Verrall Ayesha; Costello CaseyHon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour): Mr Chair thank you very much for that. I think notwithstanding the rather circular logic where it feels like we've fallen down the rabbit hole and we're being told that the changes are made because the changes are being made I think it's important that it's clear for the record what the approved retailer scheme is because it may be that not everyone in this committee including those in positions of responsibility for this bill understand it.So let's go over what the approved retailer scheme actually is. It is a scheme that is equivalent to a licensing scheme. It means that the Director-General of Health will use specified criteria to approve a retailer. Yes in the bill that we passed in 2022 it included a markedly reduced number of outlets because it is clear that the number of outlets is correlated with increased numbers of people smoking including young people smoking. But that is not all it does—that is not all the approved retailer scheme does. I would like the Minister to answer whether or not she has been given any advice to make this clear to her. Has anyone told her that the approved retailer scheme could operate at any level of retail outlets? She could make it 8000 which is the upper estimate of what it is now.I heard from contributions from some members on the other side that this bill is being passed out of concerns for small business. Well in that case those concerns could be met and no one would go out of business if the approved retailer scheme was kept in place. The approved retailer scheme would allow for there to be specifications about the security in the store and that would mean that concerns that the other side of the House purport to have about ram raids could be addressed.The approved retailer scheme required that responsible people were the only people able to be an approved retailer and that would enable enforcement. Once people had been shown to be selling to under-age people they could be deemed no longer responsible persons and then they would lose their licence. It would help greatly with enforcement because we would know where the approved retailers are. We currently have no idea where they are and therefore when our public health people go out to do the visits and controlled purchase operations where they send young people to see if people will sell to them when they're too young those operations can't be as well-targeted as it would if there was an approved retailer scheme and all the retail outlets were known about.So there are multiple things that the approved retailer scheme would be good for which have nothing to do with reducing the number of outlets. So my question to the Minister is whether this passed her by or was she actually given advice on this and if so why did she make the decision to drop the approved retailer scheme no matter what her view on the number of retail outlets is?Hon CASEY COSTELLO (Associate Minister of Health): I can assure the member that I have been fully cognisant of what was in this legislation and what we're repealing and the approval process for the retailers as it linked to an evaluation of suitability for retailers it also linked to the number of retailers. I will say again despite sounding a bit repetitive that this is not an end position. We are repealing these three aspects of the legislation and will continue to work on initiatives to achieve our smoke-free targets. I would remind the House that despite having no idea where these retailers are or whether they're compliant we have achieved outstanding success in reducing smoking rates. So let's retain perspective that these steps that we are repealing are not currently in place and yet we have achieved the success we have.