Donna Demaio: Australia Correspondent on the changes to Australia's vape ban

Australia is taking a firm stance on vaping. 

The sale of vapes will be restricted to pharmacies from next week, as the Greens agree to pass a proposed ban. 

However, the Government has agreed to water down restrictions that would have required adults to obtain a prescription.  

Australia Correspondent Donna Demaio told Mike Hosking that this has sparked anger, as pharmacists say that they should be prescription only. 

She said that restrictions will still be in place regarding packaging and flavours, limiting the products to plain packaging and mint, menthol, and tobacco flavours. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
John the may are very good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Now what's going wrong though? Is this a big promise
count deliver? Because they kind of deal with the Greens,
they couldn't get it through the Senate so it was
a numbers problem on vaping basically, yes, well it.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Was described as a world first law, but there is
a lot of anger after the government did water down
its vaping ban to win the support of the Greens.
So vapes will now be able to be sold over
the counter, but in pharmacies only from next week, and
that is because the Greens agreed to pass this proposed ban.
There's a bit of a deal obviously. So these water

(00:33):
down restrictions have drawn the eye of a pharmacist because
they thought it would be prescription only, so people no
longer need a GP according to this new law to
buy vapes, and pharmacists say no, it should have really
been with prescription only. Some restrictions still apply though, apparently,

(00:55):
so there's the vapes are going well. The Yeah, the
vapes will be subject to playing packaging and there's no
more strawberry flavors or fruity flavors and so forth. It's
going to be limited to mint menthol and tobacco. We've
heard from the Health Minister saying it will return vapes
to their original purpose, which was a therapeutic product to

(01:15):
help hardened smokers kick the habit.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
That happens, then we got the new governor General, the
incoming governor general. So where did this big pay rise
come from? Because it's quite substantial, isn't it oh to be.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
The governor general in a way, So the Albanize the
government wants to pass a new bill that would leave
the Governor General's salary by wait for it, forty three percent.
Now that is a hefty pay rise. So we do
have a new governor General coming next week, Sam Moston,
So apparently about an extra chihundred fourteen grand to earn
a seven hundred and nine thousand dollars. Now we know

(01:50):
that in the past, say, for instance, Governor General David Hurling,
who's the outgoing GG. Well he's the former chief of
Defense Force, so he got a military pension on top
of the salary, which is about four hundred grands. So
the government says the change is to ensure that this
salary remains appropriate for the duration of the terms. So
Sam Mostron will get this amount of money for five

(02:11):
years running.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Good luck to wear Yep, good on Donna, catch up
next week. Appreciate it very much. Donald to Mayo out
of Australia for us this Tuesday morning. For more from
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