QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS

Senator CICCONE (Victoria) (15:15): Today I want to take note of the question that was put to the government from the opposition with respect to illicit tobacco. The public debate on this issue seems to have lost sight of the achievements that have been made over many decades now. I particularly remember when Nicola Roxon was the health minister, when I was a very young member of Young Labor and someone who had just recently joined the party.

I remember Nicola quite fondly as someone who represented the western suburbs of Melbourne very well and remember being very proud about her achievements while she was minister in the Rudd-Gillard years and was also the first health minister anywhere in the world to achieve significant reforms when it came to the decline in smoking rates in this country. That was something that was applauded by both sides of politics back then.

Unfortunately, I don't think the same can be said these days. We want to see a continuation of people not taking up smoking, regardless of their age. But the debate itself has lost sight of the achievements, and I say that because we want to see continuation of the reduction in smoking rates to the lowest anywhere in the developed world, something that I think Australians should be very proud of.

The National Drug Strategy Household Survey from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows that fewer Australians are smoking now than ever before and that vaping rates have started to stabilise. I think that's another area that, as a parliament, we need to look at very seriously. The data shows that daily smoking has fallen to record levels, decreasing by 8.8 per cent in 2022-23 and down to 5.8 per cent in 2025-26 among adults.

That is good news, and it should give reason for caution to anyone who is arguing that we should unwind the decades of bipartisan support for public healthcare policy that has got us to this point. Smoking kills, and unfortunately it kills one in every two users and 66 Australians every single day. What a shocking statistic.

Two in every three long-term smokers will die of smoking related illnesses, putting pressure on our healthcare system. Smoking is also still the leading cause of preventable disease in Australia. It causes 20 per cent of cancer diseases in Australia every year.

Those costs are, unfortunately, overwhelmingly borne by the Australian taxpayer. But Australians have a lot to be proud of when it comes to our nation's record in reducing smoking rates. I also want to mention that daily smoking rates among young people over the age of 18 have fallen to historic lows of 5.8 per cent, well below the government's 2025 target of 10 per cent, representing half a million fewer people smoking than there were three years ago.

And when we take younger Australians into account, only 5.6 per cent of all people aged over 14 years are smoking daily, down from 8.3 per cent in 2022-23. So, after years of rising vape use among Australians over the age of 14, for the first time ever the daily vaping rate has stabilised at 3.6 per cent. The proportion of current vape users has lowered to six per cent in 2025, compared with the seven per cent reported in 2022-23.