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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-06-04 Daily Xml
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TOBACCO PRODUCTS REGULATION (BAN ON CHILDREN SMOKING) AMENDMENT BILL

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (11:12): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Tobacco Products Regulation Act 1997. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (11:13): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I bring to the attention of the house the purpose of this bill: it amends the appropriate act in regard to the control of tobacco to introduce a fine for minors who smoke. The reason I do this is very simple. The current legislation essentially provides that those who sell cigarettes to minors are fined quite heavily; in fact, in some cases they can lose their licence.

Those who give cigarettes to minors, including parents, also suffer a fine. It seems to me a loophole in the law that those 15, 16 and 17 year olds (and those are the people the law targets) who sit around and smoke suffer absolutely no penalty. Minors are fined for all sorts of things, such as littering, evading paying their bus fare to school and speeding. They can also be dealt with for under-age drinking.

It seems to me that, if we are serious about sending young people a message—I note that the member for Light talked about the level of smoking in young people—it is an appropriate mechanism to have the capacity to fine them. I am not particularly fussed about the level of the fine. The member for MacKillop introduced a bill in which the fine was $20; I picked the same level of fine for littering, which is $315 My theory was that if you were getting fined $315 for dropping a cigarette butt, it seems a bit unusual to be fined a lesser amount for actually using it. I am relaxed about the level of the fine. The principle that I am trying to introduce is the principle of sending a message to young people that smoking is really a no-go zone.

I pick up the government's own stats. The Minister for Substance Abuse issued a press release in March, or May, which stated that there is about a 23 per cent take-up rate of smoking between 15 and 29 year olds and that half of those teenagers who take up smoking will die of smoking-related diseases.

I, personally, do not have a problem with saying to a young person that they are going to get fined for underage smoking, because underage drinking is an offence and, if we are serious about smoking then I do not see why the seller or the giver to underage people should be penalised but those 15, 16 and 17 years olds who want to smoke suffer no penalty.

I do not care if someone amends this bill to make the fine $50, $70, or whatever the amount may be. It is not the level of the fine that I am necessarily arguing, it is the principle that the authority should have the chance to fine people who are under age.

I know that some people will say, 'Where are young people going to get $100, $200, or $300?', whatever the level of the fine is. My argument to that is very simple. Where do they get the $100 or $200 for the speeding fine, the underage drinking fine, the littering fine or the fare evasion fine? They get it from exactly the same source. Many kids at 15, 16 and 17 have part-time jobs, and the system allows them to make part payments, so they can pay $10 or $15 a week or fortnight.

The system is flexible enough to allow the payment to be made. If they do get a fine then they may sit down with their parents and explain to their parents why they are smoking. It can give parents an opportunity to explain to their children exactly what they are doing to themselves long term. That is the essence of the bill. I look forward to the debate in due course.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mrs Geraghty.

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