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- 9 March 2006
Smoke-Free Environment Amendment (Removal of Exemptions) Bill
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Page: 21348
Bill introduced, read a first time and ordered to be printed.
Second Reading
The Hon. Dr ARTHUR CHESTERFIELD-EVANS [3.19 p.m.]: I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
An article by Richard Doll, in the British Medical Journal of November 1950, entitled "The Aetiology of Carcinoma of the Lung", clearly linked tobacco smoking with lung cancer. Following that, a series and then a deluge of articles linked smoking with various diseases, basically utilising the new statistical techniques that Doll and his colleagues were using. That was 56 years ago. In 1961 the Royal College of Physicians expressed concern that for 10 years successive governments had failed to legislate against smoking and that there was plenty of evidence on which to take action. That resulted in the report of the Royal College of Physicians On Smoking in 1962. Across the Atlantic the American Surgeon General had similar concerns and asked the tobacco industry to vet all scientists examining the effects of smoking. His 1964 report was as damning as the British report. Even scientists approved by the tobacco industry found that tobacco was the cause of myriad diseases.
Since that time the tobacco industry has played politics despite the known harmful effects of tobacco being sufficient to warrant action. For 40 years governments all round the world have done as little as possible while the industry has continued to lobby and fund governments and political parties, and health forces have undertaken further research although sufficient conclusions for action had been reached in the 1960s. The Collins and Lapsley paper "Counting the cost: Estimates of the social costs of Drug Abuse in Australia 1998-99" from the Commonwealth Department of Health estimated that the cost to the Australian economy of smoking was $21 billion, of which $5.1 billion was lost productivity.
The total social costs of smoking in New South Wales in 1998-99 were about $6.6 billion. Of those costs, 27.1 per cent were tangible costs and 72.9 per cent intangible costs. New South Wales bore 31.2 per cent of the total Australian social costs of smoking in that year. Of the total New South Wales costs, about 45 per cent was avoidable—that is, they were costs that were potentially susceptible to reduction as a result of the implementation of appropriate public policies. Individuals bore about 58 per cent of the total tangible costs, business about 29 per cent and governments about 13 per cent. Of course, individuals bear 100 per cent of the intangible costs—the costs of pain, suffering and dying. As a result of smoking in 1998-99 the federal budget deteriorated by almost $200 million, that is, federal smoking-attributable expenditures exceeded smoking-attributable revenues by that amount.
New South Wales tax revenues from tobacco abuse in 1998-99 exceeded smoking-attributable expenditures by almost $950 million. However, the goods and services tax arrangements introduced in 2000 mean that New South Wales no longer has the power to tax tobacco, and in fact will not make a profit from this death-causing product. These figures do not take into account the costs associated with bushfires caused by discarded cigarette butts. I encourage honourable members to visit the Medline web site where they will find 102,000 articles on the effects of smoking on health. The research done in the 1950s was certainly sufficient to justify political action, yet as late as 1985 John Dollison from the Tobacco Institute continued to argue that the suggestion that smoking causes disease was merely a hypothesis.
There is no end to the lies of the tobacco industry and, quite frankly, the behaviour of the clubs and pubs industry in this and every other country has been a disgrace. In my view there is prima facie evidence to charge members of tobacco companies with murder. Their irresponsibility is akin to that displayed by principals in the asbestos industry. The Australian Hotels Association [AHA] has always steadfastly resisted anything that might damage its patronage. It has always been funded by the tobacco industry and is, from a political point of view, virtually indistinguishable from it.
An international survey conducted by Stollznow Research for Pfizer Australia in June 2005 showed that 65 per cent of those surveyed considered the timetable for smoking bans was too slow, with 43 per cent of New South Wales respondents saying it was much too slow. Additionally, 64 per cent said it was unacceptable for up to 75 per cent of enclosed rooms to be referred to as "outdoor" to allow smoking in enclosed public places. On top of public opinion, more than 50 years of scientific research shows that smoking maims and kills people. Why should bar staff, gaming room attendants and other hospitality workers in pubs and clubs be exempt from the occupational health and safety standards of other workplaces in Australia?
The tobacco industry has been in bed with the AHA, subsidising it and effectively being a front for the small clique that runs the AHA, which does not give a fig for public health or the welfare of hotel patrons. It cares only about a potential loss of patronage. It is so set in these matters that people like me, who do not go to pubs because of the smoke and have got into the habit over 40 years of not going because we do not like the smoke, do not even figure as possible customers. It is nothing but a disgrace, as has been the lack of action by members on both sides of this House over the past 40 years. I have attended many breakfast functions at which some film or football star has launched a minimal no-smoking campaign about which the relevant Ministers have congratulated themselves—as if these pathetic gestures were something of substance.
The Opposition is kowtowing to the AHA and is as bad as the Government, as we know. The Government will be opposed by the hotels lobby over its gambling revenue, and no matter how much the Government throws the "pubs smoking forever" regulation at the hotels industry, it still will not get that industry's support. Now that the Government will not get that support, it might just as well not hand over the little "pubs smoking forever" token.
I believe the Smoke-free Environment Act is a misnomer. It should be called the "Smoky Environment Act". Because governments have been so gutless, any progress to achieve no-smoking bans in most countries has been by tort. People sue their employer under workers compensation legislation or sue the tobacco industry or others for exposing them to tobacco smoke. That meant that pubs, clubs and restaurants were at some risk of being sued. The main driver of a smoke-free environment has not been governments courageously or even sensibly looking at what is best public health policy; it has been fear of litigation by smokers and non-smokers alike whose health has been injured as a result of these appalling public policies.
Did the Smoke-free Environment Act deliver smoke-free environments? No, of course it did not! It delivered an exemption for pubs and clubs from its introduction until 2007, and gave the Minister the power to grant exemptions and make regulations to define "indoor" and "outdoor" areas. What has the Minister done with this regulation? He has said that if 25 per cent of the total ceiling and wall area is open, that space is defined as "outdoor". Yes, it has a roof but it is outdoors! And yes, it has walls as well, but it is still outdoors, so far as smoking is concerned! It is like saying that burning leaves are fresh—which is one of the tobacco industry's famous misnomers—or that it is sexy to make yourself sick and old, which is the approach the industry takes. In the tobacco debate everything is turned upside down and oxymorons are absolutely normal.
My bill is simple: it says that the Smoke-Free Environment Act will be about smoke-free environments. It will not be about creating exemptions for pubs and clubs. It will not be about allowing Ministers to define indoors as "outdoors" because it is politically convenient to do so. I call the smoking regulation the "pub smoking forever" regulation because it specifies no date upon which its provisions will lapse. In effect, it says, "If you put a lean-to over the beer garden, mate, you can have smoking in your pub forever"—and a flurry of development applications for lean-tos are being granted even as we debate the bill this afternoon. The pubs and clubs will then say, "We've invested a lot of money in the lean-to over our beer garden; you can't take smoking away from us now". Pub patrons will simply move from one room to another and keep smoking forever. The Government congratulates itself on the progress it is making while 150 people are admitted to hospital every day with tobacco-related diseases and 6,600 people die every year from illnesses caused by tobacco smoking. The kids of New South Wales—including the 15-year-olds who look 18—will continue to go to the pub. The strategy of the tobacco industry has been revealed.
Pursuant to resolution business interrupted.
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