Page 5414 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 8 December 2009
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community. We know that smoking is the single most preventable cause of death and illness in Australia. Indeed, smoking accounts for 80 per cent of all lung cancer deaths and 20 per cent of all cancer deaths overall, as well as many other insidious illnesses.
According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, smoking vastly increases the risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and reduced lung function. The evidence clearly shows that passive smoking also causes lower respiratory illnesses in children and lung cancer in adults. It also contributes to the symptoms of asthma in children. The evidence also shows that the risk of heart attack or death from coronary heart disease is 24 per cent higher in non-smokers living with a smoker. That is evidence drawn from a scientific information paper from the National Health and Medical Research Council in 1997. I do not think that the facts are in dispute. I think everybody in this Assembly and in the community will be well aware of the insidious effects of tobacco smoking.
As I said, the opposition does support the legislation and its objectives. We believe there is great value in minimising as much as possible both workers’ and the public’s exposure to tobacco smoke. As well as sending a strong message to young people that smoking is not fashionable, it does cause a number of health problems for people—both for themselves and for others.
In proposing the restrictions, however, it is worth looking at the impact they will have for businesses as well as examining how they can be practically implemented on the ground. We are, therefore, supportive of the designated outdoor smoking area provisions, the DOSA provisions, as outlined in new section 9F, which allows for up to 50 per cent of a venue’s outdoor area to be designated as a smoking area as well as the strict requirements that apply to DOSAs. We also believe that the provision to allow DOSA balances the need to further reduce the community’s exposure to environmental tobacco smoke against the needs of business and, indeed, of smokers themselves.
The requirements for venues that establish a DOSA to also produce a smoking management plan is a step forward, and we support it. But we do note that this is an increase in the red tape that is being imposed increasingly on our businesses here in the ACT. I flag now that I will be proposing an amendment that will aim to make this legislation more effective and more practical in its implementation in smaller venues. We will come to that later.
I think that there is a balance to be achieved in the community between the effects of smoking, the practical implementation of reductions and the effect on small business. Indeed, I think that you have at one extreme the ability to say there will be no smoking at all—outlaw it in our community—and at the other end is probably where we were not that long ago, saying you can just smoke at will wherever you like.
I think that the government has put forward a reasonable bill in trying to find a happy medium. This can actually reduce the amount of smoking and also make sure that we are doing it in a practical way without unduly impinging either on people’s rights or pushing people to a point of a view where smoking becomes an illegal product, thus giving rise to the sorts of problems that we see with prohibition.
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