Page 3765 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 17 October 1990
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If you are an ordinary citizen and you walk into a club, I guess you know what to expect, and you have to put up with it. Well, perhaps we do not have to put up with it. I think there should be legislation to prevent it. But, in particular, the people who work in those clubs have little choice. They need the employment and are trained in the work associated with the club. I believe they have the right in their working environment not to suffer the damage that passive smoking brings to them.
I would expect that people who work eight to 10 hours a day in some of the clubs in this town are doing themselves considerable damage because of the smoke that they have to inhale. They are in a situation over which they have no control. It is, therefore, up to legislators to see that some control is exerted.
I would suggest to people, certainly to the next Labor Government that is not too far away now, that this is the next area for improving the health of our young people. We have to look at the club scene and make some recommendations in this area. It is not a simple task, perhaps; but we ought now to be attending to it so as to protect those people who have no choice but to work in that environment.
MR COLLAERY (Minister for Housing and Community Services) (4.38): I wish to make some brief comments. I, of course, support the Bill moved by my colleague Mr Humphries. It is an excellent piece of legislation. At a time when, as Minister for Health and Education, he is engaged in strong debate on all fronts, I think it is good for Mr Humphries and for his hardworking departmental staff, particularly the people in the health bureaucracy who put this together, that they see that this is a Bill supported on a bipartisan basis. It is a Bill that will save lives. I thought it was very eloquent and moving of my colleague Mr Stefaniak to refer to his late father. Surely that type of endorsement can only receive the support of all who sit in this house.
Mr Speaker, the vast majority of smokers become addicted when they are teenagers or younger; so this legislation engages our moral duty to the youth of our country. It is most appropriate that perhaps the youngest person in this Assembly has introduced this Bill. It is a very good development for the ACT. It is a good model for Australia, and I am certain that this will add to the image of this Assembly and the image of our law makers in the health arena.
Mr Berry: It will not cover up the mistakes, though.
MR COLLAERY: Unfortunately, Mr Speaker, we always have any good act associated with the churlishness of the Opposition. Certainly Mr Berry is a non-smoker; but, even so, he is beyond redemption in my view. He has taken a point off Mr Humphries by talking about the tragedy of
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