Page 1504 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 6 June 2007
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used to be in this place, at least had the dignity to stand aside because he took a job with a club that had poker machines that paid for his coaching benefits.
Let us not stand here and throw stones. People in glasshouses should be very careful, Ms Porter. I am looking forward to hearing your commitment not to take a cent from poker machine revenue. It will be interesting to see if you have the courage of your convictions, because I think we all acknowledge that there are problems with gambling. So if we are going to pick on one vice, let us pick on them all. Let us have them all on the table, and if you want to bare your soul, Ms Porter, go for your life. If you are living in a glasshouse, you need to be very, very careful before you come into this place and poke fun at others. I think that takes away from the debate.
Mrs Burke and Ms Gallagher got it right when they said that there is a growing maturity in the debate in the city, and that is a good thing. We need to look at it. We need to keep those numbers in front of us. Every year in this country, 19,000 deaths are related to tobacco products. That is a huge number. When you consider that road fatalities are down by about 1,800 from a high of about 6,000 in the late sixties and early seventies, because we have taken steps as a community to minimise the impact, which is a good thing, tobacco related deaths are right up there. Tobacco is a far greater blight on society than all the money that we spend on illicit drugs. It is the worst drug of the lot.
I am grateful that the minister has indicated that she is happy to accept the amendment. We need to know what the government is doing. The community wants to know what the time frame is. I thank Ms Porter and Ms Gallagher for agreeing to Mrs Burke’s amendment.
MS PORTER (Ginninderra) (4.52): I would like to thank all members who have participated in this important debate. I was really confident that bipartisan agreement on this issue would be achieved as there is no doubt the cost to the ACT community in terms of our health and our budget is significant. As all speakers have said, it is obvious that the arguments about passive smoking are now won. It is rather like the climate change debate, really. We now know that smoking is harming the smoker and harming those who are exposed to smoking, yet, as the minister said, it is surprising that we are still debating the pros and cons of various reforms.
Earlier the minister and others in this place clearly articulated the effects of this unfortunate habit. I could go through all the long list of health effects again. However, perhaps it would be more useful to remind members why the harm is caused. I quote from a document from a site called Better Health Channel, which is a Victorian government site. I will not read all of it, obviously. The document refers to the content of tobacco smoke and states:
Tar—this is a collective term for all the various particles suspended in tobacco smoke. The particles contain chemicals including several cancer-causing substances ...
Carbon monoxide—this odourless gas is fatal in large doses because it takes the place of oxygen in the blood ...
Hydrogen cyanide—the lungs contain tiny hairs (cilia) that helps to clean the lungs by moving foreign substances out. Hydrogen cyanide stops this lung
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