Page 1746 - Week 06 - Thursday, 19 May 1994
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MR BERRY: You would not expect anything from the Liberals; you would expect them to drop onside with the tobacco companies. It would never surprise anybody out in the community if they dropped onside with tobacco and business interests. There would be shock and amazement out there in the community to see Mr Moore drop onside with these interests. I think you have lost an opportunity, Mr Moore, and I feel sorry for you.
MADAM SPEAKER: I call Mr De Domenico.
Mr Berry: I did not think you were going to speak until I got up, Tony.
MR DE DOMENICO (11.52): You are right again, Mr Berry. You are not often right, but this time you are. I would not have spoken if you had not given us your diatribe. I congratulate all members of the committee and the committee secretary for the report before us. It goes to prove that, whenever simplistic ideas based on politically outdated manifestos are put before this Assembly, they do not stand up to scrutiny. What the committee has done has shown again that something put up to this Assembly by the former Minister, Mr Berry, has not stood up to scrutiny, and it never will.
From the quick reading I have done of the report and from the speeches of the three members of the committee - and they are the ones on whom we should place all the credibility - commonsense has come to the fore on this occasion. Commonsense usually avoids backlash. Most of the time I am against imposing on people legislation requiring them to do things or not to do things, but in this place I have grown to accept the reality that sometimes that needs to be done and that, when it needs to be done, not everybody is going to be happy with it. That is where compromise and commonsense come in. This report has shown to me that you can have a commonsense approach with which most people should be happy. If you can convince them that you have considered something and then come up with a commonsense approach, they should be happy.
As Mr Moore, Ms Ellis and Mr Westende said, there was a lot of talk about the Australian standard. So there should be. Mr Berry, on the other hand, talked about the ubiquitous worker. What are we going to do to protect the worker? What about the worker? Had Mr Berry looked closely at the legislation, had he looked closely at occupational health and safety standards, he would have known that they have identical air standards. That is point No. 1. So much for the worker. Of course occupational health and safety standards should protect the worker. They would be deficient if they did not. If Mr Berry looks at it very closely, he will find identical air standards. So much for that.
A lot has been said about the public health issue. Mr Berry said that, had the Liberals and Mr Moore bitten the bullet, they would not have come up with the 25 per cent-75 per cent scenario for restaurants. I am suggesting that it was because the majority of the members of the committee decided to bite the bullet and commonsense prevailed. Mr Berry, rather than talking about other people biting the bullet, should have looked into the mirror he invited Mr Moore to look into. Mr Berry was virtually saying, "It is okay to smoke in a pub or a casino, but it is not okay to smoke in a restaurant". What about that for biting the bullet? Before Mr Berry comes in here and talks about philosophical things that other people should do, he should look at himself very closely. It is no wonder that I was drawn to stand up and speak about this.
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