Page 1747 - Week 06 - Thursday, 19 May 1994
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Mr Westende talked about education, as did Mr Moore and Ms Ellis, I believe. Of course we ought to be looking at education. As a reformed smoker, I am making sure that my kids and others I can influence do not smoke. Smoking is not good. We all know that; all members of the committee know that, as do most members of this Assembly who are non-smokers.
A point was made about the effect on the business community. Once again, I have to say to Mr Berry that usually these things sort themselves out. I can guarantee that, as Mr Westende said, people already have choice in terms of the business community. There are over 100 establishments that provide a completely non-smoking environment. So people do have that choice. As I think Mr Westende said, rights also need to be considered in relation to the people who do smoke. Restaurant owners also have the right to say, "I believe that I can fulfil certain standards". These are worldwide standards, by the way. Let us not talk about the Australian standards being just Australian; we are at the forefront in these standards, according to my advice. So choice does come into it. Landlords, tenants, restaurateurs, consumers, workers and everybody else have rights. That is why the difficult job this committee had, I think, it did very well.
Taking all those things into account, the committee sifted through the information available to it and said, "This is what we thought was outlandish on one side and this is what we thought was outlandish on the other, and we have come up with the best possible compromise". I am proud that the processes of the committees of this Assembly have worked once more. It seems to me that that is what this place is all about. It is about getting the right information before us, it is about making an assessment on that information, and finally it is about making a decision, after we have assessed the information.
I conclude my remarks by saying, once again, that I am delighted to speak on this matter. It proves to me that if you have simplistic ideas based on outdated and blinkered points of view that do not stand up to scrutiny, time and time again those outdated and simplistic views will be brought to the fore and will be exposed. This is exactly what this committee has done. It has proved once and for all that commonsense shall prevail, and we will see, I hope, when the vote is finally taken on this, that commonsense will prevail.
MRS CARNELL (Leader of the Opposition) (11.58): Madam Speaker, one of the things that Mr Moore said were interesting - and Mr Berry seemed to have got a little confused about it - was exactly what passive smoking is and what are the dangers associated with passive smoking. Mr Moore commented about passive smoking and the dangers associated with that being dosage related. I do not believe that anybody would argue with that point of view. There might be some argument about exactly how much that dosage needs to be or for how long. All the statistics and information we have suggest that a level of tobacco smoke in the air for a very long period tends to be more damaging and more dangerous than a lot for a short period. Again, that is information I do not think anyone would dispute.
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