Page 1737 - Week 06 - Thursday, 19 May 1994

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 enclosed recreational and sporting facilities, waiting areas, lobbies, stairways and venues primarily used by people under the age of 18 years ...

This was part of the plan Mr Berry was implementing. It does not move away from that.

The second part of the structure is a 12-month restriction in restaurants, as soon as this legislation is gazetted, to 50 per cent non-smoking in restaurants. That is a temporary measure only. At the end of that 12 months, at the end of that phase-in period, the restaurants will be non-smoking unless they apply for an exemption. An exemption will apply only where they meet the ventilation standard, the health standard, Australian Standard 1668.2 of 1991. Then, according to our recommendations, the maximum area that any restaurant will be allowed to have in which to allow smoking, where they have appropriate ventilation, will be 25 per cent. That ventilation was designed specifically to match outside air quality where people are smoking. It is quite clear; that is what it was designed for. Had Mr Berry's solution been a genuine one, he would have sought to ban smoking not just in restaurants but also in the outside areas where people serve food from restaurants. This practice is growing, and I believe that it is beautifying our city. They are the same standards. That is what a consistent approach would have required, as opposed to a simpleton's simplistic solution approach that was designed simply for political mileage.

The next part of the strategy covers what the legislation simply was not designed to grapple with. At the end of a 30-month period all other public places, including bars, taverns, hotels, licensed clubs and the Canberra casino will be smoke free unless they apply for an exemption which will allow 50 per cent non-smoking, provided they meet those ventilation standards. One has to wonder why it was that the Government was not prepared to wrestle with these areas, often used by blue-collar workers, and an area like the casino. A 30-month period will allow them time to meet these requirements. We have provided a strategy to take into account the issues that are raised in population health terms. (Extension of time granted) We have gone to the area where smoking is genuinely presenting population health problems, where there is the greatest smoking, not where there is minimal smoking. Ms Ellis and I went to New Zealand - she refers to that in her dissenting report - and we found that what had been achieved in the restaurants there was very little different from what had been achieved here without such legislation. I must emphasise that I believe that they had a very different starting point from the starting point that we had in Canberra.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I think that this report provides a guideline as to how to deal with such problems. I do not dismiss lightly Mr Berry's intention to attempt to take the areas that were easiest to deal with and to try to change a community attitude by making an absolute change. I believe that that may have had some impact, and I do not doubt that it was a genuine attempt. Unfortunately, I believe that it would not have worked.

I would like to make a couple of references to the dissenting report of Ms Ellis. In doing so, Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like to emphasise again the goodwill on the committee - unlike the approach taken by Mr Berry - and the attempt made by Ms Ellis at all times in the committee to engage in positive and logical discussion. Often when people have discussions they eventually come down in a different way, with a different attitude.


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