Australia-wide smoking ban by 2007?

Australia is set to ban smoking in nearly all of its bars, restaurants and hotels by 2007, with the new rules to be introduced in some areas as soon as next year. According to the BBC News website, the state of New South Wales, including Sydney, will bring in the ban next year. Lighting up is already banned on two of the city’s famous beaches, Manly and Bondi, while many public bars have already introduced no-smoking areas. Only the Northern Territory will escape the proposed ban, the website reports. The New South Wales premier Bob Carr is quoted as saying: “For a person working in a bar for eight hours, that’s equivalent to smoking half a packet of cigarettes and we can’t ask bar workers to put their health at risk.” The Australian Hotels Association has criticised the proposed move, stating that some 8,000 jobs could be lost, while the mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, reportedly argued that more people would start to frequent bars if the atmosphere was smoke-free. Report by Tim Gillett, News From Abroad Ltd