Page 2204 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 6 June 1990
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The legislation will allow the responsible Minister to exempt sponsorship and advertising arrangements by notice in the Gazette. The exemption certificates will be disallowable instruments and thus subject to scrutiny, and possible disallowance, by this Assembly.
At the time that I announced the Government's intention to develop new tobacco legislation for the ACT, I foreshadowed that the Government would be looking at a proposal to require all restaurants in the ACT to set aside a fixed minimum percentage of their floor space as no-smoking zones. Let me say at the outset that the Government did not propose that restaurant owners should have to erect walls or dividers or install special ventilation systems. The legislative proposal would simply require each restaurant to have a fixed minimum percentage of the dining area that is clearly signposted as a no-smoking zone.
The Government believes that this proposal would not affect a restaurant business, as more than two-thirds of the Australian population do not smoke. Concerns which have been expressed when similar requirements have been suggested in local government areas interstate, for example, that trade would transfer to restaurants not affected by the legislation, would not apply in the ACT as all restaurants would be covered.
What it would do, however, is allow the majority of Canberrans who do not smoke to be able to select areas within restaurants which will reduce their exposure to the tobacco smoke of others. Interstate surveys have indicated that up to 90 per cent of people favour the establishment of separate non-smoking areas in restaurants and that more than 60 per cent of people would prefer to sit in such areas. In fact, many smokers choose not to smoke when eating socially. In a phone-in survey in the ACT in 1987, 97 per cent of respondents favoured banning or restricting smoking in restaurants.
Since the Government signalled its intention to act in the area of smoking in restaurants, I have had a number of discussions with the Restaurant and Catering Association, at both a national and local level. The association has argued strongly against a legislative approach to this issue, believing that through voluntary regulation within the industry it will be able to achieve the Government's objective of a restaurant industry that is far more responsive than it is now to the needs of the non-smoking majority within the community. The Government would, of course, prefer not to enact legislation if an effective alternative is available, and on that basis has agreed to allow the industry a period of six months within which to achieve a satisfactory level of compliance within the industry to the provision of no-smoking areas. The level of success of the voluntary approach will also be assessed by a joint departmental-industry working group and, if a significant and satisfactory response has not been achieved after six months, the Public Health (Eating Houses)
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