Page 2977 - Week 10 - Thursday, 16 August 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Restaurants - No-Smoking Zones
MS MAHER: My question is addressed to the Minister for Health, Education and the Arts. Is the Government intending to force restaurants in the ACT to set aside no-smoking zones? What impact is this likely to have on their profitability and the tourist industry?
Mr Berry: When will he bring forward the tobacco legislation?
MR HUMPHRIES: I might answer several questions at once. To answer Mr Berry's question: at the next sitting of the Assembly. To answer Ms Maher's question: in March this year I announced the Government's intention to introduce revised tobacco legislation for the ACT. One of the proposals within the package was to require restaurants to set aside a fixed minimum percentage of their dining areas as no-smoking zones.
Since this proposal was announced, both my department and I have been involved in detailed discussions with representatives of the restaurant and catering industry at both the ACT and national level concerning the proposal. The thrust of the Government's proposal is to provide diners, to the maximum extent possible, with the opportunity to express a choice to dine in a smoke-free environment should they wish to do so. Whilst some restaurant owners have made allowance for non-smokers, many more have not. The Government believes that greater allowance should be made without reducing restaurants' profitability or affecting Canberra's tourism industry.
I should stress that there has been a degree of misinformation about the nature of the Government's proposal, which has raised unnecessary concern. I should like to stress that the Government does not intend to legislate at this stage to require restaurants to establish physically separate non-smoking zones or to install additional air-conditioning systems.
I have agreed to the industry being given a period of six months - the six months has already started to run, I should say - in which time it must demonstrate its ability to meet the Government's requirements to set aside a minimum non-smoking area of 30 per cent of dining areas. If the industry fails to meet this requirement, the Government will be forced to enact the sections of the new legislation which cover this issue.
As a patron of restaurants in Canberra from time to time, I have noticed what seems to me to be a stark lack of compliance with the voluntary self-regulation code which the industry is seeking to implement. I cannot say that I have noticed any restaurant that I have visited in the last few months complying with that code. I have to say very clearly, so that there is no ambiguity about it, that if the industry cannot regulate itself the Government will
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .