Puff go Australian smokers

2004-09-07 10:10

Sydney - Queensland on Tuesday trumped all other Australian jurisdictions with draft anti-smoking legislation so punitive that only prisoners and high rollers in the Brisbane casino will escape it.

Next year lighting up on popular beaches, at sports stadiums, near children's playgrounds or on the pavement outside buildings will earn a stiff fine.

By 2006, all pubs, clubs and outdoor eating places will be absolutely smoke free.

"Not everyone is going to be in love with this, but this is about saving lives," Premier Peter Beattie said of the most draconian legislation proposed in Australia.

The only ones safe from the reach of the law will be patrons in the high-roller rooms in Brisbane and inmates of the state's prisons.

Beattie said the inspiration for his initiative came during a visit to Ireland, where smoking has been banned in all workplaces, including the republic's famed pubs.

Australia passed its first anti-smoking law 95 years ago and now bans all forms of tobacco advertising.

It has one of the lowest rates of smoking in the world.

While three-quarters of Australian men were smokers half a century ago the rate is now nearer 25 percent.

Some 23 percent of women smoke, against 26 percent in 1947.

Earlier this year the federal government decided to follow Canada and plaster nauseating anti-smoking graphics on cigarette packets.

Now, state government and even municipal councils are trumping each other with rules that stub out smoking.

Australia's second-favourite strip of sand after Sydney's Bondi Beach will go butt-free after the local council banned smoking at Manly on the harbour's north shore.

Manly, popular with tourists who cross the harbour on the ferry from the city centre, became the first beach outside Los Angeles to banish smokers.

Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) chief executive Anne Jones hailed the Queensland move, saying it would save billions of dollars in hospitalisation costs for smokers who use it as their cue to give up. ASH is an anti-smoking lobby group.

But Council for Civil Liberties spokesperson Terry O'Gorman criticised the draft legislation, saying it unfairly curbed the rights of individuals to smoke.

"I think for this package to say that smoking should be banned inside all pubs and clubs is justified, but I think it starts to get a bit extreme when it says you can't smoke in outdoor forums such as patrolled beaches," he told Australia's AAP news agency.

Queensland itself is likely to be trumped in anti-smoking stakes by the local authorities in Sydney's swish Mosman precinct.

Mosman, the richest suburb in Australia, intends to ban smoking within 20 metres of outside dining areas.

It would then be illegal for patrons sitting outside cafes or in the beer gardens of pubs to smoke.

The Mosman initiative could rate as the biggest swing against smokers anywhere in the world.

- SAPA