MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE

Ms MASCARENHAS (Swan) (15:57): It is really interesting to hear the words of the member for Goldstein. I have to say that we are not here to back big tobacco, and it's clear that those opposite want to back big tobacco. Quite frankly, it's disgusting.

Think about the children. What the member for Canning brings to the House is nothing but a backhanded tactic that plays right into the hands of those who benefit from the decline in our nation's health, and that is big tobacco. It is disappointing to see those opposite use organised crime as a cover for the policies of the tobacco industry, and these are policies that big tobacco has wanted for years.

As the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship said yesterday, the last thing this parliament should ever do is outsource its health policy to organised crime. This would see us as a country bending the knee to an industry that has spent decades hurting Australians. Yet we have two parties in the parliament chasing each other's tails over who can cut the tobacco excise the most.

We saw One Nation with a pledge to cut the excise by 75 per cent, and two weeks later the coalition—running after One Nation's policies yet again—said that they'll cut the excise by 80 per cent. We've been trying to say for some time you can't out-One-Nation One Nation. I guarantee we'll see a rise in daily smoking and vaping rates.

This is the same coalition that raised the tobacco excise by more than 215 per cent when they were last in government, without a cent of it going to public health—outrageous. Medical experts and academics have warned, as they have for decades, that smoking is the No. 1 leading cause of preventable death. Professor Simon Chapman, a public health professor at the University of Sydney, said this week that the single most important thing that a person can do for their health is quit smoking.

Smoking kills 66 Australians every single day. Those opposite want to legalise vapes, the gateway to smoking cigarettes. Those opposite want to do this to make sure that they see people hurt.

Professor Mike Daube from Curtin University in Swan has led the fight against tobacco for four decades and warns that we are facing an extraordinary tobacco resurgence that risks undoing decades of progress and overloading our hospitals for years to come. Don't take my word for it. Listen to their own colleagues.

The Nationals member for Mallee told this parliament that young people who vape are three times more likely to take up smoking. Even those opposite know that's what this policy does, and they are choosing to do it anyway. To put the cherry on the cake, they want to implement a $60 million public awareness campaign on the dangers of smoking.

So what I'm saying is that they want to make smoking more prevalent by dropping the price and then spend a bunch of money to tell you how dangerous it is—absolutely absurd. This excise is working to protect Australians. According to the 2025 National Drug Strategy Household Survey, daily smoking among adults has fallen to historic lows of less than six per cent.

That's roughly half a million fewer smokers than there were three years ago. For the first time ever, daily vaping has stabilised at less than four per cent. As Minister Butler said, these results show our world-leading vaping reforms are making a difference.

But we know that there's more work that needs to be done to protect Australians from the harms of smoking and vaping. This is a direct result of decades of deliberate public health policy. Since 1991, the number of Australians who've never smoked has climbed to its highest level on record, at 65 per cent.

Let me be clear. We are not denying that what is happening in Victoria and around Australia needs addressing. That is why the government has already committed more than $365 million since 2024 to stop illegal tobacco before it arrives, when it arrives and after it arrives in this country.

We are making a difference, and this government's plan is enforcement, not surrender. Those opposite will not trade Australians' health for a quick, irresponsible fix.