Page 3913 - Week 13 - Thursday, 17 October 1991
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Mr Berry: That is because you did not do it.
MR HUMPHRIES: I certainly would have expected it to happen before now, and I am disappointed that the Government does not seem to make it a priority. Mr Berry indicated yesterday that the thing was really on the back burner; it was not really happening. We will see what happens. He could not give me any date when we could expect to see legislation. He could not indicate even the rough intention, the broad impression, of the Government with respect to the success or otherwise of the voluntary no-smoking zone experiment.
Nonetheless, I am not entirely going to attack Labor on this occasion. I think one Labor politician in particular deserves to be congratulated for her stand, and I refer to the Federal Minister for Sport, Ros Kelly. I have been extremely impressed with Ros Kelly's statement on the need for Federal Government action to do away with tobacco advertising through sponsorship. In the circumstances, I think her statement was extremely brave. I believe that politicians of all hues ought to be congratulating and supporting statements of that kind from a politician who is, in a sense, exposed on that kind of issue. Her decision took some courage, and I will be offering her whatever support I can in my own humble position in the coming months.
We do require some concerted action, and I hope we can get that kind of consensus on the floor of this Assembly. I am sure that if we do we will achieve great things in this area, but there is still some ground to be made up in the coming months.
MR JENSEN (12.12): I do not think anybody in this place has doubted the commitment of two Health Ministers, both past and present, in relation to the use of tobacco in our society and the advertising of tobacco products. Sometimes I wish that they would take a similar approach to some of the issues related to the advertising of alcohol. But that is another story.
Mr Berry hit the nail on the head very early in the piece in relation to a little point scoring going on here. I am not quite sure whether this debate was necessary today. It is a very divisive issue, and I think Mr Moore and Mr Berry were a little hypocritical, but for different reasons. In Mr Moore's case, a report brought down this week with the full support of Mr Moore allowed the continued use of a product that has been shown to have a 70 per cent greater chance of producing cancer amongst those who use it. I suggest that if tobacco had appeared in our society in a more enlightened time, when people knew more about health issues and the effect of tobacco, it may well not have become the problem that it is today.
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