Page 257 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 12 May 1992
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An immediate and complete ban was quite possible as major national sports will clearly have little difficulty in attracting alternative sponsors, and in three States and the ACT health promotion foundations or funds already operate and can replace tobacco sponsorship of other sports. However, this Government does not intend to restrict its actions with regard to smoking and health to the area of tobacco sponsorship.
In its election platform the Government promised action in the area of smoking in enclosed public places, and we will act on that promise. The Government also intends to review the legislative position in the ACT with respect to tobacco advertising, packaging and sales following recent changes to New South Wales and Commonwealth legislation, so that we can ensure that the ACT continues to be at the forefront of public health development nationally and internationally. I present the following paper:
Tobacco company sponsorship - Canberra Raiders - Ministerial statement, 12 May 1992.
I move:
That the Assembly takes note of the paper.
MR HUMPHRIES (4.45): I am not going to initiate a series of six speeches on the subject, I assure you; but - - -
Ms Follett: Oh, go on. Why not?
MR HUMPHRIES: If you insist, I will ask my colleagues to prepare something. I do want to make a few comments on this matter.
Ms Follett: ACIL was not up to the issue? ACIL has not covered this one?
MR HUMPHRIES: Madam Speaker, I am sure that the Chief Minister is very anxious to hear my words of wisdom on this matter, but she should be a little bit patient. She will hear them in due course. I am pleased to see that a compromise has been reached on this matter; that we now have some new regime applying to the advertising of tobacco products, as the Deputy Chief Minister rightly called it, in the form of sponsorship at Bruce Stadium. That is something, I suppose, to be mildly pleased about; but I am disappointed that this compromise took so long to be produced and that it was, on arrival, so very puny.
Let us be clear, Madam Speaker; taking up the question of the Raiders and their sponsorship by Winfield, or the league sponsorship by Winfield, was conceived by the Government, particularly by the Deputy Chief Minister, as a diversion from the start. It arose quite deliberately at the height of the crisis in health. Of course, it is very hard to say when the height of the crisis in health is. Health is constantly in a crisis under this Government and we never quite know when the peak has been reached. But, on one of the peaks that we have experienced, this whole idea was brought forward. We saw the whole idea of having something radical happening at Bruce Stadium - we are going to take on the Raiders.
Clearly, the Minister went to his bureaucracy and said, "Look, I really need to draw attention away from this very contentious issue. What can I do to get a bit of light on something different from health?". They said, "Well, Minister, you can
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