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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 08 Hansard (Wednesday, 4 August 2004) . . Page.. 3445 ..

which otherwise seem to be subject to a fair degree of pilfering. However, I do not think this, in itself, is a reason to license such machines to be operated in public.

I am aware that this legislation mirrors the situation in Tasmania where clubs and pubs have found a way to manage their sale of tobacco so that only some staff involvement—either by selling cigarettes over the counter or triggering their release from a machine—is necessary.

Tobacco is a very interesting drug. It is quickly and powerfully addictive, freely available, linked with glamour and cool, damages smokers and their children, and is enormously expensive in terms of health and lost productivity costs. While it can arguably assist concentration, memory and mood control in some people, it is nonetheless undoubtedly massively damaging to all societies around the world.

The businesses that have profited from tobacco year after year have denied the harm it does and have resisted any controls on its sale. They have sought to expand their markets to young people and increase sales in all communities. Also, they have been at the forefront of high intensity marketing. There is every reason to discourage the use of cigarettes in every conceivable situation. If marketing and sales regulation were to reflect the real impact of this dangerous drug on our community then it would be available only to existing users from pharmacists in unmarked government issue brown paper packages.

It is an interesting contradiction, however, that cigarette smokers can survive extended periods of time without tobacco. These days, aeroplane flights, bus trips and visits to the cinema are all accomplished by smokers without recourse to a smoke. So the culture of smoking, despite every attempt by business to encourage resistance, is changing. The shift towards smoke-free public places is further incontrovertible proof of that.

I would have to say that removing cigarette vending machines from the lexicon of drug delivery systems is a good thing. If it means that some clubs and pubs decide not to sell tobacco products anymore, then I have no doubt that people who are addicted will get their cigarettes from other sources, but under-age access at least will be a little more difficult.

Of course, closing down vending machines is not going to get people off cigarettes. People take up and continue to smoke for a whole number of complex reasons, and availability is only one of them. Issues of class and culture are rarely addressed when people talk about how to change behaviour. While I am happy to support this bill, we should be clear that it will have a small impact on the supply of what is perhaps the most dangerous drug and it will have almost no impact on demand.

MR SMYTH (Leader of the Opposition) (4.19): Mr Speaker, this is an interesting bill. It is a bill that offers half a solution to a problem. Perhaps we should be having a much larger debate rather than tinkering at the edges because even with the removal of vending machines from licensed premises, those premises will still be able to sell tobacco products over the counter.

So the real question here is how do we, as a society, react to the sale of a legal product? Whether you like it or not—and I do not particularly like it—tobacco is a legal product in Australia today. Perhaps it is up to a jurisdiction somewhere, sometime, to have the

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