Page 195 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 23 February 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MR MOORE: Adopting his normal level of argument, the Minister now goes to slogans about tobacco-speak and so forth. For heaven's sake, for a very short while try to take an intelligent approach. See whether you can understand the sorts of issues that other individuals are wrestling with in trying to balance civil liberties, health issues and population health issues, and come up with a sensible and rational solution to do what your Bill purports to do, to prohibit or restrict tobacco smoking in certain enclosed public places.
Mr Berry: Come on; you are squirming, Michael. That will not get you off. You have been caught. It is too late. You have been caught.
MR MOORE: Continuing in the background, Mr Deputy Speaker, is the jargon, the slogans, the standard Stalinist style of approach to dealing with argument. Instead of dealing with a complex issue in a logical and rational way, we get this Minister trying to simplify things. If he is going to simplify things, if he is really going to be genuine about it, he would not have allowed those exemptions to tobacco advertising which is directed specifically at young people, where the real problem is. That is where the real problem is and where the real health risks are.
Mr Deputy Speaker, this Bill provides some possible solutions - in fact, it may provide, in the end, the best solution - to dealing with smoking in enclosed public places. We can determine that only if we have the chance to have a proper look at it, according to the normal approach that we use in this Assembly. The normal approach is set out in our standing orders. I know that Ms Szuty has foreshadowed publicly that she is going to use standing order 174. Standing order 174 says:
Immediately after a bill has been agreed to in principle a Member may move that the bill be referred to a select or standing committee.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I read this standing order to the 20 or so people who phoned me and said, "You are stopping this Bill; you are being terrible about it". I said, "No, no; let me read to you the standing order. This Bill was tabled in December. It is to be debated in principle. Here is the standing order. That is the normal process. It is part of the normal process of consideration of a Bill; it is nothing out of the ordinary. It is just that the Minister happens to want to push this one through very fast because he wants to sing - and who knows why? - instead of allowing it to go through the appropriate process".
Granted, this is a public health issue, and therefore we ought to work as quickly as we can. That is why I have said that, if the foreshadowed motion of Ms Szuty's is passed, I will be doing my best - and I would hope that other members of that committee, if they are in agreement, will also do their best - to ensure that we have this Bill and recommendations back for debate at the next sittings. I think it is quite possible and I think it is a reasonable expectation. It is a reasonable expectation not only of members but also of the community. It is the appropriate way to deal with issues that have us all going in exactly the same direction, but on which there is some difference of opinion on how we should go about it. That is all that it is about.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .