Independent Tasmanian senator Tammy Tyrrell says she is watching her partner’s health deteriorate before her eyes and it’s fuelling her pushback against Labor’s “dodgy” vaping ban.
Tyrrell says her partner Tim’s dry, hacking cough has returned since he moved back to traditional cigarettes due to tighter restrictions on vaping, prompting a campaign calling for their removal.
“This ban has pushed people back onto cigarettes. I’ve seen the difference with my own partner Tim,” Tyrrell said.
“This dodgy bill was drafted in a few days and hadn’t consulted with the pharmacies at the centre of it. Turns out they don’t want to sell vapes at all,” she said.
“As a result, many pharmacies are choosing not to stock vapes. And those who stock them very rarely sell them, instead referring customers to nicotine patches.”
The rules are even stricter in Tasmania, where the state government now requires a doctor’s prescription to buy a vape from a pharmacy.
“Studies show that if you’re going to smoke something, you’re better off with a vape than a cigarette. Except vapes are banned and cigarettes aren’t,” Tyrrell said.
“Anyone can head to the corner shop right now and buy a pack of smokes. Totally legal, no questions – you just have to be over 18. But you can’t do that if you want a vape.”
Instead of a hardline ban, Tyrrell is calling for a regulated market like New Zealand’s model, which she says has helped more people quit smoking than in Australia.
Her pitch? Let vapes be sold “anywhere you can buy smokes”, with taxes flowing straight into the health budget.
“There’s a pretty common sense solution here,” she said. “It means they’re not accessible to kids, but they are available for people who need one.”
She is now working behind the scenes on what fair taxation might look like, noting that some vapers are worried prices could skyrocket to the same levels as cigarettes.
“Between our country’s ban on vapes and the sky-high price of cigarettes, we’re just fuelling a black market,” Tyrrell warned.
“If we taxed vapes like cigarettes, we would raise billions of dollars and save thousands of lives at the same time.”
The federal Liberals went into the last election promising to make vapes widely available again, a policy both public health experts and Labor did not agree with.
The Australian Council on Smoking and Health called the policy “exactly what big tobacco have been asking for”. “It will recklessly flood the market, fuel youth addiction and undo years of public health progress,” the council said.
Labor Treasurer Jim Chalmers rejected the idea during the campaign, calling vapes a “gateway to smoking” and accusing the Liberals of trying to make “money off people vaping”.
He said the federal government “wanted to get kids off vapes”.
