Page 3291 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 September 1994
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I think the committee, on the evidence, adopted information that was inaccurate. It wrongly adopted Australian Standard 1668. Specifically in respect of the statement in paragraph 4.12, Mr Peter Harley, Workcover's manager of scientific services, states that it is inaccurate to report that Australian Standard 1668 is being used as a key mechanism by Workcover in New South Wales for controlling exposure to ETS. That was the stuff that Mr Moore's committee was pushing down our throats. Mr Harley also expressed concern about information provided to the committee by the Liquor Trades Union and cited in paragraph 4.9 of the report. This information is still at an early stage of preparation and has no status as a published document deriving from the Workcover Authority. Yet it was adopted by the committee. Workcover states quite categorically that it recommends that the most effective manner in which to fulfil the legal obligation to provide a safe and healthy working environment is through the implementation of a no-smoking policy in the workplace. That, in fact, is what the Government did with its occupational health and safety code of practice. It will lead to a no-smoking policy. What you have done is the reverse. You have supported a committee proposal which encourages tobacco consumption in certain places.
Mr De Domenico: Who supported it?
Mr Moore: It encourages smoking?
MR BERRY: It encourages tobacco consumption. In fact, it endorses it. It endorses the consumption of tobacco products in certain places. You have the gall to say that it is harm minimisation. What a lot of rot! It encourages harm.
There is also the issue of the standard. Philip Morris, it is reported, is adopting rigorous ventilation standards in the United States to encourage smoking in places like restaurants. The ventilation standard, according to the tabling statement by the Minister, is ASHRAE 62, an American standard, and that is the standard upon which AS1668.2 is based.
Mr Moore: No, not based.
MR BERRY: So, Mr Moore, I am afraid that you have let us down, as have our Liberal colleagues, in not closely examining this matter. You have now been identified out there in the community as having let down the people in the ACT. You have let down, along with Mrs Carnell - - -
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Berry, your time has expired.
MR MOORE (11.14): Once again we hear a simplistic presentation from the most simple of Ministers that we have had. Madam Speaker, I say that quite categorically because it seems that Mr Berry has a real difficulty in understanding public health and population health concepts. Population health concepts were clearly set out in the 1986 Ottawa charter. I have pointed that out to Mr Berry in this house before today so that he would have the opportunity to read the charter and try to understand and comprehend what population health issues are about. It seems that the four-page document is too much for him.
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