Stanford Erica; Verrall AyeshaERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you Madam Chair. I'm pleased to take a call in this committee of the whole House stage. It was nice to hear from the Minister about the reduced rates of smoking. They have been declining for some time and as we know the young people don't view smoking as cool any more. They see it as something disgusting that older people do that they don't want to partake in. But what hasn't been mentioned is the rapid escalation in vaping. We have replaced smoking—which we've done such a great job on—with vaping. It is a massively widespread colourfully packaged lovely smelling product that—let's be frank—is aimed at kids and that is why these two Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) proposed by my good colleague Dr Shane Reti are so important today. One of the things that's really important is his Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 315 especially the insertion of new section 99A(1)(b): support policies preventing the use of vaping products by people under the age of 18 years". I wanted to give the Minister—and I'm sure she will have heard these stories as well—this story from my local high school who have vaping levels at epidemic levels and who are unable to combat the problem because they don't have any supports. They go to Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) who do a wonderful job in their lane and ASH say to them "Look it's difficult for us."—and this was about a year ago so they may have ramped it up a bit since then. But ASH say "Look with vaping we don't have enough statistics on it. We don't have enough interventions. We find it really difficult to go into the schools." This is what the local principals are telling me which is that ASH haven't been able to provide them with the solutions to get kids to kick the nicotine habit. They don't have any tools. They don't have any supports. They are basically saying to kids who are coming to them saying "Yes I was caught at school with my vape but I am massively addicted because of the high level of nicotine in these products."—and I can tell this committee that parents have got no idea of the level of nicotine that their children are ingesting when they smoke these vape products. They have no idea of how much more nicotine is included in these products than there would be in a normal cigarette and parents are being sold this view that it's healthy and it's fine and it's a healthy alternative to smoking and this is being relayed to children as well. It's really important that under SOP 315 the support policies preventing the use of vape products is introduced so that we're giving schools more tools more knowledge and more help to get kids to kick the product but also giving more knowledge to parents and children that these are not safe products—that these do harm your health; they're not cool—and also giving them more supports around helping them to kick the habit. Now the other problem that we've got is that if you're a child walking to school you'll pass many vape products on your way—not just specialist vape stores but dairies and now we've heard today pharmacies as well. Colourful products are right there in front of the store. It's like we've never learnt our lesson from smoking in the first place and here we are again and that's why SOP 312 is so very important. I know that the Minister just talked about new section 20P in clause 13 in the bill and she mentioned new section 20P(2)(c) so that's "any requirements in regulations have been met." So I guess my question to the Minister is: will the Director-General of Health have a direction about the proximity of vape stores to schools? At the moment in my electorate if you're a student walking to school you pass three or four dairies three or four vape stores and a pharmacy who are all selling vape products. It's in their face when they go in the dairy to buy a drink or some food on the way to school—it's right there. It's right in their face and it's obviously now in the pharmacies as well and it's also in these special vapes stores. Look I support Shane Reti's SOP around the clustering of these and the amount and the proliferation and the fact that there are so many together but I specifically want to ask the Minister what regulations will need to be met for the director-general to have a say on where these premises will be and will that be in locations around schools and the clustering of them on school walking routes because that is the problem at the moment. They are being sold to every single day as they walk past all of these schools. They've got wrong information that it's some sort of healthy product that's a good alternative to smoking. It's packaged in such a way that it's attracting them. It smells nice it looks good and it's everywhere in their faces. These are two really good SOPs that in my mind will go some way to reducing that risk and provide schools with the tools that they need to reduce the number of students that they've got that are vaping but it will also provide information to parents that this is highly addictive—much more than cigarettes—and that it actually does have a number of health risks. Thank you Madam Chair. Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Associate Minister of Health): Thank you Madam Chair. With respect to Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 315 the Government will be voting against it. The measures contained in it are not required and reflect business-as-usual compliance activities that the Ministry of Health and others already do. I mentioned in my previous remarks the survey of youth vaping and then the Director-General of Health also has a duty to enforce the Act and make sure that under-18s are not supplied with—Dr Shane Reti: How's that going? Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: —vaping products—well we're here to discuss the bill—but compliance activities are under way with that. With respect to the member's other question I think the difference between the member's points and the author of the SOP's points perhaps just points to areas where further thought and policy work is required because the member raises a concern I have heard frequently from communities about the proximity of vape stores to schools. The SOP of course deals with the proximity of vape stores to each other. These are two different issues and clarity on what the policy goal we are trying to seek through it is required particularly when there might be legal risk incurred from taking either move. So the reason for not supporting the vaping proximity SOP is because the powers to set that regulation are already there and for the director-general to make decisions on it."