information.
 
JOURNALIST: Minister, a few years ago, we reported on Philip Morris offering chemists a cash for vape scheme. At the moment, pharmacists can only provide vapes if they're prescribed. If they're not prescribed and the drug and tobacco companies offer similar cash for vape schemes, are you concerned that there'd be an incentive for chemists to give things to as many people as possible because that make money out?
 
BUTLER: The laws that are before the Senate this week already introduced very stringent new advertising restrictions on vaping. They will also include amendments that particularly deal with the possibility of direct marketing to pharmacists, because I am aware of that concern, and I'm confident the amendments the Senate has before them this week will deal with that.
 
JOURNALIST: Firstly, how much are these vapes going to cost in pharmacies, is that something that's going to be controlled by the Government? And secondly, on the advertising stuff, at the moment, you get ads for others smoking cessation products, gums, patches, etc. Is that going to be allowed for vapes, or no?
 
BUTLER: No. There are restrictions on the advertising of vaping. I think that really reflects the fact that this has been a recreational product and we need to clamp down on the idea this is a recreational product that has already been far too widely advertised. I mean, not on traditional media but we know, up until the reforms that we put in place to clamp down on advertising and social media, social media has been awash with advertising on vaping. As to price, that's a matter for the private market. We won't be seeking to regulate the price at all, until maybe at some time in the future some company proposes to put an e-cigarette or a vape on the PBS. I mean, there are other nicotine replacement therapies on the PBS, but it appears to me to be a long way off.
 
JOURNALIST: The Coalition in its recent announcement has said the $25 million for the ABF to enforce these laws isn't enough and they’ve committed to increasing that tenfold. Is it true that this isn't actually enough to actually enforce this? And would you commit to increasing the funding to match them?
 
BUTLER: This is the same Coalition that did nothing for 9 years. This is the same Coalition who, when Greg Hunt – to his credit V tried to put in place an import control on vapes, was rolled by his own party room within a matter of days and had to repeal that regulation. That is why we are in the position we are in today. The best time to be doing these reforms was 5 years ago, and they didn't. They decided not to do it, in spite of Greg Hunt, I think, having good intentions in this respect. So forgive me if I don't take advice from the Coalition about how to deal with tobacco control and vaping control. This is a party led by a man who, when we proposed plain packaging laws 10 years ago, said it was “a bridge too far”. Now he has the opportunity to do something meaningful and lasting for the health of young Australians, he again is going to back Big Tobacco. So I'm not going to take advice from the Coalition.
 
As to the substance on this, though, we engaged very closely with Border Force and the Therapeutic Goods Administration in the lead up to the 2023 Budget about what resources they thought they needed to enforce the ban that we were proposing to put in place and we gave them those resources. Now, of course, if ABF comes to us and says they need something else, we would take that through a proper Budget process. But as I said, in just a few short months, we've seized more than 2.5 million of these products, taken them out of the hands of young Australians, this has been a great success. So we stand ready to do what we need to do to enforce this package of reforms. That's how significant the importance is that we've attached to them. But I'm not going to take lectures from a Coalition which, frankly, has taken until one minute to midnight to say anything about these vaping reforms.
 
BUTLER: Minister Butler, under your plan pharmacists will have to give health advice to people wanting to buy vapes. However, there's no dispensing fee paid to them for over-the-counter products. Will you pay pharmacists to do this, and so have you costed it up?
 
JOURNALIST: This is something they do right now. This is something they've been doing for a very long time. There is clear clinical guidance from the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia, about how to have that conversation for a range of other nicotine replacement therapies that pharmacists have stocked and had conversations with their patients and customers about for a very long time.
 
JOURNALIST: The Pharmacy Guild said that he found out about the amendments by press release. Should you have consulted with the pharmacy industry more before announcing these amendments?
 
BUTLER: As I said earlier, we have been open about the possibility of this for a long period of time. I was quite open about this being very much a matter under consideration as early as last year. I've made public comments about that on several occasions, as well. There was a Senate Committee process that the guild had the opportunity to be a part of. I understand they didn't make a submission, I understand they didn't attend a hearing, along with the AMA and the College of GPs. Those two organisations did attend the hearing that they were asked to attend. The guild decided not to, for their own reasons, that's their right, they weren't summoned, they were invited. But this has been a matter very clearly under consideration, I know there have been different models that have been the subject of lobbying in this building. Some have been Schedule 2 models, which would be, essentially, a retail-only product like a box of panadeine that you simply take up to the pharmacist or retail assistant. We were never going to go with that sort of model. But I don't accept that this has not been an option very clearly on the agenda for a considerable period of time.
 
JOURNALIST: Just back on the Coalition's plans. They also announced this morning that they would prefer taxing and regulating vapes in the same way as cigarettes are, what's your response to that? And why wasn't that considered?
 
BUTLER: It was considered, and it was rejected. I'm not willing to raise the white flag on a product that has been deliberately targeted at recruiting young kids to nicotine addiction. The only thing you know from a Dutton government, if one were to be elected, is that vapes would stay, vapes would continue to be the public health and behavioural scourge that they are for parents and school communities right now. Also, as I wrote about this morning, the idea that any significant hole is going to be made in vaping rates, or any significant revenue raised, just flies in the face of experience we've seen overseas. New York, a jurisdiction about the size of Australia, tried this 5 years ago. And in the 5 years since, all we've seen is vaping rates climb. Even more young New Yorkers, vape than vape, here in Australia. The huge tax take that the National Party says that they'll make through this genius scheme, amounts to about $25 million a year. It's been an absolute failure. Other than the Coalition, the only other bodies who are advocating this model are Big Tobacco and the retailers that make a profit from it.
 
JOURNALIST: You mentioned the campaign using influencers before. h=Have you got any reports back showing, you know, what have they shown? Any analysis of that campaign?
 
BUTLER: I haven't had data for a couple of weeks. But the last reports I had were that it had been around 7 or 8 million views of these posts, about 600,000 likes. The campaign is not over, we will evaluate it. It is a new style of campaign for the Commonwealth, but I’m convinced it’s the right sort of campaign to connect with young people. With the greatest respect, advertising on traditional media is useful, but it doesn't get eyeballs from teenagers in the way that social media does. That's why we've broken new ground in many ways using influencers, advertising directly on TikTok. So the early data seems to me to be very positive: that many views, that many likes means that we are getting eyeballs on these posts, and they're coming from people young people will listen to, frankly, more than they will me, for better or for worse. We will obviously continue to evaluate this, it's important for this campaign, it's important for my portfolio, but it's also important more broadly for the Government to learn how we can communicate with young people about issues of concern to them.
 
JOURNALIST: Quick question on pill testing. Obviously, Victoria has now become the third jurisdiction in the country to announce a trial. Given the positive reactions from the ACT and Queensland on their early success rates around this issue, would you say to other states and territories that they should be looking at pill testing as well?
 
BUTLER: I'm not going to tell other states and territories what to do. I did see that announcement from Victoria, and as a Commonwealth, these are matters for state and territory governments; but as a Commonwealth, we obviously welcome any pilot that seeks to examine new ways in which they can support the health of young Australians. So I look forward to the results of that and other pilots. Thank you very much.