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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 08 Hansard (Wednesday, 4 August 2004) . . Page.. 3442 ..

It is interesting to note that, according to the Commonwealth department of health, only about 1 per cent of adult smokers report that they purchased their last pack of cigarettes from a vending machine. So most adult smokers plan their purchases to avoid relying on those machines, from which cigarettes are normally more expensive anyway. It is reasonable to assume that as young people find it more difficult to obtain cigarettes from over-the-counter sales, vending machines could be an attractive option because the sale can be made quickly and easily. This is something that we need to avoid.

While supporting the spirit and intent of this amending bill, the government will agree to the Liberal amendments that the proposed changes would work just as effectively if the phase-out period were extended to 2006. Indeed, 1 September 2006 is just about the time when the clubs will go to no smoking and that seems a reasonable time. Also, 1 September is the time when permits run out. We are being a little conciliatory to premises in respect of that, bearing in mind, however, that we are all very emphatic about the need to reduce smoking in view of the harm that it does.

Tobacco control initiatives in the ACT have benefited from strong support in the community and in this Assembly. There has been an awareness that this is about the health of our children. This is one of the most significant public health issues in Australia and that is why we are supporting these proposals.

MRS CROSS (4.07): Mr Speaker, smoking among children and adolescents in Australia is a real problem, yet it is a problem that we have made very few inroads into solving despite the fact that we have known about it for decades.

I will briefly highlight some alarming statistics to show how significant the problem of smoking is among youths. Eighty per cent of adult smokers commenced smoking before the age of 18, with approximately one-third of adult smokers having first smoked a cigarette at the age of nine. Around 65 per cent of 16-year-olds in Australia have tried smoking. One in five New South Wales high school children are likely to have smoked in the last week, with 35 per cent of these recent smokers aged between 12 and 14.

Of all drugs, legal and illegal, tobacco is the greatest killer, yet 70,000 children commence smoking each year. This happens in spite of warnings, education and increased taxation. The only way to reduce smoking among youths is to reduce access to cigarettes. Ready access to cigarettes is a predictor of uptake of smoking. The aim of the bill is to reduce access to cigarettes among youths and thus hopefully reduce smoking among youths.

In 1993 a national survey showed that 20 per cent of 12-year-old children purchased their own cigarettes. Similarly, a controlled study in Adelaide showed that 45 per cent of children aged between 12 and 14 successfully purchased cigarettes themselves. This study also shows that children were, on all occasion, successful in obtaining cigarettes from vending machines.

These facts fly in the face of all state and territory legislation that prohibits the sale of tobacco to persons under 18 years of age and clearly indicates that there is large-scale violation of the aforementioned legislation. Whilst it is all well and good to legislate against the sale of cigarettes to youths, the practicalities are that youths still have access

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