Post by Ally on Oct 23, 2018 13:56:23 GMT 10
Copied and pasted from facebook. I cant believe they are going to try & stop all SA Vapers from buying onine from anywhere - its madness.
"Savvas Dimitriou shared his first post.
New member · 33 mins
Attention all South Australians: your government is about to ban you from buying vaping hardware and eliquids online.
BEFORE WE START:
Please sign up for the AVATAR mailing list by following this link:
eepurl.com/dKXQU6
If you're a vaper, you cannot afford to have your voice ignored right now. Governments across Australia are working to take away your right to vape, and if you don't speak up you're giving quiet permission for them to do whatever they want. Join the AVATAR mailing list to get updates about what's happening across the country, advocacy events happening in your local area, and how you can protect your rights.
WHO ARE YOU:
I'm Savvas, the chair of AVATAR, the Australian Vaping Advocacy, Trade, and Research organisation, a registered non-profit advocacy organisation headquartered in South Australia. AVATAR is Australia's peak vape industry body, comprising dozens of Australia's largest vape retailers. We work with government and the media to promote and protect the rights of vapers around the country, and have spent the last two years (and hundreds of thousands of dollars) travelling across Australia to meet with politicians and policy makers on the federal level and in every state and territory to let them know the impact regressive legislation like this is having on the economy, jobs, and most importantly, the health of everyday Australians.
WHAT IS HAPPENING:
As I write this, the SA government is preparing to vote on the Tobacco Act Amendment Bill (2018), a poorly considered and regressive piece of legislation that seeks to rewrite reality and classify all vaping devices as tobacco products. The bill has full bipartisan support from both major parties, and will pass the lower and upper houses with effectively no resistance. Once it passes, there will be a period of six months before the regulations take effect.
WHAT WILL CHANGE:
South Australia is the only state in the country that bans the online sale of tobacco products, and once this bill passes it will be the only state to ban the online sale of vaping products. In fact, it will be one of the only governments in the developed world to pass such a bizarre and ill-considered law.
This bill will make it illegal for any online store, whether they're based in South Australia or interstate, to sell any vaping product to any customer in South Australia. No mods, no tanks, no eliquids, no coils, no accessories – it will even be illegal to sell a simple 18650 battery to a South Australian if it's intended for use in a vapouriser.
In addition, a raft of new restrictions will apply to brick and mortar stores in South Australia: vendors will be completely prohibited from offering free samples, rewards programs, or discounts of any kind. All devices and eliquids must be hidden from view; even displaying a basic juice menu with photos and flavour descriptions will be a punishable offence.
WHO WILL THIS AFFECT:
Every South Australian will be affected by this legislation, and every vape company in Australia will be prohibited from selling devices and liquids online to customers in South Australia. Yes, even companies that have no physical presence in South Australia will not be permitted to sell to South Australian customers, and the government has signalled their intention to vigorously pursue any companies that breach the law. They have even implied that they will seek to stop the importation of vaping products from overseas in the near future, although the current legislation does not specifically address that issue yet.
The biggest impact this regressive legislation will have is on the people who can least afford to be marginalised. Banning online sales will isolate thousands upon thousands of vapers who don't have access to a physical store, and will drive them back into the arms of big tobacco – those living in rural or regional areas or in indigeneous communities who are hundreds of kilometres away from their nearest vape store, the elderly and those living with disability who are unable to leave their homes without assistance, hard workers on night shift who can't visit a brick and mortar store during normal business hours.
Make no mistake: this bill will unarguably drive people back to tobacco, and heavily reduce the availability of vaping products to smokers looking to transition to vaping. The legacy of this bill is one of death and destruction; there are people alive today who will end up dying of smoking-related illnesses because the South Australian government has denied them the right to quit smoking through vaping.
HOW WILL SOUTH AUSTRALIA BE AFFECTED:
On top of the harm this legislation does to individual vapers on a personal level, the economic impact of this bill cannot be overstated. South Australia is destined to lose a minimum of 50 jobs and upwards of $30,000,000 of economic benefits as a result of vape businesses shutting down or moving interstate. Several of SA's largest vape businesses are already in the process of leaving or have made plans to shut down their stores. Those job and economic losses are a burden on all tax payers in South Australia.
WHY DIDN'T YOU STOP THIS:
AVATAR and its related entities have been engaged in dialogue and negotiations with the South Australian government for over three years, ever since the creation of the first Select Committee that explored the possibility of vaping legislation in 2015.
We had significant success with the previous Labor government, who agreed to remove the restriction on online sales and were actively listening and negotiating on many of the other aspects of their proposed bill. Unfortunately, when the newly elected Liberal government came to power, they decided to renege on all of the previous negotiations and effectively locked us out of the process.
Despite assurances that we would be listened to, and that we could engage in a constructive dialogue with the new Minister for Health, in reality our concerns have fallen on deaf and uninterested ears. Not a single word of the legislation will be changed despite the overwhelming evidence from other states that overly restrictive, poorly written legislation does nothing more than create a massive black market that the government will not be able to control.
Rest assured that this isn't the end of the road for AVATAR, our interstate and federal advocacy work continues unabated, and we have no intention of abandoning South Australia. Until this point we'd been negotiating behind closed doors, avoiding any publicity or media attention that would derail those negotiations, but in light of this government's refusal to listen we intend to conduct this battle in the public square going forward.
WHAT CAN WE DO:
At this stage, nothing will stop the passage of this bill. The government has made it clear that not a single word will be changed, and that they have absolutely no interest in listening to the concerns of vapers.
However, just because they're not listening, that doesn't mean we should stop demanding to be heard.
While this bill is certain to pass, what is equally certain is that the South Australian government will find itself in the position of having to undo this terrible legislation in years to come, just as Western Australia is now desperately trying to undo the damage their legislation has caused.
AVATAR intends to maintain pressure on the South Australian government, and governments around the country, to introduce sensible, proportional regulation of this industry that balances the needs of the community and the industry to bring Australia in line with countries like the United Kingdown, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States.
To do that, we need your help.
In the coming days, AVATAR will hold a rally on the steps of South Australia's Parliament House in the Adelaide CBD to signal to lawmakers that we will not be ignored any longer. The rally organising team, headed by Charlie McCracken, is in the process of applying for the relevant permits and gathering the resources required to hold this rally, and we'll make a public announcement as soon as we've got a concrete date lined up.
HOW CAN I HELP:
Whether you're South Australian or not, it is vitally important that you and every vaper you know join the fight to keep vaping legal in Australia. Your rights are actively being taken away by governments that don't care about your struggle with tobacco addiction, who don't care if you're forced to return to smoking because your access to vaping products is denied, who don't care about the economic and social impact legislation like this is having on people like you.
Don't sit back and let someone else make decisions for you, step up and get involved so that politicians hear you loud and clear. The best way to get started is to join the AVATAR mailing list by clicking this link:
eepurl.com/dKXQU6
In the short term, we'll use the mailing list to notify vapers in South Australia about the rally and how to participate, and for those who don't live in South Australia we'll be providing updates on the legislation that affects you directly, and the efforts AVATAR is undertaking to promote and protect your rights.
All of your information will be held in strict confidence and will never be sold to third parties or used for spam or marketing activities. We will only contact you in relation to AVATAR's advocacy work and legislative changes that will affect you, and you can unsubscribe at any time with a single click.
CONCLUSION:
Look, this situation sucks, and it's not going to be pleasant. While it's easy to panic and it's easy to get angry, that won't help anything and you'll just end up feeling worse. Change can be painful, and these changes in particular will take time to adjust to, but it's not the end of the road and in the meantime we all have a responsibility to do what we can to claw back our rights and freedoms.
Again, I encourage all of you to join the AVATAR mailing list and to think about what you can do as an individual to contribute to advocacy efforts across the country. The more of us that express our opinion and engage with politicians to seek positive change, the harder it is for them to ignore us.
Please note, however, that not all contributions are positive: it is extremely important that you DO NOT express yourself in terms of outrage. Sending abusive emails or leaving angry comments on news articles is completely counter-productive, it paints vapers as vicious and unstable and it becomes much easier for our critics to dismiss us as rabble rousers.
Instead, be respectful of people who hold a different opinion about vaping, seek to educate them rather than berate them. Point them toward the evidence and help them arrive at a new conclusion based on the science. Be willing to answer questions and to explain how vaping has changed your life for the better, and understand that the vast majority of our opponents are just misinformed, not malicious.
I'll be back with further information in the coming days so keep your eyes peeled for some more posts (or better yet, join the mailing list), and in the meantime don't give up hope. We'll get through this together.
"
"Savvas Dimitriou shared his first post.
New member · 33 mins
Attention all South Australians: your government is about to ban you from buying vaping hardware and eliquids online.
BEFORE WE START:
Please sign up for the AVATAR mailing list by following this link:
eepurl.com/dKXQU6
If you're a vaper, you cannot afford to have your voice ignored right now. Governments across Australia are working to take away your right to vape, and if you don't speak up you're giving quiet permission for them to do whatever they want. Join the AVATAR mailing list to get updates about what's happening across the country, advocacy events happening in your local area, and how you can protect your rights.
WHO ARE YOU:
I'm Savvas, the chair of AVATAR, the Australian Vaping Advocacy, Trade, and Research organisation, a registered non-profit advocacy organisation headquartered in South Australia. AVATAR is Australia's peak vape industry body, comprising dozens of Australia's largest vape retailers. We work with government and the media to promote and protect the rights of vapers around the country, and have spent the last two years (and hundreds of thousands of dollars) travelling across Australia to meet with politicians and policy makers on the federal level and in every state and territory to let them know the impact regressive legislation like this is having on the economy, jobs, and most importantly, the health of everyday Australians.
WHAT IS HAPPENING:
As I write this, the SA government is preparing to vote on the Tobacco Act Amendment Bill (2018), a poorly considered and regressive piece of legislation that seeks to rewrite reality and classify all vaping devices as tobacco products. The bill has full bipartisan support from both major parties, and will pass the lower and upper houses with effectively no resistance. Once it passes, there will be a period of six months before the regulations take effect.
WHAT WILL CHANGE:
South Australia is the only state in the country that bans the online sale of tobacco products, and once this bill passes it will be the only state to ban the online sale of vaping products. In fact, it will be one of the only governments in the developed world to pass such a bizarre and ill-considered law.
This bill will make it illegal for any online store, whether they're based in South Australia or interstate, to sell any vaping product to any customer in South Australia. No mods, no tanks, no eliquids, no coils, no accessories – it will even be illegal to sell a simple 18650 battery to a South Australian if it's intended for use in a vapouriser.
In addition, a raft of new restrictions will apply to brick and mortar stores in South Australia: vendors will be completely prohibited from offering free samples, rewards programs, or discounts of any kind. All devices and eliquids must be hidden from view; even displaying a basic juice menu with photos and flavour descriptions will be a punishable offence.
WHO WILL THIS AFFECT:
Every South Australian will be affected by this legislation, and every vape company in Australia will be prohibited from selling devices and liquids online to customers in South Australia. Yes, even companies that have no physical presence in South Australia will not be permitted to sell to South Australian customers, and the government has signalled their intention to vigorously pursue any companies that breach the law. They have even implied that they will seek to stop the importation of vaping products from overseas in the near future, although the current legislation does not specifically address that issue yet.
The biggest impact this regressive legislation will have is on the people who can least afford to be marginalised. Banning online sales will isolate thousands upon thousands of vapers who don't have access to a physical store, and will drive them back into the arms of big tobacco – those living in rural or regional areas or in indigeneous communities who are hundreds of kilometres away from their nearest vape store, the elderly and those living with disability who are unable to leave their homes without assistance, hard workers on night shift who can't visit a brick and mortar store during normal business hours.
Make no mistake: this bill will unarguably drive people back to tobacco, and heavily reduce the availability of vaping products to smokers looking to transition to vaping. The legacy of this bill is one of death and destruction; there are people alive today who will end up dying of smoking-related illnesses because the South Australian government has denied them the right to quit smoking through vaping.
HOW WILL SOUTH AUSTRALIA BE AFFECTED:
On top of the harm this legislation does to individual vapers on a personal level, the economic impact of this bill cannot be overstated. South Australia is destined to lose a minimum of 50 jobs and upwards of $30,000,000 of economic benefits as a result of vape businesses shutting down or moving interstate. Several of SA's largest vape businesses are already in the process of leaving or have made plans to shut down their stores. Those job and economic losses are a burden on all tax payers in South Australia.
WHY DIDN'T YOU STOP THIS:
AVATAR and its related entities have been engaged in dialogue and negotiations with the South Australian government for over three years, ever since the creation of the first Select Committee that explored the possibility of vaping legislation in 2015.
We had significant success with the previous Labor government, who agreed to remove the restriction on online sales and were actively listening and negotiating on many of the other aspects of their proposed bill. Unfortunately, when the newly elected Liberal government came to power, they decided to renege on all of the previous negotiations and effectively locked us out of the process.
Despite assurances that we would be listened to, and that we could engage in a constructive dialogue with the new Minister for Health, in reality our concerns have fallen on deaf and uninterested ears. Not a single word of the legislation will be changed despite the overwhelming evidence from other states that overly restrictive, poorly written legislation does nothing more than create a massive black market that the government will not be able to control.
Rest assured that this isn't the end of the road for AVATAR, our interstate and federal advocacy work continues unabated, and we have no intention of abandoning South Australia. Until this point we'd been negotiating behind closed doors, avoiding any publicity or media attention that would derail those negotiations, but in light of this government's refusal to listen we intend to conduct this battle in the public square going forward.
WHAT CAN WE DO:
At this stage, nothing will stop the passage of this bill. The government has made it clear that not a single word will be changed, and that they have absolutely no interest in listening to the concerns of vapers.
However, just because they're not listening, that doesn't mean we should stop demanding to be heard.
While this bill is certain to pass, what is equally certain is that the South Australian government will find itself in the position of having to undo this terrible legislation in years to come, just as Western Australia is now desperately trying to undo the damage their legislation has caused.
AVATAR intends to maintain pressure on the South Australian government, and governments around the country, to introduce sensible, proportional regulation of this industry that balances the needs of the community and the industry to bring Australia in line with countries like the United Kingdown, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States.
To do that, we need your help.
In the coming days, AVATAR will hold a rally on the steps of South Australia's Parliament House in the Adelaide CBD to signal to lawmakers that we will not be ignored any longer. The rally organising team, headed by Charlie McCracken, is in the process of applying for the relevant permits and gathering the resources required to hold this rally, and we'll make a public announcement as soon as we've got a concrete date lined up.
HOW CAN I HELP:
Whether you're South Australian or not, it is vitally important that you and every vaper you know join the fight to keep vaping legal in Australia. Your rights are actively being taken away by governments that don't care about your struggle with tobacco addiction, who don't care if you're forced to return to smoking because your access to vaping products is denied, who don't care about the economic and social impact legislation like this is having on people like you.
Don't sit back and let someone else make decisions for you, step up and get involved so that politicians hear you loud and clear. The best way to get started is to join the AVATAR mailing list by clicking this link:
eepurl.com/dKXQU6
In the short term, we'll use the mailing list to notify vapers in South Australia about the rally and how to participate, and for those who don't live in South Australia we'll be providing updates on the legislation that affects you directly, and the efforts AVATAR is undertaking to promote and protect your rights.
All of your information will be held in strict confidence and will never be sold to third parties or used for spam or marketing activities. We will only contact you in relation to AVATAR's advocacy work and legislative changes that will affect you, and you can unsubscribe at any time with a single click.
CONCLUSION:
Look, this situation sucks, and it's not going to be pleasant. While it's easy to panic and it's easy to get angry, that won't help anything and you'll just end up feeling worse. Change can be painful, and these changes in particular will take time to adjust to, but it's not the end of the road and in the meantime we all have a responsibility to do what we can to claw back our rights and freedoms.
Again, I encourage all of you to join the AVATAR mailing list and to think about what you can do as an individual to contribute to advocacy efforts across the country. The more of us that express our opinion and engage with politicians to seek positive change, the harder it is for them to ignore us.
Please note, however, that not all contributions are positive: it is extremely important that you DO NOT express yourself in terms of outrage. Sending abusive emails or leaving angry comments on news articles is completely counter-productive, it paints vapers as vicious and unstable and it becomes much easier for our critics to dismiss us as rabble rousers.
Instead, be respectful of people who hold a different opinion about vaping, seek to educate them rather than berate them. Point them toward the evidence and help them arrive at a new conclusion based on the science. Be willing to answer questions and to explain how vaping has changed your life for the better, and understand that the vast majority of our opponents are just misinformed, not malicious.
I'll be back with further information in the coming days so keep your eyes peeled for some more posts (or better yet, join the mailing list), and in the meantime don't give up hope. We'll get through this together.
"
