Page 1962 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 15 June 1994
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MR HUMPHRIES: I am all in favour of consulting; but, when I can see that the people who are speaking on a matter are speaking out of self-interest, are defending some particular interest rather than the broader community interest, I would take action that was appropriate in those circumstances. This Government knows full well that it is right to introduce a pubcard and it is right to proceed down this track now. The fact that they have had to wait for that consent to come from that particular sector of the community should have been irrelevant in that process. Either the idea is a good one or it is not. You have accepted that it is a good idea. The question remains: Why was it not done three years ago rather than now?
Mr Deputy Speaker, it is not just in respect of access to alcohol that we need to have this kind of initiative. In recent months Mrs Carnell has drawn attention to the fact that we do not have any effective means of policing our existing laws, passed in 1990, to enforce lack of access by people under the age of 18 to tobacco.
Mr Connolly: Do not worry about that, Mr Humphries; it is well in hand.
MR HUMPHRIES: It has not been well handled in the last three years, Mr Connolly. Nothing has been done, frankly, in the last three years to ensure that those laws, all passed unanimously by this Assembly, were enforced. Nothing was done. To my knowledge, not a single prosecution was launched.
Mr Connolly: No; that is not correct. There was one that went through to the DPP.
MR HUMPHRIES: Well, almost nothing has been done to enforce those laws. We all know that in this Territory it has been almost equally as easy to get hold of a packet of cigarettes, if you happen to be 16 or 15 years old, as it has been to get hold of a bottle of beer. Nothing has been done by this Government. Pubcard will be a useful instrument not just for purveyors of alcohol but also for retailers of tobacco products to try to prevent that relatively free access by young people to that product as well.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I think it is extremely important that we acknowledge the timeliness of this initiative and that we also acknowledge that the Government has been disgracefully inactive on this question in the last three years. It stands condemned for not having taken any serious initiative to get this thing to the stage where it is being implemented. Today we have, I think, more than anything else, the proximity of the 18 February election to thank for the fact that we are getting this long overdue and important initiative in the ACT.
MRS GRASSBY (12.24): I, like Mr Stevenson, always worry about identification cards, and I will not have this called a pubcard. If anybody wants to get an identification card, this is a good way to do so. They will be free to have it or not to have it.
Mr Moore: That is very important.
MRS GRASSBY: Mr Moore knows full well, and so does Mrs Carnell, because she heard it, that this will not fix under-age drinking.
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