Page 3905 - Week 13 - Thursday, 17 October 1991
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correct - I should state my interest; I am an addict of the weed - nevertheless, I can accept the arguments put up by many people against nicotine and its associated products. What Mr Moore said is correct: Once people start smoking, it is very difficult to cease.
However, whilst the comments that were made were very long on rhetoric, they were very short on logic. These exemptions should be allowed and, if people have a problem with those two sports - rugby league and cricket - as part of a national sponsorship competition being played here in the ACT, they should amend the legislation that was passed last year.
MR COLLAERY (11.43): I rise to clarify the understandings on which this house passed the legislation last December. On behalf of the Government, Mr Humphries said, as recorded at page 3928 of Hansard:
I also have to indicate that I have been cheered by the extent to which the Health Promotion Fund's role in this whole process has been successful to date -
I stress that -
and shows every prospect of being successful in the future. The level of tobacco sponsorship of sports in the ACT, I think, has now been confirmed to be relatively small - in the order of $70,000 to $100,000 - and much of that is accounted for by major events of the kind that may not be affected by this legislation, namely, the Winfield Cup and others.
The fund is operating effectively and approval of more than $400,000 worth of expenditure to health, sports and arts bodies has already been given. We are continuing negotiations with the groups that are affected by the ban to make the transition to the new arrangements easy.
The Rally would be standing today with its prior commitment on this issue, if Minister Berry could give us a correlative commitment as to how the staged buying out of these sponsored events is to take place.
The fact is that in the Estimates hearing last night Mr Berry confirmed that the Health Promotion Trust Fund as a separate entity has been abolished. It has gone into the general health vote, and members might refer to Budget Paper No. 4, at page 54, to see the evidence of that. The last $500,000 in the Health Promotion Fund was transferred to the consolidated fund of the Health Department. Mr Berry has given an undertaking, through his officials, that every cent of that "will be spent on health promotion objects".
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