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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 10 Hansard (12 October) . . Page.. 2999 ..
MS CARNELL: No, certainly not since 1997, when it was first registered. The ACCC put out a press release today titled "A.C.C.C. ends Australia Vee Eight Supercar Company Investigation". It suggests that the Australian Vee Eight Supercar Company, the controlling body of V8 supercar motor racing events in Australia, has not contravened the Trade Practices Act 1974. I table that for the interest of members. I also table a couple of articles from Auto Action and Motor Sport News which also run through the issues surrounding the ACCC investigation.
It would appear that the ACCC investigation was to do with two rival V8 entities having, shall we say, some differences of opinion. But the ACCC has found that AVESCO has not in any way contravened the Trade Practices Act. AVESCO is registered, and I think that Mr Corbell should use this opportunity to withdraw any innuendos or any comments that he may have made in this place with regard to AVESCO. Comments about the financial status of the company, its registration and investigations were obviously incorrect, and I think Mr Corbell should withdraw them.
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR RUGENDYKE (4.41): Mr Speaker, the initial version of this Bill caused great problems for me. The intention of the Bill, to reduce smoking and the health problems caused by smoking, was commendable. But the execution of that Bill was certainly lacking. I am pleased that the Health Minister has been willing to compromise and alter elements of that Bill that would have served only as an inappropriate burden on small business.
I am not a smoker, nor am I an advocate of smoking, but I do believe in fair and reasonable terms. The bottom line is that tobacco is a legal product. I do not agree with endorsing means of attacking legitimate small businesses for selling a legal product. If the product was illegal, it would be a different story.
The stringent reforms originally proposed were impossible to take, particularly when you consider that Mr Moore is the same person promoting a soft approach to the smoking of cannabis. On the one hand he has a prohibitionist attitude towards tobacco, and on the other hand he is trying to make other drugs more freely available. This appears to me to be a double standard.
It is not fair to target small businesses when there is no apparent attempt to curb the tobacco black market, which is thriving and certainly does require attention. For example, why is it possible for tobacco shops to sell cigarette tubes - that is, cigarettes without the tobacco? They are clearly sold for the purpose of filling them with black market tobacco.
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