Page 3290 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 September 1994
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MR BERRY: Madam Speaker, I understand why Mr Moore is sensitive about this issue. He says that it is all right with him if I debate the issues. Now it seems that he does not want me to reflect on the committee either. It is a bit hard to debate the issues without reflecting on somebody. What I will do is reflect on the people who have supported it. The rest of Australia was looking for leadership in the ACT and I think they would be disappointed by the committee's report. Unless you get up in this Assembly and agree with the committee's report, it seems that Mr Moore is going to be agitated and will try to use the standing orders to block any discussion of the issue. The fact is that the committee's report is to be criticised, and it is fair that it be criticised, because, as a result of it, the Assembly moved and adopted certain parts of it which offend public health authorities around the country. You are going to have to take the responsibility for that. If you do not like it you should not have gone down that path, for heaven's sake. That is the issue.
The Liberals, led by a health professional, have something to worry about as well. I do not think there would be anybody out there in the community who would believe that a health professional would take us down this path - that is, to adopt a position in this committee which brings us to a point where Australian Standard 1668.2 allows for or encourages tobacco consumption in premises in the ACT. What we do about the culture of smoking out there in the community and how we deal with it has been largely avoided. So I think, Madam Speaker, that there would be a lot of disappointment about the committee's report. I think there would be a lot of support for Ms Ellis's dissenting position, and I support it. I think she did a brilliant job, and she is on the public record as showing the way forward on this issue. It was a great piece of work, in my view.
I have long been a supporter of action on this score. I think it is regrettable that we have not been able to go down the path that Ms Ellis adopted. I think we are in a position now where we will be criticised, rightly, by public health authorities. Well, some of us will be criticised. I will not be; that is for sure. Some of us will be criticised for our behaviour on this score by public health authorities around this country. Mr Humphries was responsible for the introduction of some groundbreaking legislation some time ago, and there has been, it seems, a complete turnaround on trying to achieve a change in the culture of smoking.
Mr Humphries: This is the most advanced legislation in the country, Wayne.
MR BERRY: You have gone down the path of supporting the culture of tobacco consumption out there in the community. Your leader suggests that she knows something about health. She certainly has not demonstrated her commitment to public health on this score at least. Madam Speaker, I think Labor has delivered on its promise, in the sense that it brought this legislation to the Assembly. The legislation, as I have said publicly, is better than nothing at all; but it is regrettable that it went down the path suggested by this committee.
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