Page 1012 - Week 03 - Thursday, 10 March 2016
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Second-hand smoke can be particularly harmful to children, due to their smaller lungs and higher breathing rates than adults. Those exposed to the smoke can suffer an increased risk of sudden infant death syndrome, middle ear infections, upper and lower repertory infections, asthma, chronic cough, development delays and other conditions.
As such, smoke-free areas are a vitally important tool to protect the health of our community. They reduce exposure to second-hand smoke and improve health outcomes in smokers and non-smokers. They assist smokers to quit or reduce their cigarette consumption. They also play an important role in de-normalising smoking in the community, which helps to prevent our children and young people from taking up the habit.
The ACT government has a strong record of leadership in tobacco control and smoke-free environments. The ACT’s comprehensive approach to tobacco control includes measures intended to reduce demand, control supply and protect non-smokers from the harmful effects of tobacco smoke. Under existing ACT laws, smoking is banned in all enclosed public places, including shopping centres, cinemas, office buildings, buses, taxis, restaurants, pubs and clubs. Smoking is also banned in outdoor eating and drinking areas, at underage music and dance functions and in cars when children under the age of 16 years are present.
This bill will enable new smoke-free areas in the ACT to be introduced via subordinate legislation rather than time-consuming and inflexible primary legislation. There are several benefits from this new streamlined approach. Importantly, the new approach will enable the ACT government to respond in a more timely manner to community calls for additional smoke-free areas. The new approach also promotes greater flexibility in declaring specific public places or events smoke free, as each place or event can be considered on a case-by-case basis.
The ACT government recognises the need to ensure a balanced approach to establishing new smoke-free areas using the proposed ministerial declaration power. It is for this reason that the bill requires two ministers to jointly declare a public place or event smoke free following a rigorous risk assessment process to ensure there is due consideration of the costs and benefits of making a public place or event smoke free. This assessment will include consideration of factors such as how often the area is visited by children or families, the impact on community health, economic and business impacts, the outcomes of community consultation and measures to promote compliance.
Community consultation will help inform the decision-making process for each ministerial declaration. This consultation will include the people and organisations that would be directly affected by the declaration. It is envisaged that there may be circumstances where it is both feasible and desirable for a designated smoking area to be established at a declared smoke-free public place or event. For example, at some events there may be a business case to permit smoking in part of the event and it may not be practicable for smokers to periodically exit the event. Given this, the bill allows for a designated smoking area to be declared if needed.
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