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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 10 Hansard (12 October) . . Page.. 3002 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

restaurants, shopping centres and hotel lobbies. Although several jurisdictions have recently taken action to protect people from tobacco smoke, this protection is still a long way from being systematic and universal throughout Australia.

It is all too easy to take our achievements for granted. In the years ahead our children will be amazed to learn that people were not always expected to find a special smoking area or to step outside of a workplace or public place when they wanted to smoke. I will relate an event that occurred recently. A long-term friend reminded me how I had asked her not to smoke in my motor vehicle and how shocked she was at the time. I am talking about the early 1970s. Look at the attitude of people now. No smoker I know would dream of smoking in somebody's car without first asking. They probably would not even ask, I would imagine.

I expect that in the years ahead our children will also have to think hard to remember that supermarkets, petrol stations and other retail outlets were once festooned in tobacco advertising, including giant mock-up cigarette packets, stacks of colourful cartons taking up entire windows, cigarette brand banners draped from the ceiling, cardboard racing cars with cigarette brand logos in the window, posters of long sandy beaches and women's legs and cute little dogs, perspex display cases with mock-ups of cool, fresh-looking snow-covered mountains, and row after row of in-your-face cigarette packets not only behind the counter but above it, on top of it, inside it and in front of it.

This legislation is designed to reduce children's exposure to tobacco products and to tobacco product advertising and promotion. It is also designed to make it much more difficult for children to obtain tobacco products, and it emphasises the responsibilities that tobacco retailers have if they choose to sell tobacco products. The proof of age requirements are a particularly important element of this legislation. Tied into the tobacco licensing system, these requirements will ensure that responsible retailers will be supported in their compliance measures. Non-complying retailers will face the prospect of having their tobacco licence suspended or revoked.

Research has shown that denormalising the use of tobacco products and reducing children's exposure to tobacco advertising and promotion are crucial in reducing the likelihood of children taking up smoking. Without these things, health messages from parents and educators can be easily undermined by what children see around them. The proposed legislation does not prevent adult purchasers from being given the product and price information they need to make a tobacco purchase.

This legislation is eminently reasonable and timely. These provisions have been developed as a result of extensive consultation with health groups, business groups and other States and Territories, and I am confident they will be practicable, workable and effective.

Several issues have been raised with respect to whether the Government's proposed approach will do what they have set out to do in a reasonable, practical and effective way. I would like to comment briefly about some of those issues. First, given that this is tobacco control legislation, there is nothing startling in the claim that health groups say the legislation does not go far enough and that the tobacco lobby, particularly the retailers, say it goes too far. This is reminiscent of the debate over the smoke-free areas Act, when health interests favoured a complete and immediate ban on smoking in all

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