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In this debate, members have raised the issue of the impact on young people, and they are quite right to do so. The figures that I have from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which are the 1992 figures - they may be the most up-to-date ones, but I am not sure - indicate that in every age group in our community the predominance of males over females among those who smoke is marked, except for the age group of 18- to 19-year-olds. Similarly, for those under the age of 18 - for the ages of 14, 15, 16 and 17 - there is a significantly greater number of females smoking than of males smoking. That indicates clearly what the problem for us is. It is young people picking up a habit, young people not understanding the implications of that decision that they make, young people being affected by the role models that people referred to earlier in the debate, and particularly young females believing that this is glamorous or attractive or necessary to fit in with a peer group or whatever it might be. We need to be focusing our message very much on those people and working out what will most influence them.
These days, many young women enjoy football and other sports which used to be considered to be generally the preserve of men. It is, therefore, important that we take steps to ensure that a tobacco message is not subliminally transmitted to those young people through sporting events. That is why, in the ACT, we now largely buy out tobacco sponsorships and why we have a program of moving towards banning all advertising of tobacco products within the ACT. There will also be a problem of events being transmitted from outside the ACT or, indeed, outside Australia. I caught a bit of the Monaco Grand Prix on television the other night, and I noticed that on the fly-wing of every single racing car that went past the camera there was the name of a brand of cigarettes. That kind of message, unfortunately, will continue to reach young Australians and others while we broadcast events of that kind. I do not think we can exactly screen them; but that is an indication of the extent of the problem and possibly an indication of the extent to which other places around the world have yet to follow some of the leads set in this country and, in particular, in the ACT.
Mr Speaker, I think I recall hearing on the radio only this morning that, since 1920, 620,000 Australians have died as a result of consumption of tobacco. That is an appallingly large figure. It is a figure that we must wind back if we are serious about reducing the cost to the community of the consumption of tobacco. I believe that we have made gains in this area, which we must consolidate and must improve upon. It is appropriate on World No Tobacco Day to note those gains and to work towards stronger ways in which we can improve on that effort.
MR MOORE (11.18): Mr Speaker, I take pleasure in rising to support this motion of Mr Berry's. I look back, over the last six years or so of the Assembly, at the number of debates on this issue that I have had with Mr Berry - interestingly, always seeking the same sort of final outcome, but sometimes thinking that going about it in different ways was more appropriate. This motion encapsulates the spirit of what Mr Berry has been trying to achieve and the leadership that he has shown in the Assembly and really, I think, in Australia in terms of this matter. I have no doubt that he would be very pleased that the former president of the AMA, Brendan Nelson, was very much onside with him on this. No doubt it will be interesting for Mr Berry to see whether Brendan Nelson, in his new career, will be able to bring the new group onside in the same way as he was able to bring the AMA onside as far as this issue goes. Terry Connolly commented on the
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