Thanks for that introduction.
Can I first acknowledge that we're meeting on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong peoples of the Kulin nation and pay my respects to Elders past and present.
I extend that respect to any First Nations peoples here with us today.
In exactly three weeks from now, the world will welcome another New Year.
When it comes to the fight against nicotine addiction, 2024 was a big one.
2024 was the year Australia began to quit the vapes.
It started on January 1, with a ban on the import of disposable vapes that had been flooding into the country for years.
And in the year since, we have thrown every tool in the toolbox at this thing: every demand-side tool and every supply-side tool.
On 1 July, the Australian Parliament passed world leading legislation that outlawed the sale, supply, manufacture and commercial possession of vapes, outside of a therapeutic pathway.
The only country in the world to restrict vapes entirely to a health setting - a pharmacy.
Over 7 million vaping products have been seized by the Therapeutic Goods Administration and the Australian Border Force, with millions more seized by state authorities.
Over 8,500 vaping posts and profiles have been removed from social media.
The TGA has partnered with state and territory authorities on 24 joint enforcement operations.
Around 50 active investigations are underway.
More than $1 million in fines have been issued across more than 50 infringement notices.
Close to a million vaping products are being voluntarily surrendered by businesses across Australia looking to get rid of their unlawful stock.
Overseas source countries, particularly China, now see Australia as a much less attractive market.
Exports to Australia are down, according to their industry, by more than 90 per cent.
Because ... vapes are being seized like never before.
That flood of imports has begun to be choked off.
Our laws now have serious penalties.
Individuals face up to seven years in jail and up to $2.3 million per offence.
Civil and criminal court action has, and is, occurring across the country.
In New South Wales, five individuals have been arrested across multiple investigations in relation to alleged unlawful retail or wholesale supply syndicates.
In late October, eight people were charged with Commonwealth offences related to illicit tobacco and vapes, as part of an investigation between Victoria Police and other Commonwealth agencies, including the TGA.
Late last month, two people in the ACT were arrested, facing charges for possessing and importing illegal vaping goods.
And just last week, infringement notices were issued to 10 retail businesses across Perth for unlawful vape supply, with around $200,000 in fines and 60,000 vapes seized - taken out of the hands of our kids.
The vape stores that were set up to sell only vapes, are starting to close.
In my electorate in western Adelaide, there were seven vape shops at the start of the year.
Every single one of them is now shut.
Around the country, 9 out of 10 vape shops were within walking distance of schools, because they knew that was their target market.
To hook another generation to nicotine addiction.
And the tragedy is: it's been working.
After decades of success at driving down smoking rates, we had been seeing them tick up again for the youngest members of our community.
High school age students who vape are five times more likely to take up smoking, than their classmates who don't vape.
Terrifyingly, 12-year-olds who vape are 29 times more likely to take up cigarettes.
As you know, the problem we have now is convenience stores and tobacco stores around the country are continuing to sell vapes in flagrant breach of the law, and organised crime is involved.
This city, Melbourne, knows that perhaps better than any other.
And it's no secret why organised crime has flexed its muscle around vapes and illicit tobacco: it is a huge source of revenue that helps fund its other illegal activities, like sex trafficking and drug trafficking.
Which is why cooperation between agencies is just so critical, between health officials and police, between federal authorities and state authorities, between the Border Force and the TGA.
Choking off supply at the borders was the first step.
Steps two, three, and four are: enforcement, enforcement, and enforcement.
To that end, today I can announce that the Albanese Government has committed an additional $107 million for the regulation and enforcement of our world leading vaping laws.
My Department and the TGA will use this funding to continue its work to crack down on non-therapeutic vapes, regulate vaping goods as therapeutic goods, and enforce the ban on advertising of these products.
The investment will also support data collection and monitoring, so that we can build the evidence base to continue to reduce and prevent vaping and smoking.
Because this is a marathon, not a sprint.
And while marathons are an individual sport, cracking down on vaping is most certainly a team event.
Which is why I'd like to acknowledge the efforts of everyone here today, and in particular, the effort of the Interim Illicit Tobacco & E-Cigarette Commissioner, Erin Dale, for making this symposium a reality.
Because no one government agency, no one government, no one group, can solve this alone.
This needs collective action.
It needs supply-side tools and demand-side tools.
And in 2024 we have introduced and improved a number of demand side interventions.
We are funding the rollout of a national program to prevent young people from taking up vaping.
The OurFutures program for Year 7 and 8 students has been run for many years by the Matilda Centre, at the University of Sydney.
It is based in research and subject to good clinical trials and evidence.
It's traditionally been focussed on alcohol and illicit drugs and over the past 12 months, it has been reshaped to deal with vaping risks, and trialled with over 5,000 students across New South Wales, Queensland and W.A.
Young people in the program found they learned a lot about the health risks of vaping, while also learning the tools to work through peer group pressure, and reach out to friends and classmates who might be addicted to vaping.
From next year, the OurFutures vaping program will scale up to be able to reach more than 3,000 schools across the country.
One of reasons the program works so well, is that it was co-designed by young people.
This sort of peer-to-peer effort will be critical if we are to get through to young Australians.
Which is why, in February this year, we partnered directly with social media influencers to create anti-vaping content in their own tone and voice, in a way that resonates for their young audience.
This was the first time that an Australian Government campaign has engaged paid influencers directly, and it reflects the fact that young Australians do not consume traditional media - like television, newspapers, or radio - at all, anymore.
And they're certainly not listening to 54-year-old Health Ministers - much as I might like them to.
They're listening to comedians and creators their own age.
Which is why we engaged those creators, on the platforms and spaces that young people actually use.
That influencer campaign was the first phase of a much larger, multi-year effort.
The 34 pieces of content they produced have been viewed over 8 million times, generating more than 650,000 likes and almost 1,500 comments.
Comments like: "If you've never vaped, don't start", or "life is better than vaping".
Comments by young people, on content by young people, for an audience of young people.
It's efforts like this that have driven more and more young people to seek support to quit vaping.
The My QuitBuddy app has been downloaded more than 45,000 times this year.
The rates of people calling the Quitline for vaping have soared.
Between July and September this year, 1 in 5 new clients to the Victorian Quitline had vaped in the last 30 days.
That's twice as many as during the same period in 2023, before our reforms started to roll out.
From the feedback they hear as they answer those calls, Quitline counselling supervisors tell us that: "vapes are still available, but more expensive since the reforms. This certainly has been a motivator to either limit the vapes or quit altogether."
In fact, price is perhaps the starkest evidence that the supply side interventions are having an impact.
Vapes are much more expensive today than they were this time last year.
From information that the TGA has collected as part of its enforcement operations, I'm advised that the price of an unlawful vape, while it does vary, has doubled throughout the year, to around $70.
This has a very direct impact in driving down demand.
Research that my Department commissioned during the development of the 'Give Up For Good' advertising campaigns told us that -- out of all the things that young people don't like about their vaping - they like "the cost" least.
And that was before our reforms choked off supply and doubled the price.
Young people are acutely sensitive to price signals.
But price signals are not the only tool we have deployed this year.
We are throwing everything at this.
Right down to ensuring that therapeutic products available in pharmacies are in pharmaceutical-like packaging, with nicotine concentrations tightly controlled and flavours limited to menthol, mint or tobacco.
Feedback from the Victorian Quitline tells us that these limited flavours have been another motivator for young people wanting to stop.
In their words: "vaping doesn't seem as fun."
But here's the thing: vaping was never supposed to be fun.
Vapes were sold to governments and communities around the world as a way for hardened smokers to finally kick the habit - and not as something to hook another generation to nicotine addiction.
But that is what they had become.
When I introduced our world leading laws to Parliament in March, I said that the best time to have done this was five years ago.
The second-best time is, of course, today.
Of course, it would've been easier to get on top of this five years ago, before it exploded.
A habit five years entrenched is tougher to break than one barely formed.
That is something that I'm sure everyone here knows all too well, if you've ever tried to change a habit or give something up.
Quitting something takes time, and sustained effort.
It's often two steps forward and one step back.
Because the longer you've been doing something, the harder it is to undo that something.
Behaviour is not a bell rung once, it is a knot pulled ever tighter over time.
Since the clock struck midnight and the sound of fireworks rang out almost 12 months ago, all across the country, our supply-side and demand-side interventions have been working to nudge Australians towards quitting vapes.
For some individuals, it may be something they do without much thought or concern.
For other individuals, it will be one of the hardest things they ever do.
Two steps forward, one step back.
But if we zoom out from those individual stories of hope and despair, of trying and of triumph, if we zoom out from that we see the story of individual effort is also one of collective effort.
Of people and governments, health authorities and police, parents and teachers, doctors and pharmacists, school communities and public health experts.
Of Australians from all walks of life and every corner of our great, big land.
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The collective effort of a society and a country working together to -- again -- lead the world and beat a path towards a vape-free future.
To blaze a trail with vapes just as we did with the plain packaging of cigarettes.
A trail that dozens and dozens of countries have since followed.
Because in 2024, Australia's collective new years' resolution was to quit the vapes.
And while it is still early days yet, and definitive long term data are still a way off, we are starting to see vaping rates decline, according to Roy Morgan research, for the first time in years.
Hundreds of thousands of people like Julia, who have given up for good.
Julia was a daily vaper until she gave it up.
She says she knew the laws were changing and, in her words: "I just made the decision on New Year's Eve not to buy another one. I feel so much better and because of that I've been running more, so that's an added bonus."
As we approach another New Years Eve, in just three weeks' time, many more Australians will take the opportunity to do what Julia did - and what many others like her have done in the year since -- and give up for good.
And we will return vaping to its original intent: a therapeutic tool to help hardened smokers quit.
The days of vapes being cynically and openly marketed to our kids, those days are over, and generations of young Australians will thank us for our collective resolve.
And none of this would be possible without your resolve - and your energy to work towards this worthy goal of protecting the health of the youngest Australians.
Thank you, and all the best for the symposium.
