New bid for beyond 2000 smokes ban

AN Upper House MP will use debate on a Government antismoking Bill to have another crack at ending the sale of cigarettes to Tasmanians born after 2000, as well as stamping out smoking around hospitals and schools.

The Public Health Amendment (Healthy Tasmania) Bill seeks to tighten laws around the sale of cigarettes and e-cigarettes in Tasmania.

The Government is seeking to significantly increase penalties for selling or supplying smoking products to a child.

The Bill introduces laws to regulate e-cigarettes and introduce targeted education through quit smoking information at the point of sale.

The smoking of e-cigarettes will be banned in the same way as cigarettes in existing smokefree areas such as workplaces, in cars with children or work colleagues, outdoor dining areas, playgrounds, sporting events, bus shelters and malls.

Windermere MLC and anti- tobacco campaigner Ivan Dean said he would support the Bill, but would propose amendments including a renewed bid to ban the sale of cigarettes to anyone born after 2000.

Mr Dean’s Tobacco Free Generation Bill is still on the Legislative Council’s books, however he said the Government’s smoking Bill provided a further opportunity to argue his case.

Mr Dean is also seeking an amendment banning smoking around schools and hospitals by extending the “nonsense” non-smoking area around public buildings from three metres to 10 metres.

Public health academic Kathryn Barnsley of SmokeFree Tasmania said there was still significant support for the tobacco-free generation proposal.

“It would provide a generational firebreak and protect our children and adolescents from these terrible diseases and death,” she said.

Dr Barnsley said SmokeFree Tasmania also supported banning smoking around schools and hospitals.

“People complain a lot about the Royal Hobart Hospital and smoking around the building and entrances. This should be stopped. Mothers with babies have to walk through a wall of smoke to get in or out of the hospital,” she said.

The State Government last year backed away from a proposal to increase the minimum legal smoking age in Tasmania to 21 or 25.

Health Minister Michael Ferguson said at the time the decision not to proceed with any change to the smoking age came “after careful consideration”.