Tuesday, 26 November 2024

Bills

Tobacco Amendment (Tobacco Retailer and Wholesaler Licensing Scheme) Bill 2024

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Harriet Shing:

That the bill be now read a second time.

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (13:45): I am pleased to rise and make a contribution to the Tobacco Amendment (Tobacco Retailer and Wholesaler Licensing Scheme) Bill 2024 and to note at the outset that the opposition, the Liberals and Nationals, will not oppose this bill. It is a bill that we see has considerable merit. There are some issues that we will point to, and we will move some amendments. I am happy for those to be circulated now so that I can talk to them as I am moving through.

Amendments circulated pursuant to standing orders.

David DAVIS: The bill seeks to set up a tobacco retailer and wholesaler licensing scheme which will enable much stronger, much clearer, regulation of the sector – and goodness, we need it; we need better regulation. The government has let this get away from them very badly indeed. We have seen massive violence and firebombings and a series of gang wars that have created significant damage in the community and significant risk to the community. We are very lucky that we have not had someone killed in this process. There have been well over a hundred such firebombings and burnings and fires ignited on a range of premises around the state.

I know that Mr Mulholland read a long list into Hansard, but even within my own electorate of Southern Metro we saw on the 6th of the 9th 2023 a vacant shop burned, bombed, at 30–32 Station Street, Oakleigh; and on the 21st of the 9th, a tobacconist at 30–32 Station Street, Oakleigh; on the 23rd of the 9th, Bentleigh Smoke Shop  & Convenience Store at 362 Centre Road, Bentleigh; on the 7th of the 10th, the Bentleigh Smoke Shop & Convenience Store at 362 Centre Road, Bentleigh; on the 9th of the 2nd, the business, name unknown, at 800 Glen Huntly Road, Caulfield South; on the 11th of the 2nd 2024, Smoke Out Chapel at 228 Chapel Street, Prahran; on the 6th of the 6th 2024, Harry’s Mart convenience store, 255 Chapel Street, Prahran; on the 14th of the 7th 2024, the Oakleigh Tobacconist at 2/13 Chester Street, Oakleigh; on the 15th of the 7th, just the day after, the Oakleigh Tobacconist at 2/13 Chester Street, Oakleigh – another round; and on the 21st of the 11th 2024, the Lux Nightclub at 375 Chapel Street, Prahran, which may well have been linked to neighbouring matters.

My point in reading out the list for my electorate is to indicate that well over a hundred of these bombings and burnings have occurred as the state government has failed to stamp out clear disorderly and illegal conduct on a grand scale. It is extraordinary. I do not understand where the police are on this. I simply do not understand how these firebombings can occur in this day and age and apparently with absolute impunity. I am not aware if most of these have seen charges laid and follow-up. There is actually something pretty bad that is going on here.

The opposition was very active at an early point on this. I pay tribute to Mr McCurdy, our Shadow Minister for Consumer Affairs, for his proposals and the measures that he suggested. The coalition intended to introduce a Tobacco Amendment (Stamping Out Fire Bombings) Bill 2024. This bill picks up aspects of this. The licensing is the key step so that there is actually real control to ensure that the government is in a position where, where there is illegality that occurs and where there are changes that are occurring that are untoward and in some cases clearly illegal, the department, the agencies and the police are in a position to actually clamp down and to really crack down and make sure that this does not continue.

Picking up the position of the bill, there are a number of clauses that are put into the act. I am reading here from the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee (SARC) report:

Clause [14] substitutes ‘could not reasonably be expected to have been aware’ for ‘was not aware, and could not reasonably be expected to have been aware’ …

And in the explanatory memorandum it said:

The effect of this substitution is to remove the requirement that a defendant who is an individual must prove that they were not aware that they were contravening section 5C(1A) of the Principal Act. Instead, a defendant must only prove that they could not reasonably be expected to have been aware that they were in [contravention of] …

that section.

Similar amendments are made for 15, 16 and 19.

Clause [17] substitutes section 11A of the Act dealing with illicit tobacco offences, with four new offences:

• possession of illicit tobacco in new section 11A(1) with a maximum penalty of 120 penalty units in the case of a natural person, and 600 penalty units in the case of a body corporate;

• possession of a commercial quantity of illicit tobacco in new section 11A(2), with a maximum penalty of 840 penalty units or imprisonment for 2 years for a natural person and 4200 penalty units for a body corporate;

• sale or supply of illicit tobacco in new section 11A(3), with a maximum penalty of 120 penalty units for a natural person and 600 penalty units for a body corporate; and

• intentionally or recklessly selling a commercial quantity of illicit tobacco, with a maximum penalty of 1800 penalty units or imprisonment for 15 years in the case of a natural person and 9000 penalty units for a body corporate.

I could go on laying out some of the steps in the bill. As I say, we are not going to oppose the bill. We understand some of the points that are made by the government. SARC picks up the issue of the delayed commencement and the delegation of legislative power. We seek to move an amendment which will bring the date forward, and it is my understanding that the government will not oppose that amendment and will potentially support that amendment. We do point to the comments under the Parliamentary Committees Act 2003 matters in the SARC report with respect to delayed commencement. The SARC practice note says it is considered best practice to include information and reasons for a possible delayed commencement date in all explanatory materials, and the committee draws the minister’s attention to that practice note.

SARC also notes:

… the broad wording of section 34W may give the Regulator significant discretion in making decisions about whether to grant or refuse applications for a licence and applications for the relocation, transfer, variation or renewal of a licence. Therefore, the Bill may provide insufficiently defined powers to the Regulator.

We understand the point that SARC is making here, and we understand the response of the minister that this is, in this circumstance, a reasonable infringement on the rights of individuals. The right to be presumed innocent and reversal of the onus of proof is part of this bill, and SARC notes:

… that sections 33A(4) and 39A may engage section 17(a)(i) of the PCA in relation to the presumption of innocence and the reversal of the onus of proof.

I think it is important when bills like this go through that these issues are openly confronted, that there is actually a reversal of the onus of proof and that there is actually, in that sense, a reduction in the rights of those presumed to fall foul of these laws. But as I say, there is good reason for sharper legislation here, and that is we have seen this explosion – and I use that word advisedly – of bombings and burnings across the state, particularly in the metropolitan area. It is clearly a significant point.

The statement of compatibility does address some of these issues, and that is important.

SARC on to say that the committee notes those sections in the Parliamentary Committees Act 2003, new division 3 of part 3AAB of the act, may engage, again, section 17(a)(i) of the PCA in relation to the possible limitation of the privilege against self-incrimination. Again, I think it is important to note and confirm that these are restrictions on the standard rights that we would normally hold dear, but there are literally good reasons, safety reasons, to ensure that we have got the strongest possible set of powers.

With respect to the strict or absolute liability offences, the committee wrote to the minister to request clarification regarding the intended construction of new offences and the minister has replied. The minister may wish to say something about this in the committee stage. The committee has a practice note that deals with these matters of possible strict or absolute liability offences, and it states:

… it is a matter of concern to the Committee where a Bill provides insufficient or unhelpful explanatory material in respect to the creation of a strict or absolute liability offence.

Strict liability, for the chamber’s point here, is:

… if there is no requirement to prove mens rea –

that is, the intent –

on the part of the accused but where the defence of ‘honest and reasonable mistake of fact’ is available. An offence is one of absolute liability if there is no requirement to prove that the accused actually intended to do the act for which they have been charged and the defence of ‘honest and reasonable mistake of fact’ is unavailable.

When legislation is silent on the question of mens rea, there is a presumption that it is required. However, that presumption may be rebutted depending on: the subject matter; the nature of the offence –

this is SARC speaking in its Alert Digest No. 16 –

and the punishment; and whether the absence of mens rea would assist enforcement.

The Bill introduces a number of new offences … However, the Committee notes that neither the Explanatory memorandum nor the Statement of Compatibility address the question of whether the new offences inserted into the Act are intended to be construed as creating mens rea, strict liability or absolute liability offences.

Again, this may be a matter that the minister could well address directly in the committee stage. The charter issues – the committee decided that the bill was compatible with the charter.

Just to conclude on a couple of these points, the regulation of tobacco sale is still a very important matter. As health minister, it was something that I looked at closely, and we worked very hard to try and deal with many of these issues. We did start looking at licensing, actually prior to 2014, and we were actively considering how that could be done to gain better control of a number of the outlets. What has happened since then of course – and I am not pointing the figure entirely at the government here because it is actually a wider thing than just Victoria – is it has specifically got out of control here in the last three to four years. It has really become something that needs to be dealt with.

This bill will give greater control through the licensing, but we should have no doubt or lack of clarity about the fact that there is a real problem with the supply of illicit tobacco. So many people do purchase it. Part of it is the extreme cost of tobacco now, and part of that is because the costs have been lifted successively over time. There was a very well understood response mechanism where the prices went up and the smoking rates went down, but I think at some point we got to a stage where the prices went up and the smoking rates did not go down but people just began purchasing elsewhere. That is actually what is happening now.

It has actually become a matter of hampering the efforts. If you look at these tobacco packets – and I have taken the opportunity to visit a number of these outlets and to examine the offerings – they are very attractively presented boxes of illegal tobacco. They do not have the warnings on that we would all want. I know as health minister I worked collaboratively with other health ministers, and I will mention specifically Nicola Roxon, the then federal Labor minister, but others too in other jurisdictions. There were Jillian, Lawrence Springborg in Queensland and others. There was actually a high degree of unanimity across the health ministers and across parties and political backgrounds in some of the steps that we needed to take.

In government we did a hell of a lot to move steps forward and saw a significant decline in the smoking prevalence in Victoria. In 2012 it was down to 13.3 from 14.4 per cent in 2011. Back in 1998, for example, it had been 21.2 per cent. I am not sure of the latest figure now, but it is actually slightly lower than where it was then and it has continued to trend down, but I think we are at a point now where we have got to start to think of new and innovative ways to deal with this.

We did a number of legislative amendments, one ensuring infringements for smoking in cars carrying children; banning smoking on all patrolled beaches, effective 1 December 2012; excluding tobacco products from shopper loyalty and reward programs; banning smoking at outdoor children’s playgrounds; banning smoking at outdoor skate parks; banning smoking in areas of public swimming complexes; banning smoking at sporting events during organised under-age sporting events; creating an offence ‘to intimidate, threaten or assault inspector’ – there actually needed to be greater protection for some of the inspectors, and in a sense we have seen a significant worsening of some of these points; allowing for the form of tobacco price noticeboards to be prescribed; removing the ability to apply for specialist tobacconist certification and thereby obtain tobacco product retail ban exemptions; and allowing greater flexibility for the use and disclosure of tobacco retailer information for communication purposes related to tobacco retailer obligations. We amended the transport conduct regulations, banning smoking on all raised tram platforms and smoking on all train platforms. In early 2013 we amended the tobacco regulations to require new and updated graphic warnings to be used next to price boards and retail outlets. There is a long list of initiatives that were taken.

There were decisions made to ban fruit-flavoured rolling papers and cigarette wraps – cigarillos, as they were called. In the parliamentary precinct, in the health networks, we made sure that there was no smoking allowed in health zones. There is just a long list of steps that were taken. I acknowledge that in many respects these were bipartisan. They were accepted by all sides of politics, and each time when we brought a bill of that nature to the house we had support across the chamber. I do not recall one division, but we did specifically target the presentation and visibility of tobacco to children. So in places where children were we took the view that smoking ought not be, and we regulated and legislated to that effect across a wide front.

Returning to this bill very specifically, there is going to need to be a lot of thought about how vaping is dealt with. There is going to need to be more thought. I am not sure that the way the federal government has approached this – and I am not trying to be overly critical here, because this is actually a difficult challenge – is actually going to ultimately work. I understand the idea that the pharmacists should be the dispensing point, and as far as it goes that is a reasonable set of thoughts, but I do not think that people are going to be restricted to purchasing vapes through pharmacies.

I think we have got a much deeper and more challenging zone for these matters. The thinking, the work and the research will need to be done to find ways to manage vaping but also, as I said earlier in this contribution, to work out how we are going to manage the omnipresence of illegal tobacco now. The effect of the price rises is obviously being blunted. People can go in and instead of paying $50 or $60 a packet of cigarettes they can buy them for often around $20 a packet, and that obviously becomes a very powerful motivator and choice. The evidence that was there 10 or 15 years ago about using price as a mechanism to move people away from tobacco has obviously reached a point of declining effectiveness, perhaps to the point where it is now even counterproductive in reality if not in intent. I am not diminishing the intent of people pressing on these points, but I just think it is now becoming self-evidently true that the price has reached a point where people are making other choices, and they are illegal choices, and this has meant there is a loss of control of the whole situation.

This bill is an important step. Again, I pay tribute to Tim McCurdy and the Liberals and Nationals, who have led the way on this. The government was initially resistant to the ideas that were put forward about licensing and ensuring that there were very tough new penalties. This bill has got some good things in it, as I say, and I think that it is an important step forward. To talk briefly about the amendment, this will bring forward the day of operation. We think it can be done more quickly. We think there is urgency about getting these matters into operation. It is bringing it forward by a year, and I understand the government – I will hear the minister’s commentary in a little while – is not unsupportive of the intent and is likely to be supportive of these amendments.

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (14:07): I am very pleased to rise to speak on the Tobacco Amendment (Tobacco Retailer and Wholesaler Licensing Scheme) Bill 2024. It is an important bill. It will introduce to Victoria important long-awaited reforms to strengthen the system of tobacco control that exists here in this state. Victoria has been a world leader in tobacco control since the 1980s. I will get to that a little bit later in my speech, but I think it is important to reflect on that at the top – that this is yet another example of Victoria taking the steps necessary to support public health and support those in the community who suffer harm from tobacco.

Cigarettes have the distinction of being perhaps the only legally available product that, when you use it exactly as the manufacturer intends, is going to kill you. In fact tobacco kills two out of three people who use cigarettes as they are intended to be used, and that is a damning indictment of them as a product but also a reminder to us that, beyond the contemporary and real controversies that exist with respect to tobacco stores, arson and related issues, the core issue in relation to this bill is putting in place further measures to deal with the harm that comes because of tobacco consumption in our community.

Eighteen thousand Australians – slightly higher – are killed each year due to smoking, and nearly 4500 Victorians die every year from smoking-related injuries. That works out to be 85 people a week dying in Victoria because of tobacco-related disease and tobacco-related industry, and they are dying on average 10 years earlier than people who do not smoke, from cancer – from lung, throat, mouth, nose, voice box, pancreatic, liver, stomach and kidney cancer; the list of cancers goes on and on. They die from heart disease, from cardiovascular disease, and they die from stroke and emphysema, because smoking of cigarettes is a particularly pernicious cocktail that we inhale into one of the most sensitive parts of our body, and that is our lungs. A cigarette is a vehicle for the transfer of toxins from a manufactured product to the insides of our body and into our bloodstream, and it is laced with addictive substances. Toxins and addiction are what cigarettes deliver; they kill people, and they harm them. If this legislation helps reduce the harm, it should be supported, for no other reason than it should reduce the harm that comes from the consumption of these products.

But it is not just the people who smoke cigarettes that are subject to the harms from cigarettes; it is others in the community as well. People who choose not to smoke face risk from smokers who do. A couple of the great things that this state has been at the forefront of over the last 30 years of our efforts on tobacco control, and Mr Davis mentioned some of them in his contribution, have been the restrictions and limitations that we put in place to stop people suffering harms from other people smoking. That has been a really important feature of the action that this state and this Parliament have taken, on a bipartisan basis on most occasions – I think on all occasions – which seeks to ensure that that harm is not spread to people who do not even choose to participate in the activity, who are exercising a choice not to be exposed to harm. We have a duty, we have an obligation, to protect those people as well, particularly children – children raised in environments where there is smoking and who are more likely to suffer from respiratory diseases. Those lists go on.

We have made these changes obviously in the last 30 years, since the passage of the Tobacco Act 1987 here in Victoria, from restrictions on advertising, restrictions on advertising at points of sale, restrictions on places where people can consume cigarettes and restrictions on the ability to entice future users and get them hooked on a deadly cycle of addiction through to the limitations on product placement in television, for example, and limitations on how packaging can be displayed and on false claims about ‘smooth’ and ‘light’ and ‘easy’ and ‘fresh’ that tobacco companies were using to cloud the reality of cigarettes being a deadly cocktail of toxins – in many respects the same tactics that are being used today by the tobacco industry to get a new generation addicted to vaping. I will come back to that a bit later. We have seen repeated moves, consistent moves, in Victoria and also at the Commonwealth level – and credit is due to governments of all persuasions for advancing the cause of tobacco control. What this bill demonstrates is that our work is not complete, that the task is not over. We do know that there are a lot of Victorians who continue to smoke – around 12 per cent, it is estimated, smoke at some point on a regular basis, at least weekly. We know that that is higher for certain populations, and we certainly have an obligation to do whatever we can to reduce those rates.

The legislation before us today, the Tobacco Amendment (Tobacco Retailer and Wholesaler Licensing Scheme) Bill 2024, makes a number of significant and important changes to the Tobacco Act 1987. Most importantly and significantly, it introduces a comprehensive licensing scheme for the sale of tobacco in Victoria. Similarly, other states – New South Wales is moving as well – have measures in place such as the one that is being put in in Victoria. It will prohibit the retail and wholesale sale of tobacco products by any person without a licence granted under the provisions of the Tobacco Act. It will introduce powers for the regulator to impose conditions on tobacco licensees, as well as suitability requirements, to ensure that licences cannot be held by anyone who is not a fit and proper person in accordance with the requirements of the scheme, and the regulator will have broad powers to consider whether an applicant is an appropriate person to hold a licence. That means that from the commencement of these provisions a licensing scheme will be in place that can accept applications from tobacco businesses so that those who are existing businesses involved in the retail and wholesale sale of tobacco products will be able to make application to get a licence under that scheme.

We clearly have a problem here in Victoria with the sale of illegal tobacco, in that criminal elements, organised crime, have seized upon the tobacco trade as a way to make money to fund other sorts of activities. We need to combat that illegal tobacco industry and the harm that it is bringing not only to those involved in the process but the innocent bystanders, many of whom, quite literally, are sleeping unaware near the sites of these tobacco businesses that are being targeted by criminal activity and are suffering the consequences.

The bill will introduce new offences and strengthen penalties to ensure that Victoria has some of the strongest illicit tobacco offences in the country. It will introduce inspection and enforcement powers for licensing of inspectors, including the power to enter premises for compliance monitoring, and inspection and seizure powers. The regulator will also be able to issue improvement notices and accept enforceable undertakings to bring about compliance with the licensing scheme. Victoria Police will continue to be responsible for, and focused on, detecting and investigating serious organised crime associated with illicit tobacco, and the bill will help strengthen police efforts to crack down on illicit tobacco by providing police officers with the ability to exercise enforcement powers under the licensing scheme, including obtaining search warrants, entering premises and seizing illicit items to support detention and the enforcement of serious criminal activity.

The bill will also modernise and broaden the scope of what is considered illicit tobacco to align with the Commonwealth tobacco legislation and remove barriers to enforcing illicit tobacco offences. The current legislation provides for separate illicit tobacco offences depending on whether the item is smuggled or an excisable good, which can be difficult for an inspector to determine, preventing enforcement from being undertaken. Clarity is going to help enforcement, and that is what this bill is providing for.

While it is important to investigate, obviously, the supply chains for the importation of tobacco products, this expanded definition of these matters will allow enforcement agencies to act based on the packaging and product compliance without necessarily having to undertake the complex surveillance investigation to determine whether duties have been paid. There are serious offences in this bill that are backed by strong penalties – the strongest penalties in the country – for those who commit them. For possession offences, which apply only to tobacco supply businesses, the penalty for possessing illicit tobacco is 120 penalty units for a natural person or 600 penalty units for a body corporate. The penalty for a business possessing a commercial quantity of illicit tobacco is up to 840 penalty units and five years in jail, and 4200 penalty units for a body corporate. There are serious supply offences, both supplying illicit tobacco and supplying a commercial quantity of illicit tobacco offences, with jail terms in place as well.

Mr Davis will move an amendment on behalf of the opposition to clarify some matters with respect to the commencement dates in the legislation. In the debate in the other place the government made it clear that our intent has always been for the licensing scheme to commence from mid next year, so mid-2025, with the enforcement of penalties for unlicensed retailers commencing in early 2026.

So the amendment that Mr Davis has circulated to clarify the commencement dates is consistent with the government’s stated policy position and will be supported by the government.

I just want to come, finally, to the question of vaping. It is a topic that I am particularly concerned about. It is a topic that I have made several speeches on now in this Parliament, including in my inaugural speech, to highlight what I think is one of the biggest public health challenges that our state and our nation faces and particularly that our nation’s children face. Vaping is being used as a Trojan Horse for the tobacco industry to get a new generation addicted to nicotine. Vapes are not safe. They are not a health tool. They are a tool of addiction that is using flavours and gimmicks and a less detectable smell and a less offensive smell to hook a new generation of people to the consumption of nicotine. The great lie that has been told is that somehow vapes are a tool to help. It is a lie that has been peddled by the tobacco industry, and some people, unfortunately, have taken the bait. Vapes are not a tool to help; they are a tool to get addicted. They are a new mechanism to supply deadly toxins into the lungs of young people. A recent study in the UK shows the number of children who vape who have never smoked is skyrocketing, so the plans from big tobacco are working. Our kids are suffering, and we have got to act to stop it.

This bill is a step in the right direction, to help with that action. The Commonwealth is taking steps in the right direction. I hope they work, and if they do not, we are going to have to redouble our efforts to make sure that action continues to be taken. Just like here in Victoria our tobacco control efforts did not stop with the passage of the 1987 act, today our commitment to ending harm from vaping cannot stop with the actions that the Commonwealth has taken and this state has taken through this bill. I wholeheartedly commend it to the house.

Gaelle BROAD (Northern Victoria) (14:22): I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak about the Tobacco Amendment (Tobacco Retailer and Wholesaler Licencing Scheme) Bill 2024. The purposes of this bill are several: to safeguard the suitability of licensed retailers and wholesalers of tobacco products, to promote and enforce retailer and wholesaler compliance with controls of the lawful sale and promotion of tobacco products under the act and to uphold the integrity of the tobacco retailer and wholesaler licensing scheme by deterring unlawful conduct.

I want at the outset to commend Tim McCurdy, my Nationals colleague, for his continued advocacy on this very issue of introducing a licensing scheme, because it is one that he has raised a number of times and it has been very disappointing to see how slow the government has been to act on this issue. I know from the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee and Alert Digest 16 it was reported that:

The Committee notes that the provisions of the Bill are subject to a delayed commencement of more than 12 months. Paragraph A(iii) of the Committee’s Practice Note provides that where a Bill (or part of a Bill) is subject to delayed commencement, the Committee expects Parliament to be provided with an explanation as to why this is necessary or desirable.

It is important to mention that because we are not clear on why it is taking so long, first of all, for the legislation to be introduced and for the actual commencement date. As it says on the front page of the explanatory memorandum:

If a provision of the Bill does not come into operation before 1 July 2026 …

So we are pleased to put forward some amendments to see that introduced much sooner.

We know that over 110 stores now have been impacted by these tobacco wars, and it is devastating not just to those businesses directly but to the communities and the people around them.

I know in Bendigo in January this year we had a car go right into Bendigo mall. It struck the tobacco store there, and the shops are still closed in that area. It is devastating to have that happen in regional Victoria, but I know it has been happening a lot in Melbourne. Just recently there were concerns raised by residents in Eaglehawk because a tobacco store has opened there. I have spoken to a number of residents and visited the main street there, and I have heard back from constituents as well who have flagged how they are very concerned. There is a historic building right next to the tobacco store as well. They feel it is a very high risk because the community is left exposed, because we have just a lack of legislation in this state to address this issue. Local residents have signed a petition that they put forward to the local council to express their concern. In Bendigo the damage to the stores was estimated to be worth about $4 million.

It is worth again pointing out how long it has taken the government to act on this. I know the Herald Sun reported on 29 July:

Victoria Police is begging the state government to urgently legislate a tobacco licensing scheme to stem violence, extortion and arson attacks that continue to plague the state.

The force said Victoria is the “epicentre” of the national crisis because it is the only jurisdiction that does not have such a scheme.

A wholesale and retail tobacco licence program was recommended more than two years ago, but the state government has failed to act on that advice. It is important to note that committee inquiry report. The same article goes on to say that:

MP Danny Pearson wrote to the Commissioner for Better Regulation in October 2021 requesting an independent review of Victoria’s approach to illicit tobacco.

It reported back in May 2022 recommending a licensing scheme overseen by the state government, enhanced investigation and enforcement powers and stronger penalties.

But nothing has been implemented and criminals –

it goes on to say –

… are flourishing, raking in millions of dollars each week.

This is what we have seen under this government. Crime seems to continue, and the government is very slow. Just last week in Bendigo our police walked out. They are at breaking point. We saw the same in Shepparton. They have raised concerns with me about a number of areas. I know the weaker bail laws have been an issue. They are very concerned that they do a lot of work to get offenders off the street only for them to go to court and then be back on the street 24 hours later. The permit to protest is another issue that the government has not taken action on. We have seen a huge escalation in the number of protests being held in Melbourne, and again, police have limited ability to respond in those situations. It has had a huge impact on the city, but it is also drawing resources from regional areas, resources that we need in regional areas. Police officers are having to come to Melbourne to assist with that.

Again, we see problems with the tobacco licensing scheme taking so long to implement. It is important to mention as well that the Premier did say back in March that they would take urgent action to address the tobacco licensing scheme, but here we are much later in the year, in November, and it is only just coming in now. Mr Batchelor, during his contribution, referred to Victoria being a world leader on tobacco control, but I certainly question that, as we have seen 110 stores burnt to the ground.

We do not oppose this bill. We are certainly keen to see the amendments introduced to commence from 1 July 2025, but it has been very clear that the government has been very slow to act. Labor certainly cannot manage crime, and Victorians are paying the price. As the Age reported in October 2023, last year:

Victoria is now the only jurisdiction in Australia that does not require a licence to open a tobacco shop.

It is extraordinary that we have rules in place for liquor licensing but that it has taken this long for the government to act, so I certainly do not oppose this bill, and I ask for the chamber support with the amendments.

David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:30): I also rise to speak on the Tobacco Amendment (Tobacco Retailer and Wholesaler Licensing Scheme) Bill 2024. I think it is important when we look at the disaster that is tobacco policy in Australia – it is not just Victoria, it is our whole nation that has this disastrous policy – to look at the incentives for why organised crime exists in this market, unlike other normal countries with better policies than Australia. Countries like Sweden, which has almost eliminated smoking through its policies, do not have arson attacks every weekend. I note that the recent inquiry in this Parliament did not even look at foreign countries that have better policy than us – countries like New Zealand, which has a much better policy than us. What has caused it is the ever-increasing and massive federal excise tax on tobacco and the prohibition on vaping. How has this incentivised organised crime to get into this black market? It has created an incentive because the price that criminals can smuggle tobacco into Australia and sell it for at a huge profit is still far below the retail price of legal tobacco. They can make massive profits and still sell the cigarettes quite cheaply. My understanding is that the going price is around $15 a packet, compared to $40, $50 or $60 a packet for the legal ones. Only very wealthy people can afford legal tobacco in Australia, which is why the black market is increasing so rapidly.

The other huge mistake that the federal and state governments made was to prohibit vaping. Unlike Mr Batchelor’s comments before about big tobacco being behind vaping, that is not the case at all. In fact the only big tobacco vapes are the ones that are approved and regulated by the TGA, rather unsurprisingly. Most vapes in Australia are black market, and they come from Shenzhen in China; they are not manufactured by big tobacco at all. In fact for the chemist scheme that was announced and is now in operation, my understanding is only 3500 people have actually used that service – a tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of the market. The rest of the market is controlled by organised crime, as organised crime regulates tobacco in this state, not the government. Sadly, this was all predicted. This all kicked off, really, back in 2016 when a bill went through the federal Parliament to increase tobacco excise. Everyone thought it was a great idea, because no-one wants people to smoke. There were two senators who stood against it. One, I am proud to say, was Senator Leyonhjelm from the Libertarian Party. The other one was Senator Burston. Everyone else supported it.

Here is what Senator Leyonhjelm had to say at the time. Now, at the time, organised crime still existed, but they were a small proportion of the market, unlike today, where they basically control the market.

Another effect of the tax increase will be the continued growth of the illegal tobacco market. This accounts for about 14 per cent of the total tobacco market, as measured by KPMG. The government receives no revenue from the organised crime gangs that run this market and is now missing out on over a billion dollars a year in tobacco excise.

Senator Fawcett from the Liberal Party was quite confident that they had solved all this and it was fine. He said:

I believe we have taken the appropriate steps to make sure that any unintended consequences like illicit trade are dealt with.

Who was correct? Of course Senator Leyonhjelm was correct, because we have seen since an explosion in organised crime. My understanding is that there have been over 150 arson attacks now and at least two assassinations and potentially a third. I have not seen the details of that, but there have been assassinations as well. And these are only the crimes that we can see. I expect there are many, many, many other crimes not being reported, and why are they not being reported? Because the people in control of this market are some of the most violent people in this state. An arson attack is like a tap on the shoulder to these people. These people are some of the most violent criminals we have in this state.

We have the existing system, which is a complete disaster, and we have ignored the successful efforts of other jurisdictions like Sweden, which now has a smoking rate below 5 per cent, which under WHO guidelines means that they have effectively eliminated tobacco consumption. They have not done it through massive taxes – in fact their cigarettes cost half the price of what they do in Australia.

They have done it through other methods – through allowing these snus pouches, which have a similar risk profile to nicotine lozenges that you can buy at the supermarket, yet for some mysterious reason they are prohibited goods in Australia.

The government, in order to deal with this, rather than scream at the federal government like they should be to review tobacco excise and to legalise vaping as a pathway out of tobacco as a harm-reduction initiative – like what New Zealand has done, very successfully – want to crack down on it and increase penalties, and these penalties are huge. They also want a licensing scheme. Notwithstanding the fact that criminals do not really care about licensing schemes, so only the good guys who already follow the law are going to take part in it, many of the places that sell tobacco are not tobacconists. They are two-dollar shops – discount shops – they are Asian grocers and they are even carpet stores. I have heard of a carpet store. When this bill passes, I predict – and quite confidently predict – that you will incentivise these violent people to move into new premises that are not called tobacconists, and they will not have a tobacco licence.

The other problem with this bill is these penalties that we are setting up. I do not think that the government has actually given consideration to just how dangerous this is. They are setting up very significant jail terms and fines in the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars – millions, in the case of businesses and corporations. They are very significant.

Michael Galea interjected.

David LIMBRICK: I will take up Mr Galea’s interjection. He says, ‘As they should be.’ I would ask people to consider the incentives that this creates. If some of the most violent criminals in this state are faced with the prospect of a $300,000 fine, what will they do in order to avoid that? They will commit some very, very serious crimes. In fact we have a precedent for this in the United States. Under prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s they had a very similar problem. They tried to prohibit alcohol during Prohibition, and of course people still kept consuming alcohol and of course people kept supplying alcohol – organised crime, of course. The people that used to drink wine and beer then all drank spirits, and the government said, ‘We’re going to crack down on this.’ They built a new regulatory agency, and they got all these inspectors – similar to what we are doing here – and organised crime increased the amount of violence, they increased the amount of corruption that went on.

I am pretty sure it costs a lot less than $300,000 to corrupt a government official. I do not know what the going price to take out a hit on someone is, but I am pretty sure it is less than $300,000. These criminal organisations maintain control of the market by threatening people with violence, and when you put in an incentive of $300,000 – or a million dollars in the case of a business – you are setting up an incentive. They will do anything to stop it, and they are capable of anything. Arson is nothing to these people. Murder is nothing to these people. What this bill is doing is setting the scene for a bloodbath in Victoria. The Libertarian Party will not support this bill. It is wrong, it will result in catastrophic effects in Victoria, and I condemn it.

Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (14:38): I am pleased to speak on the Tobacco Amendment (Tobacco Retailer and Wholesaler Licensing Scheme) Bill 2024. This bill will amend the Tobacco Act 1987 to introduce a tobacco business licensing scheme. It will prohibit the sale of tobacco by any unlicensed person, ensure those who hold licences are suitable people to do so and also enable the imposition of conditions on licences and establish a regulatory scheme with sufficient powers to enable effective oversight. It will also increase penalties, introduce new offences to close existing loopholes and simplify enforcement.

This bill addresses growing concerns about illicit tobacco and the businesses suspected of distributing it. Not only is it a crime prevention bill; it is also, though, a health promotion bill, because we know that tobacco is not a safe product, and I think that has been covered very well by some people in this chamber already, including Mr Batchelor. This bill introduces a new licensing scheme that is designed to discourage unsuitable individuals from operating tobacco businesses. The introduction of this licensing scheme is also designed to support Victoria Police to combat illicit tobacco through improved intelligence and licensing enforcement powers. The bill incorporates the key recommendations from the Commissioner for Better Regulation’s 2021 review into illicit tobacco. It also draws on insights from the 2024 Public Accounts and Estimates Committee inquiry into vaping and tobacco controls. These measures align with recent Commonwealth legislation restricting the sale and supply of vapes to pharmacies. These reforms aim to reduce smoking and vaping rates in line with the objectives of the National Tobacco Strategy.

We have seen the incursion of these illegal activities in my own home town of Warrnambool. Last month police raided two Warrnambool tobacco shops suspected of selling illegal tobacco. The Warrnambool Standard newspaper reported that in raids on 16 October:

THREE people have been arrested, and thousands of dollars in cash and at least 26,000 cigarettes seized in raids at two Warrnambool tobacco shops yesterday.

…

The investigation is ongoing …

and is expected to focus on those charged, allegedly, with dealing with proceeds of crime. However, the Standard also reported on 28 October that the two stores are back open for business and doing a brisk trade after being raided 12 days earlier. It is understood both stores are leased by a Melbourne business. It is exactly this kind of activity that this bill is aimed at helping Victoria Police tackle. The Premier announced in March that the government would introduce a bill by the end of the year, and we have done that.

Smoking remains the most significant contributor to the burden of disease and to death, including cancer, stroke, cardiovascular disease and kidney disease. The Heart Foundation reports on the prevalence of risk factors of cardiovascular disease on its website. North-west Victoria is the worst in Australia for current smoking risk of cardiovascular disease – that is, cardiovascular disease caused by smoking. Warrnambool and the south-west region are the seventh-worst in the nation. Tragically, this contributes to these two regions having a coronary heart disease mortality rate of 73 and 72 people per 100,000 compared to the Victorian average of 60 people per 100,000. According to a 2018 report commissioned by Quit Victoria, smoking cost the Victorian economy $3.7 billion in tangible costs such as health care and an additional $5.8 billion in intangible costs associated with the loss of life every year.

This bill very much tightens up on the accountability associated with selling cigarettes.

It establishes a licensing scheme that will prohibit the retail and wholesale of tobacco products by any person without a licence. The regulator will be empowered to impose conditions on tobacco licences as well as suitability requirements to ensure the licences cannot be held by anyone who is not a fit and proper person. Applicants will be required to provide all known names, date of birth and residential addresses and the addresses of the proposed premises. They will also need to provide the names, dates of birth and addresses of their associates, including relatives and business partners. The regulator may require police checks from the applicant and any associate of the applicant.

This is, if nothing else, a record-keeping system where individuals who may, subsequent to achieving a licence, be potentially involved in some kind of crime activity can then be easily identified and chased down. The regulator will be in a position to cancel a licence if conditions are breached or the licensee is no longer a suitable person. In particular the regulator will be able to immediately suspend a licence for up to 90 days in response to serious contraventions of the Tobacco Act 1987. They may also disqualify a person or body corporate from holding a licence for up to five years.

The Chief Commissioner of Police must be consulted on new licence and transfer applications and may raise objections or provide other input. If the Chief Commissioner of Police has information regarding the licensee or any associate’s suitability, they may apply for the licence to be varied or cancelled. Confidential and sensitive information from Victoria Police will be subject to similar controls as the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act 1981, the Private Security Act 2004 and other licensing regimes. This bill is required so we can establish the regulatory capability to effectively determine whether someone is a fit and proper person, and this means from the middle of next year there will be a licensing scheme in place that will be ready to accept applications from tobacco businesses. From early 2026 there will be inspectors on the ground making sure businesses have a licence.

This bill will broaden the scope of what is considered illicit tobacco to align with the Commonwealth tobacco legislation and remove barriers of enforcement. Current legislation provides for separate offences depending on whether the item is a smuggled or an excisable good. In practice this can be difficult to determine, and enforcement is also challenging because it requires investigation of the tobacco supply chain to prove that items were smuggled in and duties were not paid. The bill removes that distinction to focus on the supply of illicit tobacco, regardless of whether it is smuggled or not. Illicit tobacco can often be identified by noncompliance with packaging requirements, such as health warnings. As my colleague Mr Batchelor mentioned, Australia and particularly Victoria have led the world on warnings on tobacco packaging, and if I remember correctly, I think Nicola Roxon was a big player in that space as a former federal Labor minister.

This bill introduces new offences for possessing or supplying illicit tobacco and imposes the strongest penalties in the country for those who commit these offences, for possession offences, which only apply to tobacco supply businesses. The bill also introduces inspection and enforcement powers for licensing inspectors.

Inspectors will have the power to enter premises to check compliance and be able to seize illicit tobacco. Victoria Police will continue to be responsible for detecting and investigating serious and organised crime associated with illicit tobacco. This bill will provide them with the tools to do so far more effectively whilst at the same time reducing the availability of illicit tobacco in the marketplace in our state. This bill will help strengthen the efforts by police by providing police officers with the ability to exercise enforcement powers, and I just want to say thank you to Victoria Police. In particular the licensing scheme is a key part of our robust, multifaceted approach to illicit tobacco.

The Chief Commissioner of Police himself has acknowledged that a licensing system would ensure that only fit and proper individuals operate tobacco shops, but it will not completely solve the problem. That is why Victoria Police is taking targeted action against the illicit tobacco trade through Taskforce Lunar, making arrests and seizing large quantities of illicit items. This has definitely occurred in my own regional community. Taskforce Lunar is delivering results, with over 200 search warrants executed, 80 offenders arrested and the seizure of cash, vapes and illegal tobacco products worth $37 million as at September 2024. This side of the house understands that these kinds of dedicated taskforces are not possible unless you invest in Victoria Police. I very much thank the police. I have heard about what it is like to be on a taskforce in any kind of government organisation, and they are very focused, very hardworking and often doing original and innovative work to meet the challenges of a new form in the ever-changing forms of criminality that are always emerging.

When it comes to keeping our community safe and healthy, this bill sits within a context of the very strong commitment of our government towards health and harm minimisation for our community but also strengthening the responses and tools that police have to address organised crime, mobsters and the like. These tougher laws give police resources, and part of our $4.5 billion investment in Victoria Police is funding more than 3600 new police officers. When the opposition was last in power, they slashed $100 million from the Victoria Police budget and did not fund a single new police officer. In closing, I would like to thank our hardworking police officers for the work that they do every day to hold criminals to account and to keep our community safe. In particular I want to thank police officers: there is an impact that working with violence and trauma on a regular basis has on them, and I would like to acknowledge that and express my appreciation.

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (14:53): I rise to speak on the Tobacco Amendment (Tobacco Retailer and Wholesaler Licensing Scheme) Bill 2024. I would like to start by thanking my colleagues in the other place Tim McCurdy and Danny O’Brien, and Mr Davis, who has carriage of this bill in this place.

It is about time, I have got to say at the start of my contribution, because it is something that we in the opposition have been calling for for some time. It is indeed very important and a very hot topic in my electorate of Northern Metropolitan Region because, out of all the upper house regions, which we are all in this place fortunate to represent, I would hazard a guess – in fact I know – that my electorate of Northern Metropolitan Region has been the most affected by the string of tobacco bombings that have gone on across the state for years now. The northern suburbs have really borne the brunt of this illicit tobacco turf war that has erupted under Labor’s watch.

Just to go through some of the ways in which it has impacted my electorate, since March 2023 a small business or a business in the northern suburbs has been set ablaze around once every two weeks. So since March 2023 a business has been set ablaze in the northern suburbs around every two weeks, which is absolutely shocking. I will go through the list of them: six small businesses in Glenroy, four small businesses in Moonee Ponds, four small businesses in Hadfield, three small businesses in Docklands, three small businesses in Meadow Heights, three small businesses in Fawkner, three small businesses in Thornbury, two small businesses in Epping, two small businesses in Greenvale, two small businesses in Thomastown, two small businesses in Brunswick, one small business in Collingwood, one small business in Lalor, one small business in Coburg, one small business in Richmond, one small business in Craigieburn, one small business in Pascoe Vale South which was firebombed twice, one small business in Mickleham and one small business in Roxburgh Park recently, and I will just speak about that as it was just around the corner from where my office is.

I spoke to Hussein from Kasr Sweets, which is quite popular with locals in Roxburgh Park, otherwise known as Roxy, and many of my constituents enjoy catching up there over some delicious Lebanese sweets. Unfortunately Hussein and his business and his customers are the latest victims of Labor’s failure to deal properly with this issue. I have spoken to many other business owners in Meadow Heights. The milk bar up the road from my office indeed has been firebombed twice and is now out of action again after going through the process of rebuilding and recovering. I am pleased to hear from Hussein himself that they are looking at as quickly as possible refurbishing, rebuilding and reopening Kasr Sweets. I am sure it will be of great delight to many in my community in the northern suburbs to head back there for some sweets, some shisha, some tea, as is the common tradition in the north.

The roll-on effects to other businesses cannot be overstated. I have chatted to many business owners across the north. I spoke to friends in Craigieburn at the old Craigieburn Plaza, and they have had a tobacco shop set up underneath them. They are a real estate agent and they are very concerned. It is not just the businesses I have read out; it is the surrounding businesses as well that are really affected and impacted by this illicit tobacco war that has occurred under Labor’s watch in terms of ancillary damage but also affected trade due to the damage that has occurred to local shopping strips. Local neighbourhood shopping strips have become war zones due to Labor’s inaction on this issue.

Just last week I met with a barber who was setting up a barber shop at their new premises because the old one was actually next to a shop that had been firebombed and had been out of action for many, many weeks. If one shop is bombed and then the others close, this impacts the viability of the whole suburban shopping strip and the amenity and safety of whole communities. As Mr McCurdy said in the other place:

110 shops – as I say, that is 110 livelihoods. There are probably 220 neighbours of those shops – one on each side – whether you are a hairdresser or a cafe or something on the other side of each of those tobacconists. There are a lot of livelihoods at stake …

This is something that really impacts my community, and as a result I am, as you can imagine, quite frustrated and angry that it is taken the government so long to act. Every other state in Australia has introduced some form of licensing scheme except for Victoria. We have lagged behind the rest of the country for many, many years, and it is time something was done. So it is about time, but I am still rightly frustrated it has taken so long. I do feel sorry for the innocent victims in all of this, in the illicit tobacco wars that have set ablaze so many community shopping strips. It is really worrying indeed for the local community. It is something constantly raised with me when I am out and about on my weekly listening posts up in the northern suburbs about their local shopping strip. Indeed I was chatting to a fish and chip shop owner in Greenvale recently, where the shop next door got set ablaze. They had to close for a couple of days, but they are really concerned that it might happen again. Of course this fear is breathing down the neck of our community, because there is no certainty and there has been no action on this. We have waited and waited and called for the government to do something for a long time. It was three years ago that the government commissioned a report through Better Regulation Victoria. A year later they suggested a licensing scheme would be the first thing that needed to happen. But of course, as we see too often from this government, the report was never released and was kept secret, because they are as addicted to secrecy as they are addicted to debt. It has been two years of inaction since the report was released, and it is my electorate that has suffered the most as a result of Labor’s inaction in this space.

The coalition has tried to help the government help itself, recently introducing a private member’s bill to do exactly what this bill would do and more. The Liberals and Nationals do support the introduction of a licensing scheme for the sale of tobacco products; the implementation of a fit and proper person test to ensure suitability to hold a tobacco retail licence; the creation of search and seizure laws for Victoria Police related to tobacco products; and penalties for first-time offenders of up to 5000 penalty units, the equivalent of $1 million, and penalties for second and subsequent offences of up to two years in prison – all commonsense reforms that would go a long way to stopping lawlessness plaguing the northern suburbs and plaguing Melbourne and Victoria as a whole. Indeed I want to note the contribution of my colleague Mrs Broad, who noted that it is not an issue just pertaining to Melbourne but indeed that it has spread into regional communities as well, which usually do not expect things like this in their quiet towns.

The Allan Labor government has certainly managed to address some of the issues that we put in our bill and that we wanted to see in this bill. I am pleased that some of those things are being addressed. I know this bill has belatedly come about because of the pressure put on it by the Liberals and Nationals. The government is good at ignoring problems until it is too late, but it could not ignore this one any longer. Recently we saw a business in Pascoe Vale bombed two days in a row, leaving little for the business to salvage, permanently destroying the shop and damaging surrounding shops as well. From what I understand it is a process called earn or burn, where actually on these kinds of occasions it is the people who are doing the right thing, who are selling legal tobacco and who refuse to partake in the illegal trade that will be warned and then bombed and then asked to change their mind and then bombed again completely.

We have seen a lot of examples where businesses have been bombed two days in a row – in Pascoe Vale South, and it has also happened in Hadfield and Fawkner. That is usually the reason why.

Innocent small business owners who are doing the right things are not being protected by regulation that is in place. We will be moving some amendments, as outlined by Mr Davis, trying to speed up when the bill will start. We do not want it coming into effect deep into 2026. We want to hit the ground running. The northern suburbs cannot wait. As I stated, once every two weeks in the northern suburbs there is a tobacco store firebombing. I note a number of reception centres in the northern suburbs have been firebombed. It does not just relate to tobacco shops. Shisha bars are a favourite of many in the northern suburbs. As I mentioned, I was speaking to Hussein from Kasr Sweets in Roxburgh Park, a beloved community establishment. I have been there before, as have many in the northern suburbs. I was pleased to hear from Hussein himself that they are looking at reopening Kasr Sweets in Roxburgh Park, because the community really, really enjoy good Lebanese sweets and some good tea. Perhaps I can join Mr Erdogan there at the reopening. It would be fantastic to support Hussein and to support the community, who love Kasr Sweets.

This bill is a step in the right direction towards solving the crime crisis that Labor has spent a decade in power and the last two years doing nothing to solve. Two and half years after this government said that this was needed, we are finally getting started. In that time this Labor government has announced and then cancelled the regional Commonwealth Games in a shorter period of time than they took to receive a report into this crisis and then finally act with a bill that the Liberals and Nationals have been urging them to deliver. That is how botched this whole process is. The community is crying out for this. The northern suburbs and my community are crying out for these tobacco wars to end and these firebombings to end that are ripping apart suburban streets. We are not opposing this bill, but the Liberals and Nationals do wish that the government had not sat on their hands for so long while communities across Melbourne and in my electorate of the northern suburbs in particular were so badly impacted by this crisis entirely of Labor’s making.

Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (15:08): First, I would like to thank the minister’s team for bringing this legislation and meeting with the Greens several times to discuss the bill after it was introduced. We have actually been calling for a tobacco licensing scheme in Victoria for several years, and we welcome the introduction of this legislation now. Of course it has not only been the Greens and other parties, I am aware, who have been calling for a tobacco licensing scheme. Key stakeholders like Quit Victoria, VicHealth and Cancer Council Victoria have also called for this, as well as the police, Better Regulation Victoria and Parliament’s own Public Accounts and Estimates Committee.

As has been noted many times, it is embarrassing for Victoria to be the only Australian state or territory with no tobacco registration or licensing scheme on the books, and we have seen the tobacco shop free-for-all and crime wave that has flourished as a result. Several other members have highlighted exactly what that has looked like in their electorates. We do note that the bill has only been brought on because of the arson and firebombings targeting tobacco shops rather than for public health reasons, but we will not look a gift horse in the mouth. We are happy to see this legislation brought forward regardless of the motivation that ultimately spurred the government to do it.

We also recognise the importance of putting an end to these tobacco wars, which are causing disruption to the community and impacting people and businesses who have had the misfortune of being too closely located to a targeted tobacco shop.

The Greens are happy to see this legislation introduced and we will be supporting it, but it is really important that we do not forget the public health importance of properly regulating tobacco. That is why we will also be moving some amendments that we believe will strengthen this bill before us today. Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable disease and death in Australia and a huge burden on our ailing health system. At $27 billion for output funding for our health system and $16 billion for health infrastructure, at the moment health spending represents about half of our state budget. It is right that the state government should be prioritising good health care for Victorians, but imagine how much better off our overworked ambulance crews and crowded emergency departments could be if we really did something to prevent – to prevent – these preventable diseases. A properly executed tobacco licensing scheme, keeping public health at the centre of its operations, could go a long way to achieving this.

In recent years there has been a disturbing rise in the incidence of the use of nicotine products, including vaping, particularly among young people, something that has already been well aired. During the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee inquiry into vaping and tobacco controls VicHealth told the committee of the great progress Victoria has made with driving down rates of smoking, although this is now at risk due to the uptake of vaping, which makes people three times more likely to take up tobacco smoking. The committee report notes that young people between the ages of 14 and 17 form a material share of the tobacco market, which is of course not only terrible from a health perspective but also illegal. Illicit tobacco sellers have a financial incentive to get young people hooked on this addictive product because the younger they can get them hooked, the more years they will spend purchasing their products. The PAEC inquiry heard that illicit tobacco could make up as much as 40 per cent of the current overall tobacco market, at the same time as the federal excise revenue from tobacco has dropped significantly without a corresponding decrease in rates of smoking. This tells us that people have turned away from legal tobacco and towards the black market, which has been selling much cheaper tobacco with impunity, and clearly demonstrates the need for a strong system of licensing and regulation, with penalties high enough to outweigh the potential profits. We know that rates of smoking and vaping are different across different socio-economic groups and geographic groups, so we also welcome the fact that data collection will occur through licensed retailers and look forward to that data collection and analysis being used to further drive down tobacco consumption.

Today I am introducing amendments on behalf of the Greens to strengthen this bill on public health grounds. I ask that those amendments be circulated now.

Amendments circulated pursuant to standing orders.

Sarah MANSFIELD: These amendments do not confer any new power on the regulator. It is really important that we are clear about that: there is no new power being provided to the regulator. But they are important in clearly specifying that this tobacco licensing scheme will include public health considerations. All three amendments are quite similar in allowing the regulator to consider public health in its assessment of applications to obtain or vary a tobacco licence. The first amendment specifies that the regulator may impose a variation on an existing tobacco licence if it considers that imposing such a variation will strengthen public health or public safety. Examples include – and these are just examples and not what our amendments will do; they are just examples of what would be enabled potentially by these amendments – changing operating hours or otherwise varying conditions under which a retailer can operate, based on public health or safety considerations. The second amendment, similarly, specifies that the regulator may impose a variation on an existing tobacco licence following a show cause notice if it considers that imposing such a variation will strengthen public health or public safety. The third amendment specifies that the regulator may refuse to grant a licence application, relocation application, variation application or renewal application if the regulator considers that granting the application in question would endanger public health or safety. For example, if there are already too many tobacco shops in a given area or a tobacco shop being proposed is too close to a school, the regulator would be able to reject the application.

Again, these are just examples of the sorts of considerations a regulator might take into account when approving or deciding to issue a licence or place conditions on that licence – these are just examples. We are not specifying what those exact public health considerations need to be, we just want these taken into account, and we think that is a really sensible, reasonable approach for a regulator to be taking on an issue like this. It really should have public health at the heart of what it is trying to achieve with this licensing scheme. They are really, as I said, I think quite sensible amendments. They do not radically change the bill. They serve to clearly state that the regulator will be empowered to have both a public health and public safety lens when assessing applications.

We are quite keen to hear more detail about a number of concerns we have heard from health stakeholders. We want to know how they are going to be dealt with through the regulations provided for in this bill, including but not limited to what is going to happen with prohibition on licensed wholesalers selling to unlicensed retailers; prohibition on licensees hiring people under 18 to sell tobacco products; and vending machines and online sales of tobacco, both of which I understand are banned in South Australia. We would also like assurances that individuals will not be targeted with heavy fines and jail time for personal-use possession and for selling just a couple of loose cigarettes on the street. These are not the people this legislation should be targeting, and we know too often they are when legislation like this is introduced.

Noting the long lead time before enforcement begins in 2026, there are still actions that can be taken to reduce illicit tobacco selling in Victoria. What we really want to understand is what the government plans to do between now and the official enforcement of the licensing scheme to crack down on illicit tobacco sales. I understand that there may be some amendments moved that change that date; we would welcome that. We think this scheme cannot come soon enough. But in the interim, we cannot just wait for this scheme to come into place. We should be taking other actions, and I would encourage the government to explain to us what they plan to do about that. I am going to have some more questions about this and some of these issues during the committee stage of the bill. But just to conclude, we welcome and support this much-overdue legislation. I would really urge everyone to support our amendments, which we believe really just serve to strengthen the bill that is before us today.

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:18): I rise to speak on the Tobacco Amendment (Tobacco Retailer and Wholesaler Licensing Scheme) Bill 2024, and I rise to speak in favour of this bill, a bill which has had a considerable amount of work go into it. I know that from the minister’s office and from the department, and indeed it has had a great deal of interest and involvement from the minister herself. This is a very important bill before us today, and it is an important bill to get right. I think the bill that is before us today is reflective of the work that has gone into it. Indeed not just within government but across other parts of the Parliament we have seen much work take place with regard to what is a very profoundly important issue, and that is regulating in a much more effective and much more targeted way the sorts of issues that we have been seeing particularly with the sales of illicit tobacco.

One such piece of work that has been undertaken in this Parliament is a very important report conducted by the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, which I was privileged to take part in. That is the report into vaping and tobacco controls, which was tabled in this place earlier this year, in August. It was an inquiry which was very illuminating for many of us on the committee. Indeed the government members were particularly engaged and our Greens colleague was particularly engaged. Our opposition members intermittently came along to the inquiry as well, which was appreciated when they were there.

I know for all of us who had the opportunity to hear from stakeholders and witnesses – ranging from school students, anti-smoking advocates, public health professionals to the industry itself, Victoria Police and the Australian Border Force – it gave a very much more insightful look into and a much deeper focus on this issue. I do encourage all members who have yet to have the opportunity to engage with the report of the PAEC into this very important subject; I strongly invite them to engage with its recommendations and findings as well, many of which have also helped to form part of the basis for the legislation, the bill, before us today.

Of those recommendations, many go across various different parts of government, but the most important things that relate to this particular bill are those provisions that relate to the licensing system itself and the Victorian system. I know my colleagues have already gone through the ways in which this state will have some of the strongest penalties, if not the strongest penalties, in the nation. But this has been looked at through the lens of interstate and other jurisdictional legislation around Australia and what those jurisdictions have done, successfully or otherwise, to address this problem. The legislation before us today truly encapsulates all of that work as well and is designed to make sure that Victoria, whilst having the strongest approach, also has an approach that will be effective. Again I encourage members in particular to engage with that report.

They might not have been our first witnesses that we had before us, but on our first day of hearings up in the regional city of Shepparton – we heard from a great many representatives, including Victoria Police – we also heard from a terrific local state secondary college. We had teachers as well as students from Greater Shepparton Secondary College come and talk to us about this issue, about both illicit tobacco and vaping. The questions that we put to them around the availability and cultural attitudes to led to some particularly illuminating answers, noting in the first instance that when it comes to the question of availability, it was widespread. Everyone knew where to get them from; everyone knew which shops would sell vapes to under-18s. It was, I think it is quite fair to say, an open secret amongst the young cohort in Greater Shepparton that came and spoke to us.

I think the most concerning bit of evidence that we heard from them was in fact the evidence around cultural attitudes, and it was surprising. We asked them about the attitudes. These were very impressive school captains in year 12 at Greater Shepparton, who have presumably now finished their exams, and I wish them all the best for their further studies or other opportunities they might pursue next year. But these school captains who are in year 12 told the committee that at their age level it is actually seen to be quite uncool, and the reason that vaping is seen to be quite uncool is because it is seen as something that younger kids do. That was quite startling to a few of us. Again, the Labor and Greens members were present on that day, and to all of us there it was quite a startling thing to hear that it is in fact younger high school students who are more commonly partaking in vaping and older high school students see it as a younger kid thing to do.

Indeed it was a few days later or maybe even the next day – when the Legal and Social Issues Committee also conducted a hearing in Shepparton and had the opportunity to ask some primary school teachers about what they had seen with regard to trends among their students when it comes to vaping – that, again, it was quite shocking to hear that it was commonplace in many schools for kids as young as those in grade 4 to be quite regularly vaping and for many kids in grade 4 and onwards to be vaping. For this to be something that kids are taking up in grade 4 and then ageing out of in their early teens is quite concerning indeed, particularly when, as my colleague Mr Batchelor went through, we do not know many of the substances in these products and whether any particular batch could have a particularly concerning dose of nicotine or any other toxic substance. These are young people inhaling these chemicals, and we do not know what is in these products.

Indeed I was not quite sure I wanted to know the answer, but I did have the opportunity to ask some of these teachers as well in particular at what age they start. Grade 4 seems to be when it becomes commonplace, and the response was that you pretty much never see preps or grade 1s do it, but above that it is definitely happening. You would see grade 2s or 3s and that, frankly –

Melina Bath interjected.

Michael GALEA: Quite right, Ms Bath, it is scary. That is also part of exactly why we have this legislation before us today: to address the illicit tobacco but also the illicit whatever else is in these products, be it cigarettes or vapes or whatever else is being sold. It is part of and does complement the federal reforms which have been announced and indeed have now come into effect from earlier this year to arrest the scourge of vaping, particularly as it affects young Victorians and young Australians. It was a very timely opportunity for PAEC to engage with this issue, and I was pleased to take part in formulating some of those recommendations, which has led to them being considered as part of the legislation before us today.

Community concern on this issue is something that is quite rightly there for all to see, be it in the prevalence of these products on our streets or be it indeed in the organised crime that is driving many of these sales and the outrageous incidents and attacks that we are seeing right across metropolitan Melbourne and right across regional Victoria too. This is legislation that is designed to be tough and to address that.

I note Mr Limbrick’s comments as well. I always enjoy debating these subjects with Mr Limbrick, but he has come out and spoken against these penalties being so tough. I would say the alternative is that you make the penalties weak. And if you make the penalties weak – if you make it nothing more than being slapped on the wrist – it is not going to have any impact and it is not actually going to do anything to address the problems that we are here to address. This is an important issue. We have a government that is committed to addressing this issue, and that is why I think the balance that we have in this bill has got that right.

We know, as my colleague Mr Batchelor has gone into great detail on, that smoking is a considerable contributor to cancer, stroke, cardiovascular disease and kidney disease. We know that it also costs the Victorian economy $3.7 billion a year in tangible costs such as health care and an additional $5.8 billion in intangible costs associated with loss of life as a result of smoking each and every year. If we see the decades-long efforts to reduce smoking rates in this country undermined and reversed, we will see our community’s health diminish, we will see more loved ones die, and we will be worse off individually and collectively in almost every way.

This new licensing scheme will deter unsuitable people from seeking to run a tobacco business. It will contribute, through intelligence and licensing enforcement action, to supporting all of our important law enforcement agencies, including Victoria Police, to combat serious and organised crime. Specifically, what the bill before us today will do is it will introduce a tobacco business licensing scheme. This will effectively amend the Tobacco Act 1987. The licensing scheme will prohibit the retail and wholesale sale of tobacco products by any person who does not have a licence. It will safeguard the suitability of licensed retailers and wholesalers of tobacco products. It will minimise and mitigate the risks associated with the sale of tobacco. It will also provide sufficient powers to enable efficient and effective regulatory oversight. The regulator will have broad powers to consider whether an applicant is an appropriate person to hold a licence. The information to be provided to the regulator to apply for a licence will be set out in regulations which will be developed in the aftermath of the passage of this bill. This will include information necessary for the regulator to undertake a suitability assessment of the applicant – such as known names, dates of birth and residential addresses – along with the address of the proposed premises to be licensed.

Applicants will also need to provide names, dates of birth and addresses of an applicant’s associates, including close relatives and business partners. They may require police checks from the applicant and any associate of the applicant if they deem it appropriate. The Chief Commissioner of Police must be consulted on new licence and transfer applications. The regulator must also provide these applications to the Chief Commissioner of Police, who may at their discretion raise objections or provide other input. Additionally the chief commissioner may also apply to the regulator for the variation, suspension or cancellation of an existing licence if they have information regarding the licensee or an associate’s suitability to hold a licence. In accordance with that and indeed in accordance with action by the regulator, the bill also provides that in certain circumstances the regulator may vary, suspend or cancel a tobacco licence if a licensee or an associate of them breaches a condition of their licence or is no longer considered to be a suitable person to run or be associated with a tobacco supply business. Therefore a tobacco licence can be suspended or cancelled following a short show cause notice. It also provides that the regulator can immediately suspend a licence for up to 90 days in response to a serious contravention of the Tobacco Act. They may also disqualify a person or indeed a body corporate from holding a licence for up to five years.

This is a bill before us today which will set out significant penalties, as I foreshadowed earlier, and indeed as have already been referenced by other members of this chamber. In doing so it will effectively set up an effective deterrent that is going to significantly support the enforcement action of the regulator but also indeed of law enforcement agencies as well, most importantly Victoria Police. We know that they have done considerable work already, whether it be through day-to-day operations or indeed through Taskforce Lunar to address this problem, and indeed having had the chance to view some of the compounded materials that were shipped in through the Port of Melbourne that had been seized by the Australian Border Force – quite a considerable haul and indeed in many ways just a drop in the ocean – that sort of enforcement activity in and of itself will never be sufficiently effective, and that is exactly why we need these interventions at the retail level as part of a multifaceted response to this issue. This bill is a bill that will deliver a swift and decisive response to the illicit tobacco trade that Victorians have been growing increasingly tired of. The new licensing scheme, including some of the toughest penalties in Australia, will act to deter and punish those who engage in the sale of illicit tobacco and vape products. For these reasons I commend the bill to the house.

Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (15:33): I am pleased to rise to make a brief contribution on the Tobacco Amendment (Tobacco Retailer and Wholesaler Licensing Scheme) Bill 2024, and in doing so I would like to put on record my thanks to the Liberal and National Shadow Minister for Consumer Affairs and my colleague member for Ovens Valley Mr Tim McCurdy for in effect pushing the lever on the Allan government on this overdue bill. In fact it was only a few weeks ago in the lower house Mr McCurdy proposed a private members bill called the Tobacco Amendment (Stamping Out Fire Bombings) Bill 2024 that was rejected by Labor, but now we see overwhelmingly the contents of that bill reflected in today’s bill, and so we certainly do not object to this bill, although there are amendments that I will speak to that through Mr McCurdy working with the government and the crossbench independents hopefully they are going to support.

But in relation to the illicit tobacco market, those illegally imported into Australia or illegally grown in our country, it is quite frightening, I am sure, if you own a property, a flat or a bedroom above one of these shops that have been firebombed, one of the 110 firebombed shopfronts. It must be incredibly frightening and also frustrating for small business people trying to run a business of this nature, and here we are in downtown Victoria.

Indeed we are the only state that seems to be having this frustration in terms of firebombings of these businesses. Back in 2021 Better Regulation Victoria’s report actually endorsed, supported, called for and recommended the introduction of a licensing scheme for tobacco retailers and wholesalers. That report – we have seen a snippet of it, we have seen the summary of it but it has not ever been tabled. It was a government-driven inquiry and report, but we have not seen it, other than to say that certainly regulating illicit tobacco is complex. I am sure that is the case. What we have seen on a regular basis is the flourishing of this illicit substance insofar as it is fuelling organised crime. It is certainly creating distress and costs in a resources capacity as well. That Better Regulation Victoria report also called for increased penalties, and we have seen some of those reflected in this bill here today.

I heard my colleague over there Mr Galea speak about the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee Vaping and Tobacco Controls inquiry report of 2024 by the members on PAEC, and one of the findings, finding 8 in that report, speaks about the overall value of tobacco in Victoria in 2023 and estimates that as being around $6 billion in sales but also considers the percentage, or proportion, of illicit tobacco sales and that market. Finding 8 says that it is somewhat difficult and contested but if you look at the $6 billion, then the illicit market ranged between 6 per cent and 40 per cent. If you do the maths on that, that is well over $2 billion in that stream. So if you are a gang, if you think that you want to and can get away with this sort of organised crime and its darker side, then certainly there is some profit to be made. That is where part of this bill seeks to stamp that out. Where there have been licensing schemes across other states, we have seen a significant reduction in those sorts of firebombings, and therefore people can feel safer if they have their apartment above or beside these shops.

Having a chat with some of my independent supermarkets in Gippsland last week in preparation for this bill with my good colleague Mr McCurdy in Bass, down in that area there, we learned about the decline in sales overall from a supermarket point of view. That could be reflective of two things. We know that overall the rates of smoking over the past two decades have reduced, but if you are seeing that it could be up to 40 per cent of those sales that have shifted into the illicit market then it is not surprising that some of our supermarkets are seeing that decline. There are certainly excises and tariffs on those, and therefore in a cost-of-living crisis people are turning to the cheapest form that they can.

The other thing that is quite interesting – and we heard other speakers speak about vaping and e-cigarettes – is that proportionally the rate of consumption of those types of behaviours are on the rise, and the most rapid rise in the past decade is in the adolescent space and young adults. In fact between 18 and 24, there is a fourfold increase in vaping and e-cigarettes. I just recall doing a little bit of research back in 2016 when there was a tobacco bill. I went into great detail about some of the subjective nature of what can be in these products.

It seemed to spark a great deal of outrage from a number of people who felt that, although I had done the research on some of the contents, it was outrageous that I would be picking on somebody who wanted to consume e-cigarettes. Whilst it is legal and we know that there have been changes federally through that process, we also see most alarmingly – and we heard the speaker before me speak to this – that you have got children as young as young primary school children engaging in this.

However, let me turn to some of the aspects of the bill. One of the concerns that we have in relation to this, which hopefully will be improved through the process of amendments today, is that the bill in this current state does not come into effect until July 2026. That is too slow by our account given the urgency of the issue. How would those continued businesses, apartments and lives be impacted if there was to be that 18-month delay. So, as I said, Mr McCurdy on behalf of the Liberals and Nationals has put in amendments so that much of it is going to be brought forward to July 2025, so next July instead of 2026.

One of the parts to this bill is licensing. It includes tobacco and e-cigarettes. It also includes a fit and proper person test, and it outlines penalties for possession and sale of these tobacco products and significant fines that I will go into in a moment. But we have seen mayhem, and Mr Mulholland is right, 110 is a scary amount of firebombings, but it has not just encompassed metropolitan Melbourne, although we have seen it right across Thornbury, Coburg and Footscray. It has also occurred in Wangaratta and Ballarat, and I heard my colleague Mrs Broad speak about the Bendigo incident. In Moe we have had them a couple of times last year and this year. In Morwell we saw it in February, in Wonthaggi in August this year, and we have seen it in Dromana, Skye and Mornington as well.

Some of the concern that people have was reported in an article in the Herald Sun of 1 October 2024:

The state government did nothing and now Victoria holds the title of being the only state or territory in Australia without such a scheme.

…

As Victoria Police say, it is a miracle innocent lives have not been lost in the rampaging violence.

…

“This chaos is playing out right in front of the government,” an industry insider said.

But closer to home for me, it is very concerning for people, again not only businesses but community members and also the police, who have to redirect all their resources. If you go into country Victoria, you know how stretched our hardworking VicPol officers are, and if having to turn out to these sorts of firebombings and incidents can be diminished, then that is a very good thing.

In the South Gippsland Sentinel-Times of 20 August we saw an article about a ramraid in South Dudley near Wonthaggi which said:

Local retailers fear it might simply have been a “shot across the bows” of the new shop after signs went up … advertising “… tobacco …”

as well as other things.

We saw that on 19 August Wonthaggi fire brigade was alerted and came to that particular South Dudley bombing, where they saw that a car had crashed through the shopfront window where this ramraid occurred. So I am just wanting to put on record that unfortunately it certainly is not isolated to metropolitan Melbourne.

But we also see the terror that has been reported over time, and that certainly is something that this bill needs to address, and it needs to have addressed it yesterday.

I want to just drill down very briefly in the last few moments of my contribution to talk about some of those fines and penalties: $23,000 for an individual possessing illicit tobacco; up to an $800,000 fine for a body corporate possessing a commercial quantity of illicit tobacco, and that is something that I think is still somewhat undefined; and also $1 million for a body corporate selling a commercial amount of illicit tobacco. There seems to be still a lack of clarity on registration costs in relation to the definition of commercial quantities, and also – I have just read about a business in Wonthaggi who was opening up, who was selling sweets and chocolates and the like, as well as tobacco – certainly these businesses when they become licensed need to be protected, and they also need to not be priced out of existence, priced out of actually operating and employing people in our regions, by overly high licensing fees. There needs to be that enforcement. It needs to involve Victoria Police, which it will. It needs to have licensing inspectors, but also it needs to be at an appropriate measure that people can afford if they are in small business.

In summary, I am very pleased to support the amendments from Mr McCurdy to bring forward the evolution and implementation of this bill put in by Labor. It is disappointing that it has taken this long, but certainly the Nationals will wish it a speedy passage after some amendments and we do not oppose this bill.

Rachel PAYNE (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:47): I rise to make a contribution to the Tobacco Amendment (Tobacco Retailer and Wholesaler Licensing Scheme) Bill 2024 on behalf of Legalise Cannabis Victoria. I cannot contribute to this bill without first acknowledging the massive failing that has led us to where we are today. Seemingly every week we hear of another firebombing. It is genuine gang warfare on our streets, with cars ramming into buildings and so much violence, all in the name of the illicit tobacco trade. Ordinary Victorians are increasingly caught in the crossfire. Local businesses suffer thousands of dollars in damages thanks simply to being next door to a tobacconist.

We appreciate that these scenes of violence have rightfully stoked fear in the community, and there is immense pressure on government to act, but with that being said, we are fearful that this bill, much like the firebombings themselves, will end up hurting ordinary Victorians. There are legitimate businesses out there – mum-and-dad shops, many of them with English as a second language – and they sell illicit tobacco. That is the reality of the situation. They are not some sort of criminal overlord; they are simply trying to make a living in a market that is increasingly saturated with illicit tobacco. This government is at risk of targeting these kinds of people with imprisonment and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. We are now the only state without a tobacco licensing scheme. We have tried many times. Thanks to their own inaction, this government has enabled a fully established illicit market within our state. Finally, when they do decide to act, they do so while championing the toughest penalties in the country and a half-baked plan for implementation. Thanks to this tough-on-crime stance, I now have no doubt this legislation will sail through with the support of the opposition, free of any real conversation about harm reduction and public health.

In consulting on this bill, we spoke with Deakin University criminologist James Martin, who addressed the nuances of regulating these kinds of markets. When you focus on enforcement and penalties, you do not meaningfully address supply and demand. Often what you actually do is push out the good actors from the illicit market and leave the most hardened criminals, who then escalate their violence. We agree that this bill seems to be a reactive short-term solution that could very well create more harm. There is also much of this scheme that will only be ironed out at a later stage. We will not be able to be involved in these later stages and do not know what they could include, which is something that concerns us deeply.

When we speak about our concerns and lack of trust, we are speaking from experience. As the Legalise Cannabis Party we have a unique perspective on the harms a tough-on-crime approach can have when trying to regulate the illicit drug market. After seeing the many harms of the war on drugs, can you really blame us for being sceptical about the war on illicit tobacco? These crackdowns never really seem to work.

It has been so promising to see the government’s language around cannabis shift in the last decade. They increasingly recognise that a health-led and harm reduction focus leads to better outcomes for all. That is why this bill is particularly frustrating for us. It feels as if all of those lessons that have been so hard fought for are being ignored because it is convenient. We appreciate that an unregulated market and the absence of a licensing scheme have made public health and harm reduction efforts more difficult; however, we would be remiss not to mention the role of the Commonwealth government in landing us in this situation. The tobacco excise is astronomical and vapes are now more restricted than cigarettes. It is frankly ridiculous. In other countries where they are close to being smoke-free, like New Zealand, vapes are regulated in a commonsense way and endorsed as a smoking cessation tool. We encourage the Victorian government to stand up to their federal counterparts and raise these issues, because in the meantime people like my friend who is currently battling cancer cannot access a herb vaporiser for her medicinal cannabis. That is right, it is a dry herb vaporiser – it has no nicotine; it is essentially a heating element – and she is treated like a criminal just for trying to buy one.

It is disappointing that the Victorian government has not had the confidence to come out and call out the Commonwealth government for playing a major role in creating the illicit tobacco market. Their excise on tobacco criminalises the poor and their regulation of vapes has made a tool for smoking cessation incredibly hard to access, harder than even cigarettes themselves. This is going to create a huge group of people who will have to do one of two things: they have to either foot the high cost of regular cigarettes in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis or stop smoking. The third option would be that they go to some of these organised crime gangs and buy their cigarettes direct. The latest national drug strategy household survey continues to tell us that those who smoke tend to be older and live in the most disadvantaged socio-economic areas. This legislation should address smoking cessation supports through improved accessibility to health care and cessation services. Instead, it is silent on these issues. At the end of the day this market only exists because there is a demand for it, and unless we address the demand we are not going to get to the core of the issue. We have broad concerns about the approach in this bill, and we do not believe it will hit the mark in reducing organised crime. That is why, despite our support for a licensing system, we cannot support this bill.

To begin with, we have concerns about the practicalities of the implementation of a licensing scheme. One of these concerns relates to the role VCAT will play in dispute resolution. VCAT is already overrun and subject to significant delays, blowing out disputes by months and sometimes years. This bill sets up VCAT as the body to which complaints can be escalated to for a review. It is not fanciful to expect that in the process of trying to license an unknown number of thousands of tobacco retailers and wholesalers, there could be hundreds of people who will use this review process. We need some assurances that the government will address this by providing additional resourcing and funding to VCAT. Let us be realistic about the demands that already exist and how without further action this bill will worsen those demands. We do not know how many licence applicants there will be. So for the government to claim they can get this regulator set up and all of these licences assessed within a six-month window is ambitious, to say the least.

Our concerns also include the general tone of not only this bill but the broader commentary by the government. As I have already touched on, we have seen such a positive shift in the way this government shapes its drug policy, focusing on public health and harm reduction, which is why we are so concerned about how the centrepiece of this bill is a tough-on-crime approach, so much so that we feel harm reduction has been left out of the conversation altogether. We will be raising a number of these concerns during the committee-of-the-whole stage and hope that the government is able to provide some assurances. This bill will not decrease demand for illicit tobacco, and it will not inform and educate Victorians on harm reduction. For these reasons, we will not be supporting this bill.

Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (15:55): Thank you very much for the opportunity to rise and speak in support of the Tobacco Amendment (Tobacco Retailer and Wholesaler Licensing Scheme) Bill 2024. This bill does represent an essential step forward in our efforts to protect Victorians from the really devastating health, social and economic impacts of tobacco and related products. Can I say it really does reflect our collective responsibility to safeguard public health while addressing the environmental and criminal consequences of an industry that has long evaded full accountability. Accountability cannot simply rely on self-regulation or reactive measures such as policing crime after it has already impacted our communities. This legislation really does take a proactive and practical approach to addressing these issues. This bill introduces tough regulatory mechanisms. It aims to deter criminal activity before it is exploited by organised crime. These measures enhance oversight, but they also strengthen our ability to prevent harm, making our community safer and more resilient.

We know that the harm caused by tobacco use remains significant despite decades of public health interventions. This really builds upon the extensive work this government has done towards tobacco control in Victoria by introducing a robust licensing framework, strengthening enforcement provisions and addressing the emergence of new challenges such as illicit tobacco and vaping rates in the bill before us. Smoking continues to be the single greatest contributor to preventable death and disease in Victoria. It is directly linked to severely negative health outcomes, including cancer, cardiovascular disease and respiratory illness. According to a report from 2018 commissioned by Quit Victoria, the cost of smoking to the Victorian economy is absolutely staggering: $3.7 billion in tangible costs such as health care and $5.8 billion in intangible costs such as loss of life. Look, I do not know how they calculate that, because for the families affected it is priceless, frankly. The devastation caused to those left behind is priceless. The numbers only tell part of the story. Behind them are families grieving the loss of a loved one. There are individuals facing chronic illnesses and communities bearing the burden of caring for those affected. Smoking rates have declined significantly from 19.2 per cent in 2001 to 7.6 per cent in 2022–23, but the pace of that reduction is really slowing. I think that is worth reflecting on today. This bill is crucial to reinvigorating our efforts and addressing the ongoing challenges posed by tobacco use.

Among the communities most affected by smoking and vaping are First Nations people, something that I have certainly seen firsthand amongst my mob. Smoking prevalence amongst First Nations populations remains significantly higher than for the general population. It does contribute quite significantly to the stark disparities in life expectancy and chronic disease rates. We know that tobacco use exacerbates illnesses such as diabetes, kidney disease and cardiovascular conditions, which are already prevalent in communities. Addressing this disparity requires more than an awareness campaign; it demands systemic changes that make tobacco products less accessible and disrupt the supply chains of illicit tobacco and the harm they cause to communities. The bill empowers regulators to do just that, ensuring that tobacco retailers and wholesalers meet some really stringent suitability criteria. We absolutely must remain committed to closing the gap in healthcare outcomes for First Nations people, and this legislation is a critical tool in achieving that goal. I am going to take a moment to give a shout-out again, because I cannot help myself, to the Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (VACCHO), who do really play a critical role in reducing smoking rates amongst mob and recognising that smoking rates remain three times the national average amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

VACCHO supports its member services in developing and implementing effective tobacco cessation policies and programs. To everyone involved in tackling Indigenous smoking at VACCHO and amongst their membership, can I give you my best and utmost respect, because what you are doing is incredibly challenging work but it is so vital. VAHS have helped a range of folks that I know. Thank you, and please keep doing what you are doing. To the workers that have to have those tough conversations with folks that come in, I am so happy to know that you are a trusted place for advice and support. So many of those that are coming to you, though, are those wanting to quit vapes, wanting to get off the illegal and illicit tobacco products that are just so prevalent now in our community, so that is why I know that this bill out there will change lives. I also want to take a moment to acknowledge VicHealth and the work they do in promoting smoking cessation. They were created all those years ago with the very aim to reduce smoking rates amongst the Victorian community. To the team there, my respect to you. I know the work that you do and how valuable it is, so thank you very much.

I want to say this bill does primarily focus on tobacco, I acknowledge that, but it also addresses the growing issue of vaping. On a quick walk around Brunswick, where you will find my electorate office, you will see so many discarded vape wrappers and those used disposable vapes. They litter our streets, they are in our stormwater drains, they are ugly and they are in our gardens. I cannot stand them. They are absolutely everywhere. And it is worth knowing that not only are they everywhere, the batteries within them also contain some really toxic materials, including lithium. I do know that they have been disposed of in the wrong way and can contribute to fires, so to all the workers that put their lives at risk trying to deal with the waste of vaping, can I just say thank you. To those in our emergency services, the bill before us is hoping to make your lives a little safer and help ensure that you come home from work each and every day. It is true that those that import these products are not actually held to the accountability that community demands for the dangers that they pose initially but also on their disposal later on. I think that is worth noting today.

There is so much waste being created by these products. It is absolutely everywhere, and I just want to see that being pulled up. It is a good time, can I just say, to remind folks that vapes should never be put in your recycling or your garbage bin at home or work. They are a fire hazard. Vapes can only be recycled or disposed of through some specialised programs or services. I am not sure that too many vape users know that, so I am just going to take a moment to remind you. It is safe to remove the battery, and there are many battery recycling programs around and council drop-offs and whatnot for vapes. But the truth is that they should be safely disposed of and recycled.

There is more to this bill, and I know that there are more speakers, but I will just highlight that this is a bill that introduces a licensing scheme entirely designed to prevent unsuitable individuals from entering the tobacco market. By requiring suitability assessments, including criminal history checks and police consultations, this legislation creates a really robust barrier against the infiltration of organised crime. It also strengthens the penalties for illicit tobacco offences, with fines of up to $165,975 for individuals and more than $800,000 for corporations as well as potential imprisonment for up to five years. These measures position Victoria really as the leader in combating the illicit tobacco trade.

There was of course an inquiry that was done recently by the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, and I thank the members of that committee for that work. I know that we have got two of those members in the chamber right now. I acknowledge their work and thank them for listening to the evidence that came out, whether that was from the AMA, Cancer Council Victoria, Quit Victoria or others, really citing the potential for a licensing framework to reduce illicit tobacco sales and improve public health outcomes.

This is one that I know has sparked lots of community conversations, but the safety of our community must always come first. Can I take the opportunity to urge all members to support this legislation by passing it today. It is a significant step towards a healthier, safer and more equitable Victoria. I finish off by saying that I commend the bill to the house.

Nick McGOWAN (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:07): Well, I am a bit grumpy today, I have to be honest. I do not know why I am grumpy. I think it is because I was up late last night watching a Netflix series I did not need to watch about the tsunami in 2004, and – invariably – it was not just one episode, it was episodes, plural. I did not realise that when I first started watching, so that has put me in a particularly sleep-deprived condition today. That condition of course has lent itself to me, in my senior years, being very grumpy. I will try and disperse the grumpiness and just be lovely – comical even. I am not capable of comedy, but I am going to give it a shot because I think if there is any debate we are going to have in this final week of the year, it is on this bill, which deserves a sense of comedy or at least a sense of cheeky comedy, because I have to agree with much of what the crossbenchers have had to say today. For any government to come in this place and straight-facedly claim in any way, shape or form the high ground on this issue, on vapes, is comical. It is absolutely comical. They have done nothing on this issue for years – not months, not days, not weeks but years. And it is actually worse than that. I am still trying to be comedic when I say this, but imagine you had a report from an authority that is supposed to advise on these matters – say it was in 2021, for example – and it suggested that the government do exactly this. Wouldn’t it be almost comical if you ignored that report for years and years and years and then came out later and, as a government, said, ‘Well, we’re swift. We’re proactive. Look at what we’re doing.’ If that does not show that this Labor government has a sense of humour, I will never know what does. My goodness. I will have to nominate them. I know Victoria is the home of the comedy club and the comedy week and the comedy festival. Well, I have to nominate the minister as perhaps the best comedian.

I will tell you what, I saw Dave Hughes just recently at my local cricket club in Mitcham and he was sensational. But even he was not anywhere near as funny as the minister has been on this one, because for the minister, in all straight-facedness, to stand in front of the arranged media as he did and then claim that somehow this government is at the forefront, clearly he did not get the memo. Clearly he did not realise at some point that Victoria is the worst performing state in the country when it comes to vapes – the worst. They have done precisely – and if only Hansard could pick up the silence. If there was any way of them illustrating in the Hansard silence or nothing we would probably have not pages but I suspect volumes, and if it assisted I would stay and just be silent for the next 11 minutes and 54 seconds – as that is precisely what this government has done.

[The Legislative Council transcript is being published progressively.]