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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 10 Hansard (12 October) . . Page.. 3001 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

the misery and death. If in doing that we also manage to reduce tobacco smoking so much that some retailers have to find other things to sell if their work is not to disappear from around them, that is a minor consequence compared to 18,000 deaths and to the incredible suffering that occurs.

The significant burden that tobacco imposes on our health care system represents abnormal personal and social costs which are borne not only by the community but also by individual families. I know all members agree with that. There are now more ex-smokers than current smokers in Australia. I think that is a fantastic achievement. Most people who do smoke would like to quit. Smokers and non-smokers alike are dismayed and outraged when they perceive that not enough is being done to discourage children in particular from smoking. I know all members agree with that.

The ACT, together with other States and Territories, has endorsed the new national tobacco strategy. The national strategy emphasises the approach that this Territory has long taken, a comprehensive approach encompassing measures aimed at both reducing demand and controlling supply. The approach also fits within the harm minimisation framework and characterises our sensible and realistic approach to licit and illicit drugs.

Harm minimisation accommodates a range of strategies which need to be considered in terms of various factors. These include the legal status of the drug, the personal and social context of its use, the health risks to the individual, the nature and extent of the effects on the wider community, and the realistic options for reducing the harms. This means that there will be different responses to different types of drugs.

It should be a matter of pride for every member of this Assembly that throughout the years and throughout the various governments the ACT's leadership in tobacco control has been acknowledged by health organisations and by other States and Territories. It started with Wayne Berry when he was the Health Minister and continued through Mr Humphries, Wayne Berry again and Mrs Carnell. Now I am delighted to have the privilege to be able to lead the Territory on this particular issue. But it is, and has always been, a shared issue in this Assembly, except of course for the dissenting voice of Dennis Stevenson, who so often made a point of taking a position at odds with the prevailing views of the Assembly.

I believe that all quarters of this chamber welcome initiatives designed to reduce the harm associated with the use and exposure of tobacco products. Of course there will always be some minor issues on which we have slight differences of opinion. But the overall thrust of what is occurring in this Assembly has always been within that context. It would be a shame if the present opportunity to continue public health leadership ever went back to the Stevenson era. We have to be careful to ensure that does not happen.

In addition to multiparty support in this Assembly, there has been strong community support for tobacco control measures It is important to acknowledge and build on that support now. The ACT's smoke-free areas Act, which has gradually extended smoke-free environments to a range of enclosed public places over the past five years, has received strong support from customers and from proprietors alike. There are constant stories about the surprise and disbelief of ACT residents when they travel interstate or, even worse, overseas and are forced to breathe other people's smoke in

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