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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (15 May) . . Page.. 1548 ..

Mr Berry: Mr Speaker, on a point of order: I insist.

MR MOORE: I have no intention of withdrawing, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: I will have to take the appropriate action, Mr Moore.

MR MOORE: I understand that, Mr Speaker. I am not in a position to be able to withdraw that.

MR SPEAKER: Very well. I am afraid that I have to name you, Mr Moore.

MR MOORE: I understand that, Mr Speaker.

Motion (by Mr Humphries) agreed to:

That Mr Moore be suspended from the service of the Assembly.

MR SPEAKER: Mr Moore, you are suspended from the service of the Assembly for three sitting hours.

Mr Moore accordingly withdrew from the chamber.

MR STEFANIAK (Minister for Education and Training) (6.01): I was listening to Mr Berry. I am not going to make any comments in relation to conflicts of interest or anything like that. However, a few points Mr Berry raised are quite ludicrous.

Mr Berry: It is a good idea. I will have no-one to argue with.

MR SPEAKER: But if you continue to interject I will deal with that, too.

MR STEFANIAK: I would ask you to do that, Mr Speaker. Mr Berry kept talking about the tobacco industry. He implied that the tobacco industry lobbied people in relation to this legislation. The only people lobbying in relation to a very reasonable extension of time to enable struggling businesses to comply ultimately with this law are the Australian Hotels Association, which I believe those three gentlemen up the back represent. They are, quite properly, trying to protect their members, many of whom are struggling in small taverns and many of whom have patrons who smoke and will probably continue to smoke regardless of whether these amendments are passed or not. They are not going to make one iota of difference to whether many of those people stop smoking or not.

What Mr Berry is aiming for and what this Government is aiming for in terms of discouraging people from smoking is not going to be served one way or the other by what happens to this legislation. The aim is to assist some very small and struggling businesses in Canberra to get over a difficult period by giving them a reasonable but fairly limited period of time - only 17 months - to come to grips with the legislation and put in smoke extraction machines. Quite clearly, because of their problems at present, they cannot do that now.

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