Coalition chairman votes against his own report on e-cigarette use

Tom McIlroy
April 4, 2018

Several countries, including Britain, the US and Canada, have all moved to legalise e-cigarettes. AP

Labor has accused the Coalition of a dangerous split on how to effectively regulate vaping and e-cigarette use, after the chair of a Liberal-led committee dissented from its own report.

In what is thought to be a first for Parliament’s standing committee on health, aged care and sport, chair and North Sydney MP Trent Zimmerman dissented from a report he co-authored, which called for the National Health and Medical Research Council to fund an independent and comprehensive review of the evidence on the health impacts of electronic cigarettes.

Released as Parliament rose for the Easter break, Mr Zimmerman and Liberal colleagues Tim Wilson and Andrew Laming used dissenting reports to call for e-cigarette use to be legalised in Australia in line with overseas regulation, such as rules in the European Union.

Mr Laming’s assessment was just two sentences. 

North Sydney MP Trent Zimmerman dissented from a report he co-authored, which called for the an independent and comprehensive review of the evidence on the health impacts of electronic cigarettes. Andrew Meares

“Life is short and shorter for smokers. Just legalise vaping,” he wrote.

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Mr Zimmerman and Mr Wilson said while e-cigarette use could be harmful, “they are a better option than smoking and their use could save many thousands of lives”.

Thousands of lives could be saved if lifelong smokers stopped smoking traditional cigarettes and switched to e-cigarettes, the pair said.

“We have therefore formed the conclusion that nicotine e-cigarettes should be available as a consumer good to Australians, subject to regulations which will limit their appeal to non-smokers and young people.”

Deputy chair and Labor MP Steve Georganas said on Wednesday he believed it was unprecedented for a chair to be forced to issue a dissenting report to their own committee.

“I can’t find any history or any time when a government member has been rolled on a committee, because they always have a majority,” he said.

“What happened here is we got two or three of the government members voting with Labor.”

The Hindmarsh MP said more evidence was needed about the health impacts of e-cigarettes before effective regulation could be put in place.

“When and if there is a time that science can come out and say that there’s no harm in e-cigarette smoking, that will be fine,” Mr Georganas said.

“But without the science and without the experts, I don’t think politicians are in a position to make a decision on whether e-cigarettes are harmful or not harmful.

“The government is all over the shop on this issue. They had no clear idea of what they wanted.”

A study released in January found e-cigarette users could be putting themselves at risk of developing heart disease, lung and bladder cancers.

The preliminary findings of the New York University study indicated devices that convert nicotine into a spray and contain no tobacco may not be as safe as previously assumed.

Author Moon-shong Tang, a professor of environmental medicine and pathology at NYU School of Medicine, said evidence points to the “almost unambiguous” conclusion that nicotine can convert to a carcinogen once inside the human body.

In 2017, Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council said there was “currently insufficient evidence to support claims that e-cigarettes are safe and further research is required to enable the long-term safety and efficacy of e-cigarettes to be assessed”.