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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 7 Hansard (24 June) . . Page.. 2311 ..

MR SMYTH

said, "Okay guys. Those in the trade clean up the act; stop selling the illegals; sell only in the agreed time frame-and the industry can survive."

Unfortunately, that did not happen, so in 1999 we introduced tougher regulations which limited the period. We went for the permit-and tried to get people to behave in a responsible manner-but, again, that did not happen. I recall that, in Tuggeranong, in the 1999 and 2000 fireworks seasons, the then current line was that, on a Saturday night, it sounded more like Sarajevo than Tuggeranong.

People should be able to enjoy fireworks safely. In the main, we are a responsible community. I do not know of anyone who would deliberately go out of their way to hurt somebody. Nevertheless, the reality is that there are still elements who are willing to sell fireworks illegally, and there are elements who are willing to use them illegally.

We tightened it up in 2000 and it was tightened up in 2001. Congratulations go to the government on their attempts to tighten it up in 2002-03, but the reality is that it has not worked. Going through 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003, that is six years worth of tightening up a system which, for some odd reason, refuses to be tightened up. It is time to say, "Enough is enough. The money, time and effort being expended here is ridiculous."

There are dilemmas with some of the other acts, such as the Dangerous Goods Act. If my memory serves me right, the current act says that shopgood fireworks in this category can contain up to 40 grams of explosive material.

Mr Speaker, when you and I were kids, we were using thunders, penny bombs, po-has and tom thumbs. In those days, the explosive material was simple black powder. With the quantities contained in those fireworks, skyrockets and some of the other things we had available to us as kids, they were certainly dangerous, yet they were nowhere near as dangerous as some of the things being sold illegally on the market today. There are strike funnels, for which you do not need matches-you simply strike the abrasive edge on something and, if you manage to make contact, it goes off. Often you cannot tell whether or not it is a live firework until it explodes.

The more worrying trend is that the up to 40 grams of explosive material-black powder-which we used to get is now any concoction of chemicals that somebody can bung inside a paper casing. Therein lies the danger. Forty grams is not much, but 40 grams of a concentrated chemical compound will take your hand off-it will kill someone.

That is bad enough in its own right, but the sorts of fireworks that were going off across Canberra last weekend-and I have had several kinds identified to me-would indicate that professional fireworks, other than shopgood fireworks, are being sold by the industry.

These are the things that are dangerous. Some of the fireworks are called mortars. You can have two-inch, three-inch and four-inch mortars, to be fired out of a mortar tube and propelled several hundred metres into the air, where they explode. That is what we see at Skyfire.

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