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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Wednesday, 30 June 2004) . . Page.. 3082 ..

MS TUCKER (5.36): The Greens will be supporting this motion and the amendment. Tobacco smoking is perhaps the single most preventable cause of premature death and disease in Australia. There is little doubt that dealing with tobacco smoking is a major public health issue for all jurisdictions in Australia. It is estimated that smoking kills more than 19,000 Australians each year, with thousands more suffering debilitating illness.

The ACT has been quite progressive in implementing dates to remove smoking from clubs and pubs. However, there is debate about how to manage patients in our hospital system who are nicotine dependent. New South Wales has introduced clear protocols that propose that hospital staff identify nicotine dependent patients, give patients information about the smoke-free policy, provide prompt and appropriate treatment to patients experiencing nicotine withdrawal, provide brief intervention for smoking cessation and advise discharging patients on options for permanent cessation.

This program for patients in hospital is followed up by a call-back service provided by Quitline where callers can arrange for a day and time to suit them. These steps were incorporated into routine patient care in 2002. The program has not yet been formally evaluated, so there is no evidence about the effectiveness of the program. However, there are reasons to believe that this program will significantly contribute to the health and wellbeing of the patient population and sends a clear message to the public of the health consequences of smoking.

I am happy to support the substantive motion recognising that smokers have poorer health and that people hospitalised for smoking-related illness will have higher motivation to quit smoking. It seems that patients in hospital would focus on their own health, and it may reaffirm a desire in them to quit smoking. I do not think that any quit smoking programs should be made compulsory for smokers. However, an opportunity to look at health issues while in hospital seems sensible.

We would also be interested to see the evaluation of what happened in New South Wales, whenever that comes about, because that could inform government policy. As I understand it, this motion does not have significant cost implications because a position has been funded. That person is no longer working there, and the position has not been refilled. It seems as though some quite good work was done in this area and then it dropped off. This motion draws attention to that fact.

I once again briefly raise the fact that it is the same with substance abuse, it is the same with alcohol abuse and it is the same with mental illness. The whole thing has to be seen in the context of society and the social condition of people. I am always concerned when I hear people taking the line, “These people are poor already. How come they can afford cigarettes?” There is a real correlation between being poor and doing things that are not good for you. It is all about how you feel as a human being, and it is pretty obvious if you think about it.

This sort of health campaign is great and it is useful, but let’s not pretend that is the fundamental issue, because it is not. You need extreme discipline to stop smoking. It is extremely difficult. I have been told that getting off tobacco is harder than getting off heroin and, if people are not feeling good about their lives, they are not going to bother if

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