Page 5290 - Week 14 - Thursday, 19 November 2009
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Mr Coe: Neither is here.
MS GALLAGHER: Well, we will just wait, Alistair; there is more to come. Mrs Dunne, let us just—
Mrs Dunne: And you voted against that bill, didn’t you?
MS GALLAGHER: Yes, we did. And you can reflect on the debate and Mrs Dunne’s quote:
The quality of the debate in here in defence of the indefensible is very low—
that is, I presume, the defence of fireworks—
It is time that the members of this place took a good hard look at themselves and, in accord with the overwhelming views of the community, supported Mr Pratt’s legislation.
We have got some gems from Mr Smyth; we have got some gems from Mr Doszpot as well. We will come to those, I am sure, in the course of this debate.
As members are aware, the government will not be supporting this disallowance motion. The Dangerous Substances (Explosives) Amendment Regulation 2009 amends the Dangerous Substances (Explosives) Regulation 2004 to ban the use of fireworks by members of the public. The use of fireworks by the public on the Queen’s Birthday weekend will no longer be permitted. Retailers will no longer be able to sell fireworks to the public.
I have had a long involvement in this, as Mrs Dunne has. I was the Minister for Industrial Relations back in 2002 when we implemented a tighter regulatory regime. I was there when we opposed Mr Pratt’s bill, again in the belief that we could tighten regulations and deal with the community concern that was coming. For a couple of years, we did see some gains in community compliance around the consumer use of fireworks, but those have not been sustained.
Governments need to take decisions based on the evidence before them. That is why this government has taken the decision we have, to move in line with other jurisdictions and move to ban the use of consumer fireworks.
If we look around the country, we see that it was Western Australia that first introduced a ban on the use of consumer fireworks. This occurred in 1967. So 42 years ago the Western Australian government took the decision to ban consumer fireworks. They took this decision after increasing pressure from the medical fraternity and parents who were concerned about the number of injuries, particularly to children.
Five years after that, in 1972, the Queensland government brought forward a regulatory ban on the use of fireworks by members of the public. The reason the government took this action was the number of injuries occurring to people and
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