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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 14 Hansard (9 December) . . Page.. 4986 ..

MRS CROSS (continuing):

The studies that have shown that passive smoking is dangerous and that, in fact, exemptions were not as efficient as they should have been, which is one point, but it is a shame that we have bureaucrats there to do a particular job after laws are passed-I understand the exemptions issue has been around for a number of years-and they do not actually implement the laws we pass. We have rules there and we have laws there. Why is it that we do not actually enforce them. It is a bit of a joke, really.

At least the well-intentioned in this place that wanted this smoking issue addressed have tried their best to do it in the quickest possible way. It is a shame that when we do try to get things through as quickly as some of us would like we are hindered by a number of varied agendas.

MR CORBELL (Minister for Health and Minister for Planning) (11.27), in reply: It was with pleasure that I tabled on 23 October this year the report on indoor air quality monitoring for environmental tobacco smoke in premises with exemptions under the ACT Smoke-Free Areas (Enclosed Public Places) Act and the government's response to that report. I was pleased to present these documents for several reasons. I believe that they comprehensively address the issues raised by the Assembly in the original motion of 25 September last year. They also represent a significant contribution to our knowledge about tobacco smoke in social venues. This information has proved to be useful to a wide range of people, including proprietors and staff, as well as the public health officers in the ACT and in other jurisdictions.

The report is the product of a cooperative effort between the Health Protection Service's environmental health unit and government analytical laboratory, ACT WorkCover, and dozens of proprietors of restaurants, pubs, clubs and bars where the indoor air quality monitoring took place. As I explained when I tabled the report, the fires which destroyed the Health Protection Service's building in Holder in January of this year resulted in the loss of some of the data, the need to retest some premises and, most importantly, severe disruption to the work of the public health officers and laboratory analysts involved. I would like again to place on the record my acknowledgment of their contribution in developing and presenting this work.

The context of the Assembly's original motion made clear that the focus of the study should be on environmental tobacco smoke, or ETS as it is known, and the extent to which ETS may be present in premises which are exempt under the smoke-free areas act. Given the common assumption that people working or socialising in non-smoking areas would be protected from ETS, the focus of the study was on these non-smoking areas. Some monitoring also took place in premises where smoking was not permitted. The two substances that were chosen for monitoring purposes-airborne nicotine and small respirable particles-have been widely used as ETS markers and have been found to be satisfactory indicators of ETS in a number of other studies.

Mr Speaker, protocols for the conduct of the study called for the cooperation of premises proprietors. Each proprietor was notified in advance that the monitoring would be taking place on a specified date and time. Premises and monitoring dates were chosen at random in November last year from a list of exempt premises, with adjustments made where necessary to take account of normal operating hours and to ensure a reasonable representation of different types and sizes of premises.

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