Page 1749 - Week 06 - Thursday, 19 May 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Equally, with occupational health and safety requirements and the responsibility of employers to their employees and to their customers, whatever business or hospitality area they are involved in, the information we have at our disposal nowadays suggests that they have a responsibility to produce a safe work environment. That means going non-smoking or, alternatively, having appropriate ventilation systems fitted to their premises. Regardless of this or any other legislation, it is the responsibility of employers to ensure those things.
The fact that there are 100 eating establishments in the ACT that we understand are smoke free, the fact that a number of shopping centres have already gone smoke free, the fact that a very large number of public places - the list is in the report - have already gone smoke free, shows that business people, people in public life, in public facilities, understand their responsibilities and already have made a huge effort to achieve safe workplaces. This report suggests that that should be done on a fair and equitable basis, where everybody knows the rules and the rules are the same for everybody - not just for restaurants but also for bar-bistros and eating areas that are part of bar areas.
With Mr Berry's legislation, there was a huge problem with the definition of a restaurant. With this approach, there may be, for a period of just over one year, a certain amount of disagreement on what is a restaurant and what is a bistro and whether you have to comply in 12 months or 30 months; but that is a substantially different argument from whether you have to comply at all, and that is really where Mr Berry's legislation came unstuck. In this situation, everybody involved in the hospitality industry in the ACT - and that is basically what we are talking about here - plus a large number of other places will know when they have to comply and how they have to comply. They can now go out and make economic decisions on whether it is appropriate, if they have to, to put in these new systems. As I said, many will have them already. They can make that decision on a business basis, and the ACT Assembly can be confident that we have done our job and ensured that both employees and users of these facilities will be safe.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General and Minister for Health) (12.06): Madam Speaker, it is with some disappointment that as Minister for Health, having taken the baton on smoking from Mr Berry, I see that the Assembly committee has basically suggested a watering down of the legislation originally given to them. Rather than giving my words - you have already heard Mr Berry's words - I would like to read a statement issued yesterday by Dr Brendan Nelson, who is the Federal President of the AMA.
Mr De Domenico: He does not get a vote in here.
MR CONNOLLY: Who, indeed, does not get a vote, and who, as far as one can tell, is not closely associated with the Australian Labor Party. Under the heading "AMA urges tough stand on smoking", the statement reads:
The Australian Medical Association has today strongly urged the ACT Legislative Assembly not to dilute proposed legislation to protect the public from environmental tobacco smoke in public places.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .