Page 3764 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 17 October 1990
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MR STEFANIAK: It is a top show, Wayne; you should. It is good to see the turtles - - -
Mrs Grassby: Bill features in the leading role, don't you, Bill?
MR STEFANIAK: What, head turtle, Ellnor? It is good to see the turtles saying in some recent shows that it is "cool" not to smoke and it is "cool" not to drink, too. I am pleased to see that that occurs, because I think that has a very great effect on impressionable youngsters.
In relation to the Health Promotion Fund, I think it is important that groups who will be using the fund - and some groups will simply be in a buy-out situation - are able to push the health message, be it an anti-smoking message, be it an anti-cancer message, be it some other health message, and push it themselves. Whatever the grant is, that grant should be assessed on a regular basis by the committees to see how effectively the groups are using it. Basically, they should go out there and push that message, using the money they have been given. The money also goes as general sponsorship to assist their activities because we have a number of groups in this town, especially in the sporting area, and we are very able to push a sponsorship message. Let us face it, this is a health sponsorship message, and I think the health Minister is very aware of that fact and, indeed, supportive of that view too.
Finally, Mr Speaker, I again commend the Bill to the Assembly. I commend the health Minister and all of those who have worked in bringing this very necessary piece of legislation before this house.
MR WOOD (4.35): Mr Speaker, I want my comments to be brief. I give encouragement to those who are proposing this legislation, started by Mr Berry and being concluded by Mr Humphries. I give praise to those people in the community - the people from ASH, for example - who have pursued the anti-smoking campaign so vigorously. Their success is demonstrated here today and by the increasingly greater acceptance of non-smoking. I want to support this legislation, but particularly wish to suggest means in the future of further discouraging smoking and preventing the ill-health that flows from it.
I have one particular concern, and that is the level of smoking that is so high in the clubs in this town. I suppose there are few people in Canberra who do not, at some stage, walk into a club to use the various facilities the clubs offer. For some reason or other, smoking seems a greater part of the life of those frequently attending clubs than for the community at large. Certainly most of the clubs I see are filled with smoke, perpetually so, and the air-conditioning systems are such that that smoke is recycled.
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