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 < Back Government and Opposition Give The Thumbs Up To Smoking in Pubs & Clubs March 29th 2006 NSW Democrat MLC, Dr Arthur Chesterfield-Evans, has accused the State Opposition of kowtowing to Big Tobacco companies and the State Government to the Pubs and Clubs Lobby for voting against the disallowance of regulations under Smoke-Free Environment Amendment (Enclosed Places) Regulation 2006. The highly contentious 75%-25% regulation has been criticised by the Democrats, the Australian Medical Association (NSW Branch) and the NSW Cancer Council, claiming that the regulations will allow smoking within enclosed spaces in pubs and clubs beyond the 1st of July 2007, when indoor smoking bans are meant to take effect. "With 150 hospital admissions in NSW every day from tobacco-caused diseases, and 6,600 tobacco- caused deaths per year in NSW, it is finally time to recognise the high costs of continuing a business as usual stance on smoking in public places." he said. "The regulations are incredibly muddy as they stand. It will effectively ignore common sense notions of 'smoke free'. It would be much fairer to everyone, as well as being a much more effective law, if we just said no to smoking in pubs and clubs - full stop. It's really much simpler to do the right thing," he said. Dr Chesterfield-Evans criticiced the Liberals and the Nationals during his speech in Parliament, for being the only political parties in NSW to accept donations from tobacco companies. "In the financial year for 2004/05 the NSW Liberal party received a $44,100 donation from British American Tobacco and $10,000 from Philip Morris. In the same year the National's received $5,000 from Philip Morris," he said. "The Opposition is openly courting the Australian Hotels Association (A.H.A.) in the lead up to the State Election. In the same period the NSW Liberal Party received approximately $105,000 and the Nationals $26,605. The NSW Labor party received $259,704 in the 2004/05 financial year from the A.H.A." "We can only question whom they truly serve," he concluded. |
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