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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 08 Hansard (Wednesday, 4 August 2004) . . Page.. 3447 ..

My amendments simply put off the start date by a further year to bring the legislation very closely into line with the previous decision of this Assembly on the ban of smoking of tobacco in all licensed premises. It does give restaurants, clubs, pubs and taverns some further time to adjust. I think that is reasonable as long as people know that there will be an inexorable continuation of this process. With that in mind, the opposition will not be opposing the bill.

MR CORNWELL (4.24): Mr Speaker, I rise to reluctantly support this legislation. I do so because I feel something of a hypocrite. The problem is that, in my opinion, what we are debating here is the use of tobacco, not the use of tobacco by children. I was interested to see that Ms Dundas said in the overview of the explanatory statement that she presented when introducing this legislation:

This Bill has been tabled in response to concern that cigarette vending machines remain a common source of tobacco products for minors, and also to accompany the Territory’s prohibition on smoking in enclosed places.

In relation to the latter, that simply is not so. The banning of a vending machine is not necessarily going to reinforce the prohibition on smoking in enclosed public places. People may very well buy cigarettes from vending machines and go outside and smoke them for all I know.

The real point is her statement “response to concern that cigarette vending machines remain a common source of tobacco products for minors”. There is nothing in the tabling speech to indicate that and figures were not produced. I welcome Mr Wood’s comment on this matter. Correct me if I am wrong, Mr Wood, but I think you said that something like 1 per cent of cigarettes are sold through vending machines.

Mr Wood: One per cent of the last purchase was from a vending machine.

MR CORNWELL: Thank you. That is the only figure that I have seen. It is all very well to say that they “remain a common source of tobacco products for minors”. Please prove it. Ms Dundas said in her speech:

These machines were often left unsupervised, easily reached by children ...

She also said:

While we have laws specifically prohibiting children from accessing vending machines, they are quite often ignored and ineffective.

Frankly, we have a lot of laws in this town on a whole raft of things that are ignored and ineffective—graffiti, litter, whatever we may like to talk about. But we do not turn around and ban, or seek to ban, these things simply because we cannot enforce legislation concerning them. That, therefore, concerns me.

The other thing that worries me a little bit is that, having achieved this in relation to cigarette vending machines, what is next—alcohol vending machines, soft drink vending machines, sweets vending machines—

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