Page 1736 - Week 06 - Thursday, 19 May 1994
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or the significant effects of passive smoking comes from studies of the partners or spouses of smokers, and there is no doubt that there are significant health impacts from passive smoking. I believe that this legislation was passed in principle by this house because we recognise that that is the case.
There is one particular factor that we must take into account in dealing with that, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will refer now to our report, at paragraph 2.27. A Victorian study indicated how much time people spent at home, how much time they spent at work and how much time they spent in other places. Restaurants, the only places really focused on by Mr Berry, represent only a small part of the third dot point in that paragraph. Sixty-eight per cent of our time is spent at home, 18 per cent at work, and 6.1 per cent in other places. Restaurants are a small part of other places. When we are talking about a dose related problem, it is important for us to realise that a small exposure, certainly from the epidemiological point of view, would indicate that there is a very minor risk. Nevertheless, Mr Deputy Speaker, there is a health concern about smoking and about passive smoking. Had the proponents of this legislation been really interested in the genuine public health question, the population health question, they would have taken on the difficult areas and gone well beyond just the restaurant solution, the simple solution, the simplistic solution of a simpleton.
The other part of the problem in dealing with simplistic solutions is that they invite backlash. There was an article recently in the Financial Review, taken from the New York Times, referring to a backlash in California where, through their citizens-initiated referendum legislation, an approach is being engineered by the tobacco companies, particularly by Philip Morris. The report says:
The proposal would replace about 270 stringent local smoking laws in California with a single, less stringent State law. More directly, the proposal would allow business and building owners rather than government officials to decide where to permit smoking, so long as it was in designated, well-ventilated areas.
Mr Deputy Speaker, if we are serious about this we have to be very careful to structure a solution that will work and that will not invite backlash. That is what the majority report of the committee has done. It is particularly important that we do not ignore young people and the places where smoking is at its greatest. Mr Berry's simplistic solution ignored the areas that were of greatest harm. If he was genuinely interested in population health he would not have ignored those.
The recommendations, Mr Deputy Speaker, can be found on page ix of our report. The structure proposed is:
1. An immediate ban on smoking in such places as shopping malls, schools, taxis, public transport -
that includes drivers of buses -
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