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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 3 Hansard (23 October) . . Page.. 4035 ..

MR CORBELL

Among these initiatives are measures to reduce the demand for tobacco products, to control the supply of tobacco products and to provide effective protection for non-smokers from environmental tobacco smoke. The ACT government has a longstanding commitment to a comprehensive tobacco control program involving all of these areas. ACT Labor governments have been proud to play a national leadership role with a number of the ACT's legislative measures.

The two reports that I have tabled today relate to the important public health issue of passive smoking-exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, or ETS as it is known. In September of last year the Assembly passed a motion recognising the right of all workers to work in an environment free of tobacco smoke. In the context of this motion, the Assembly expressed concern about the adverse health impacts of ETS as well as concern about the limitations of ventilation systems to control tobacco smoke in premises where smoking occurs.

The Assembly called on the government to undertake an analysis of air quality in workplaces where an exemption has been granted under the Smoke Free Areas (Enclosed Public Places) Act 1994 and to table the report of that analysis, together with a government response, by the first sitting day of this year. In February of this year I advised the Assembly about unavoidable delays with the completion of the study and the preparation of the report due to the destruction of the Health Protection Service's building in Holder following the January bushfires, which seriously disrupted the work of the Environmental Health Unit and the ACT Government Analytical Laboratory, both of which were instrumental to the conduct of the study.

I would like to thank members for their patience and understanding in awaiting the delayed results of this study. I would also like to thank the staff of the Health Protection Service for undertaking the work. The valuable assistance provided by ACT WorkCover is also acknowledged.

The report of the indoor air quality analysis describes how the study was conducted and discusses the findings. The study involved recording the concentrations of airborne nicotine and small respirable suspended particles over a four-hour period in a single location in a representative sample of 58 exempt premises. Monitoring also took place in a limited number of non-exempt premises.

Although no perfect way has been found to measure ETS, which is a highly complex mix of about 4,000 ingredients including cancer causing substances, airborne nicotine and respirable particles have been widely used as ETS markers. The presence of these markers is taken to indicate the presence of tobacco smoke.

The crucial findings of the study include the detection at measurable levels of ETS in the non-smoking areas of most exempt premises, particularly licensed premises, as well as the presence of ETS in some premises adjacent to exempt premises. In short, smoke-free areas are not smoke free.

The study found that the concentrations of ETS were related to the number of people smoking in the vicinity of the monitoring. The study concluded that many non-smoking areas are not smoke free and that people in these areas may therefore be exposed to

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