00:00It's the weekly inferno that rages on.
00:05Victoria's tobacco turf wars show no signs of being extinguished.
00:09Someone is going to die because of this war on tobacco.
00:12Tired of waiting for government action, the opposition moved its own bill to set up a
00:17tobacco licensing scheme with million dollar fines for those caught selling illegal smokes.
00:23Victoria is the only state in Australia that doesn't have a licence to sell tobacco and
00:27Victoria is the only state that we've seen over 100 fire bombings.
00:31The bill failed.
00:33This kind of petty stunt is not getting us to where we need to go.
00:38That's despite a government commission report in 2022 recommending Victoria introduce a
00:43licensing scheme.
00:45We're dealing with large organised crime but we need to design a system from the start
00:50and that is incredibly complicated.
00:53Laws will be introduced next month with enforcement set to fall to authorised officers.
00:58Victoria Police aren't about running around chasing down every retailer selling individual
01:03cigarettes to underage people.
01:06Their focus is organised crime.
01:08After a successful week, the Premier was keen to keep the focus on housing, introducing
01:12new laws to scrap stamp duty on off the plan purchases but instead Labor was forced to
01:17defend its record with the dire state of Victoria's child protection services exposed.
01:23Department figures show that since 2020, 66 children known to family services have died,
01:29including six since July.
01:30This includes accidents and natural causes.
01:33The figures also show there were more than 5,350 reports of abuse of children in care.
01:39Why are more Victorian young kids dying?
01:44This is not a set of statistics, these are kids.
01:48These are vulnerable little kids that should not have their lives played with politics
01:56but they should be supported.
01:58Order.
01:59Order.
02:00The government says it is investing in child protection but the issue may require more
02:05than just money.
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