Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce and Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek have got into a heated debate about whether regulating vapes is a better approach than banning the products completely.
A report in The Daily Telegraph and The Herald Sun says NSW and Victoria could make $836 million and $765 million in GST revenue over four years respectively if vapes were regulated like tobacco.
Joyce told Seven’s Sunrise that, considering vapes do not have the effect of alcohol or drugs that inhibit a person’s capacity to drive or act in public, there should not be a complete ban on the product.
Tanya Plibersek has responded to a report that states could rake in revenue by taxing vapes, rather than banning them.Credit: Rhett Wyman
“We’ve got to be a realist and say that unless … you want people to take an unregulated product from China and the money just goes flying by to criminals in China and criminals in Australia, then you have to be realist and say, ‘Well, wouldn’t it be better if we have a regulated product that we can constrict the control and the revenue goes back to the Australian health system where it belongs?’ ” he said.
Plibersek disagreed, telling Joyce: “You might make a bit of money from tax revenue; we would spend billions in the health system cleaning up the mess of the vaping addiction that has taken hold of young people today.”
In response, Joyce said he agreed with Plibersek’s concern, but vapes were already available now despite the laws restricting their use.
Nationals backbencher Barnaby Joyce.
“Well on that calculation … we legalise illicit drugs Barnaby because, you know, they’re still out there,” Plibersek hit back.
Joyce however landed the final quip, saying that comparing illicit drugs with vapes was not a valid argument.
“If you pull the cones and then jump in a car, you’re likely to kill somebody and … [it] inhibits how you act, it makes you dangerous, but the problem with [vapes] … it is unhealthy,” he said.
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