Anne Ruston defends Coalition's illicit tobacco policy

0:00The Coalition has unveiled a policy to cut the tobacco excise by 80% and make vapes and nicotine pouches more accessible to adults in an effort to destroy the illicit tobacco market. Meanwhile, the states and territories are sounding the alarm over the federal government's proposed private health insurance rebate changes and mid concerns it will worsen the strain on public hospitals. The proposal to remove the high rebate for people aged 65 and over will be discussed by health ministers at a meeting in Sydney today. And Rustin is the federal shadow minister for health and aged care and joins me now at Senator, welcome back to Radio National Breakfast. Good morning, Sally. Starting with the Coalition's tobacco policy, the social service minister Tanya Plybasek had this to say on news 24 yesterday. If we drop the excise in the way that has been suggested by the Coalition, that is a guarantee

1:00that we will see smoking and vaping rates in this country increase, that will lead to deaths. What's your view? What does the Edivine tell you? Will dropping the excise lead to more deaths? Well, I mean, I think for the Minister needs to answer why she made that particular comment, but we are incredibly concerned that 80% of nicotine products are currently being purchased by Australians in the illegal market. That's the black market run by organised crime. And so this policy is designed to break that business model and stamp out organised crime because organised crime gains don't care who they sell their products to. They don't care what's in their products. And at the moment, we have got a very, very dangerous situation occurring where children are being provided these products and we don't know what's in them. So this is very much designed to try and get the government back in control of the nicotine market, not organised crime gains. The modelling and research that the Coalition has done, what does it tell you about what will

2:02happen to smoking rates if the excise is decreased by 80%. Well, first of all, it tells us that if we decrease it by 80%, we destroy the business model of the black market, which will then encourage Australians to come back and actually buy their nicotine products in a regulated legal market that will be controlled by the government. Once the government has control of the market again, then we can put in place the things to try and make sure that first of all, we encourage Australians not to smoke, not to use nicotine products. There is no safe way to use these products and we need to keep reinforcing that. But we also need to make sure that we've got enforcement so that we're stopping these products coming into the country right now, organised crime just thinks losing a few containers of these products is just the cost of doing business. So going back to the question, what does your modelling tell you about what will happen to smoking rates if you decrease the excise by 80%. Well, we are hoping that the combined package of what we're proposing here, not just the

3:03dropping of the excise, the regulation of the market and making it certainly more difficult for children to access these products in the enforcement surge and the anti-smoking and anti-vaping campaigns. We are hoping to put downward pressure on smoking rates. But obviously the first thing we have to do is to keep it in touch. So do you have any modelling or evidence at this stage that it will bring down smoking rates? What's the research and the data telling you? The purpose of this policy Sally is to smash the black markets that are predating on the Australian market. They are stealing billions of dollars from Australian taxpayers that they usually get in revenue from these products that go into other health and support measures. So the purpose of this measure is to smash the black market and get rid of organised crime and the control they have of these markets in Australia. So that's the focus more than getting smoking rates down. Is that right or? We obviously want to see smoking rates and vaping rates in the use of nicotine products reduced over time. But the absolute focus of this is to get this market out of the hands of organised crime.

4:08The Australian Medical Association's outgoing president Dr Daniel McMullen says quite lower cigarette prices would likely increase smoking rates and that there is no evidence that reducing the excise will affect the illegal tobacco trade. What's your response to that? Well firstly Australians are already getting access to cheaper cigarettes, 80% of the products that are being bought in Australia at the moment are being bought in the black market at these cheaper prices. So I think that's telling a very big story. I mean we cannot continue to keep our head in the sand and pretend that the policies that are in place about access to nicotine products working they are not. And so what this measure seeks to do is to break that marketplace. I'd like to know some of the modelling that they're talking that the AMA and others are talking about because right now nobody can model the 80% of the market that has been provided to Australians

5:12by the black market. Did the parliamentary budget officers modelling? Did that assume that illegal cigarette sellers would keep charging current prices rather than cutting their prices to stay in the market? Obviously there was the modelling that sits behind this has been done by the parliamentary budget officer and what we sought to understand from them is that watch price the product needed to drop to in order to completely destroy their business model. The price that they have suggested requires 80% drop in their exercise rate. So going back to the question does it assume that the illegal sellers would keep charging current prices rather than cutting their prices to stay in the market? Well it's assuming this is the right that needs to the price of the product that needs to be in the market to destroy their business model. And so that is the price that the parliamentary budget officer has put forward. I don't understand whether you're saying that the parliamentary

6:18budget office modelling does that assume that illegal sellers would keep charging their current prices or does it assume that they will cut their prices? I'm not quite sure what you're saying. Okay so the parliamentary budget office modelling makes a number of assumptions and that's contained in the modelling. But what it also assumes is that Australians in general would rather buy their products from a legal market at a certain price. And so I think their assumptions in this is the behavioural change that will occur at the reduction of 80% will be sufficient for Australians to move back into the legal market where the government can be in control of it instead of organised crime. It was under a coalition government that medical prescription only model for nicotine vaping was introduced. Why does the coalition now think that should be overturned? Well we have to look at the experience that's happened in the market and unfortunately despite the best intentions, these models of the medicalised access to vapes have failed because a black market has sprung up

7:25and Australians have turned to that black market. So when you put policies into the market and they don't work, you've got to be honest enough to accept that and make changes. Look at the issue of private health rebates. Why should Australians over the age of 65 get a larger rebate on health premiums than someone in their 30s? Well the policy for providing additional assistance to older Australians, older Australians who've paid their private health care all their life, older Australians who are now largely on fixed incomes and many many of these people are pensioners is to encourage them to stay in private health at a time when their health costs are going to by the very nature of their age be higher. And by doing this we keep them in the private sector and encourage them to do that so that they don't move into the private hospital system which is paid for by taxpayers. Just briefly on another issue, opposition leader Angus Taylor says teachers are pushing agendas in the classroom, do you agree? Well certainly we know and when I was the social

8:25services minister I worked with Chanel Contas to make sure that we were enabling all young Australians to understand the values of respectful behaviour and I think that that was what Angus was referring to as the very strong need to make sure respectful behaviour is the tool to young people because respectful young people usually turn into respectful older people. And Rostin we'll need to leave it there thank you for your time this morning. Thanks Sally.