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The fun police make it to the final frontier

Greg Thomson

by Greg Thomson

28 Sep 05:35am

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Filed under: Aha, Health, Laws, Pubs, Smoking, Society, Western Australia

41 comments

I am trying hard not to sound like a grumpy old man well before my time, but what is it with the fun police on the streets of Perth?

Don't light up. Photo: Stewart Allen.

In just one week, the good citizens of the Australia’s western state have been subjected to a raft of state and local government regulations seemingly designed to take the enjoyment out of the simplest of life’s pleasures.

Take the example of Town of Cottesloe, just one of 142 shires and municipal councils in the state, after it foreshadowed the banning of flying kites, hoisting over-sized beach umbrellas, playing with toy cars and drinking from glass bottles on an iconic stretch of beaches along the WA capital’s affluent western suburbs.

In a further affront to the beach-going public, activities that have long been synonymous with swimming at the picturesque Cottesloe Beach, such as jumping from the rock groyne or back-flipping from its famous and recently reconstructed pylon, have also been banned, with fines ranging from $100 to $500 set to be enforced.

Adding further insult to injury, a new beach law outlawing the digging of “hazardous” big holes is likely to be introduced next month, bringing to more than 100 the number of beach activities frowned upon by officialdom at Cottesloe.

Pity the poor children with their humble bucket and spade.

It’s not just the beaches where freedoms are being curbed, cigarette smokers will be left wondering where it’s actually lawful to light up in WA after smoking in cars carrying young children, and having a durry in outdoor alfresco restaurants, pubs and clubs was made unlawful by the WA Parliament this week.

In what is being hailed Australia’s toughest anti-smoking measures, smoking between the flags at controlled beaches has also been banned, as has lighting up within 10 metres of a children’s playground anywhere in the state.

You can just imagine the boys and girls in blue running about the place with their tape measures, and peering into car windows at the traffic lights.

The legislation comes as a result of a private member’s bill from Liberal-leaning WA independent Member for Alfred Cove, Dr Janet Woollard, whose support the WA Liberal-National Coalition enjoys, and whose husband Dr Keith Woollard, is an ex-Australian Medical Association president.

She was also successful in pushing for a ban on cigarette smoking in WA’s Parliament House, a ban most suspect is theoretical in nature but hardly followed in practice.

I happen to be a reformed smoker, not the usual rabid kind, but one who thinks that the growth in outdoor, alfresco dining areas represents a pretty sound compromise in the battle between the rights of smokers and the great majority who don’t smoke.

That smokers can no longer light up in outdoor, licensed venues has naturally infuriated the Australian Hotel’s Association.

It seems that licensees will be able to get around the laws by simply removing some tables and chairs, thus creating outdoor “standing-only smoking areas”, which seemingly makes a mockery of the new laws.

Finally, there is further evidence of regulatory recklessness in the state following the WA Cricket Association’s proclamation that it will hang nets between the playing on-field and the grassed banks of the WACA ground to prevent drunken idiots from invading the pitch this summer.

The move follows the shocking crash-tackling of Pakistani cricketer Khalid Latif by a bogun from WA’s bush, David James Fraser, who was fined $9000 in Perth in March following a minute of sheer madness during a one-day international game at the WACA in February.

The Pakistani player suffered a whip-lash injury after being tackled to the ground by Fraser, who police says was cajoled by a large crowd of jeering drunks, who applauded the pitch invasion, and admonished officials who dragged the hapless fan away.

To combat boozy, bad behaviour at the cricket in Perth this summer, a 1.8m net will be hoisted around parts of the WACA outer protecting the players from the public.

What a great look for international cricket.

Making matters worse, a four-drinks per person policy will be changed to one-per-person, and service terminated abruptly if need be, if police and ground officials become concerned by the effects of too much beer and the hot sun at international games this summer.

As it is, only mid-strength beer is served in the public reserve, while jugs of full-strength beer, often with a delicately-balanced cup of ice to keep the amber liquid cool, has been a pleasure available only to WACA members.  Even the members with their crisp, collared shirts are in strife.

The full-strength right will be removed in the member’s enclosure this summer, as will more than 40 per cent of the WACA seating declared alcohol-free.

A handful of idiots have ruined it for everyone else, and once again we find the majority being maligned for the actions of a wilful minority.

Most commented

430Australia, you have nothing to fear but fear itself
390There's no one Thomson won't burn to save his skin
335Animal experiments won't cure me from cancer
313Thomson didn't answer the question everyone is asking
265Who murdered the Arts degree?
246A big day for Thomson, who thus far is guilty of nothing...
231Craig Thomson speaks. Meanwhile, in Australia...
231South Australia. It's the middle bottom bit.

41 comments

Show oldest | newest first

    • Smokers' Room says:

      07:21am | 28/09/10

      What fun is there breathing in the poisons of tobacco and then exhaling it onto one’s neighbour?  The fun police should bring back the Smokers’ Room and let them all breath in their own air.

      Reply

    • Sense says:

      01:41pm | 28/09/10

      I think that’s a fantastic idea…in fact, when the smoking ban first came in I was under the impression that the non smokers were awarded the inoor areas, and the smokers where told to keep it out doors - Fine, and fair…except now the non smokers are no longer happy witht hat…they want indoors and outdoors. May I remaind you that smoking is in fact not illegal. Sometimes I feel I may as well be lighting a crack pipe!

    • T.Chong says:

      07:24am | 28/09/10

      But how can this be?  WA, the only Liberal state is a beacon of all good.
      The tough ,individualistic Sand gropers havent got time for this namby pamby Lefty no fun nanna state mentality , does it?
      But wait, this might be showing that wowsers, and their enforcers are the same worldwide , regardless of Liberal or Labor.
      What a surprise.

      Reply

    • BobbyDan says:

      02:44pm | 19/11/10

      T Chong:  You got it right in the last paragraph.
      My partners GP says all the words about not smoking and is seen having a puff in the back court yard of his surgery and in his car.

      My GP just shrugs and says, you’ve done all the damage you can, but atleast reduce your smoking.

      I do not smoke in public places or in the house etc.

      WA has more drunken brawls in public places, vehicle incidents (all with deaths) but we do not ban drink.

      So?

    • acotrel says:

      07:35am | 28/09/10

      A few years ago I studied Occupational Hygiene.  After the first few weeks, the smokers in the course were frantically trying to quit the habit!  If common sense prevailed, smoking would be banned.

      Reply

    • KH says:

      09:32am | 28/09/10

      Smoking bans - good.  Ban it everywhere.  Maybe set up smokers ‘pens’ so they can indulge their disgusting habit and breathe in their own cancer smoke.  I like to sit outside on a sunny afternoon to have a coffee or a quiet drink - why should I be subjected to someone elses carcinogenic smoke? If its a public place, no smoking is fair enough.  No issue with this.

      The rest - I suspect the reason for some of these ludicrous rules are not just because a ‘few idiots’ have ruined it for the majority of people, but also fear of litigation.  Australia has been heading down the road of the USA for a while now - everyone wants a quick buck, and suing someone for your own foolishness is one way to do it.  If they don’t have signs or rules or fines, and someone gets hurt, ‘we’ end up paying for it when the council (or whoever else) gets hit with a compensation claim.  Its all good fun until someone gets hurt.

      Reply

    • Kordez says:

      12:36pm | 28/09/10

      @KH, Smokers also sit outside on a sunny afternoon for a coffee, often more than you because they support an addiction and can’t smoke indoors, arguably contributing more income to your choice of venue than yourself. If you were really that concerned about cancer causing substances you’d hardly be drinking coffee in the sun or even driving your vehicle. So long as outdoor and/or ventilated smoking areas are available for use, I don’t see what the big deal is.
      Throughout your lifetime you will always be required, while residing in Australia to deal with smoking. I’m not suggesting you get used to it or that you like it. But you should value the freedom that smokers have in Australia as you do your own. Because if you don’t, one day you’ll wake up and you won’t be sitting outside for a coffee in the sun, and you’ll find road blocks where there was none before.

    • James says:

      12:52pm | 28/09/10

      Unfortunately, it is not just ‘few idiots’ have ruined it for the majority of people.
      WA has been, by far, more affected by drunk idiots and stupid alcohol related violence than any other Australian state.
      For me, ban the alcohol. WA´s bogans don´t know how to behavior after some drinks.

    • Linda says:

      02:08pm | 28/09/10

      People like you are the ones who decided we should smoke outdoors now you want sit outdoors.  Make your friggin mind up.  Bit selfish don’t you think KH - you want it all your way.

    • Mark says:

      04:48pm | 28/09/10

      Do you care if I dont like breathing your car fumes - no, so why should I care if you breathe my second hand smoke.
      In fact, buy your own!

    • Andy says:

      08:48am | 29/09/10

      Alcohol will mess you up just as much as the smokes. Plus the traffic fumes, you can’t see them, but they’re there.

    • shane says:

      10:26am | 28/09/10

      choice.  the choice to be stupid.  the choice to do things that don’t harm others.  this need to legislate and fine people for everythign imaginable is progressively getting worse.

      Reply

    • Roja says:

      12:26pm | 28/09/10

      This idiocy should combined with California’s ludicrous 3 strikes policy…

      I’m in for life.
      What did you do???
      Flew a kite, dug a big hole and then jumped off a pylon.
      Jeeez… want a smoke?
      What, and get the death penalty?

    • Who says:

      11:19am | 28/09/10

      What do you expect it’s WA?  The state and local governments won’t be happy until the only thing sandgropers are allowed to do is go to Carousel, but only between 8 and 6.

      Reply

    • Youdy beaudy says:

      11:38am | 28/09/10

      Plenty of people die of cancer and have never smoked or drunk in their lives. Go and give the right information on cancer, many ways to get cancer. Meanwhile while taking away the rights of even smokers to enjoy their ciggy while having a beer is bad politics. Why not have a fully ventilated smokers section away from the others, not take away the right to live your lives. People who smoke are addicts to nicotine and surprisingly enough many enjoy a fag but making them feel guilty about smoking and isolating them is not a good mental or emotional health way to proceed with eliminating the problem in society.

      Now on the other hand people in cities in particular run down the road exercising at times of high traffic congestion and breath the benzine into their lungs. Many also petrol heads go to car racing and do the same Benzine, totally cancer promoting. But Cars not banned, why is that?.

      Large Buildings that are built, pouring of concrete, concrete powder blowing in wind over the populace also very very cancer producing for lungs, yet no controls there, no banning of coral dust in the air we breathe. Spraying crops and insects outside or inside of houses, chemicals used to treat concrete driveways, totally poisoning, Well we are exposed to the threat of cancer each day just in living our lives. Seems to me that the things I have mentioned above could be more cancer producing than Smoking or Passive smoking.

      Let’s get a reality check. And by the way the Doctors and Nurses are one of the biggest smokers of tobacco and yet are advising people to take the so called moral highground and encourage giving up. Now everyone knows that smoking is not good for us but there are people who smoke who don’t suffer from cancer or get anything.

      Smoking with relaxed attitude is the way to go, not under stress. Eastern Medicine will not advise smoking in any way but at least doesn’t put a guilt trip on people and really most who get cancer will find there are many causes regarding the contacting of this most horrible of diseases, not just the smoking of tobacco. It is in most cases the very way of life we live and the chemicals we breathe in in our day to day lives that really are causing more lung and other cancers. Smoking of tobacco is only a very small part of the overall poisons that we ingest without even knowing, and then there are the genetic factors we inherit.

      To be honest, there are cures for cancer which come out of the Natural Flora but if found they are downcried by the Medicos as being rubbish. But they are continuing the fight against cancer even knowing that. Money is poured in to research to an industry that cannot afford to find a cure as it would put a lot of Doctors out of work. And if they find some chemical cure it will be too expensive for the suffers to afford as first they will have to get their money back first. It’s a sad situation all around for sufferers. I believe it is an emotional supression issue that causes cancer. There is a Mental Health issue involved with Disease, an issue of foods sprayed with deadly chemicals then eaten, chemicals used in water purification, and many other issues as well. Don’t use underarm deodorants that have aluminum in them, use natural crystal or natural scents. I believe that underarm sprays can contribute to breast cancer. I never use these products near my glandular system and the armpits is where they exist and people put a chemical Aluminum there on their glands and it goes straight into their lymphatics and guess what!!.

      If we do away with chemicals as much as possible then i feel that it will make the proportional difference between getting cancer of not. So if you’re using any chemicals, stop. otherwise how can we complain if we catch something. There is more to this cancer business than meets the eye. Remember that when you spray the chemical in the house to kill the bugs then you may be killing yourself also. Get some blue tongue lizards for the garden they will eat the cockies, they love them, yum, yum. Get a good hunting house cat and the cat will kill anything that comes inside, spiders, cockies etc. otherwise use a swatter and don’t be lazy. Use natural predators to predate as is their job, that’s a good way. Less chemicals less problems. I end my rant now and hope that you all have good health and happiness and a long life. By the way for the Men, for prostrate health, eat tomato sauce or any pureed tomato it will help to keep the gland healthy. I wish you all well as good health can’t be bought anywhere. And it is obvious that Doctors have not been able to find a cure for cancer, maybe they should be looking to the plant kingdom and accept the fact that plants have cures for many things. Their problem is not enough Right Brain activity which confines them into narrow mindedness. No future there for anyone.

      Reply

    • gonzo says:

      01:13pm | 28/09/10

      alright, go and hug your tree.

    • C says:

      01:43pm | 28/09/10

      Thank you, finally someone makes sense!

    • Horthy says:

      02:10pm | 28/09/10

      ROFL. And such deadpan delivery too. Top work!

    • Rob says:

      12:32pm | 28/09/10

      Well said, Sir. As much as I love the quality of life in our country, I wish the regulators would relax a little. There are always going to be problems, especially with issues of health and safety, but there needs to be a balance. We’re quickly becoming a police state that seeks to regulate and enforce every aspect of our lives. Often it may prevent injury (or even a life), but it is at the expense of our way of life. We’re supposed to be a laid back society- give the citizens a bit of dignity and let them make decisions based on their own common sense.

      Reply

    • AdamC says:

      01:50pm | 28/09/10

      There are two factors at play here. The first is philosophical. Is it the role (and privilege) of the state to protect us from our own (perceived) bad decisions? I say, within reason, it isn’t. Most people feel a similar way, but governments of all types have, for many years now, pursued quite radical ‘nanny state’ policies. It is a good example of the much-maligned (and often misunderstood) phenomenon of political correctness.

      The other, related, issue is the extraordinary anti-smoking campaign, which has been probably the most successful public campaign in history. It has also become a victim of its own success. As smoking has become less common and less socially acceptable, the no smoking movement has become less relevant and more desperate. You see this in two ways. The first is over-reaching the health evidence, which manifests in weasel words. (Thankfully, journos never actually ask for the evidence that passive smoking is dangerous in well-ventilated, open areas.) The second is many of the former anti-smoking campaign’s foot soldiers moving away from smoking onto the next hyped health ‘crisis’ obsessing the public health industry. That is partly why we hear so much now about obesity and alcohol.

      All this when life expectancies continue, inexorably, to rise …

      Reply

    • Roja says:

      03:37pm | 28/09/10

      It’s like the “smokers are an unnessary burden on health care” when the only considered study found that smokers actually cost less in the long run as they die 8-10 years earlier.  Sadly non smokers also die eventually, often from similar diseases.  In the meantime all the other parts start to fail which might mean a hip replacement, at a minimum it will certainly need subsidised medicines in those intervening years.

      Of course once we have ensured that everyone lives as long as physically possible, then we will all have to work an extra ten years to ensure that we can afford to fund everyone living longer. 

      In Asia, they encourage smoking for exactly these reasons as they know they can’t afford it - however they have been chastised by western society for such a cynical, if not effective, policy.

    • Ban smoking everywhere says:

      02:50pm | 28/09/10

      I completely agree with the anit-smoking laws and I too believe it should be banned and outlawed completely! As a non-smoker I feel like I am the one being pushed into a corner as smokers light up wherever and whenever they please having no regard for nobody but themselves. Why should non-smokers be subjected to inahling disgusting smoke when we choose not to. It’s disgusting. I wouldn’t ask anyone to stand at a bus stop or at the beach inhaling smoke then why should I? It’s not being selfish, it’s not about us non-smokers having to move. The smokers are the ones at fault and are the ones causing harm and are the ones encroaching on an otherwise fresh unobstructed airspace. If you want to smoke YOU move. The air is meant to be fresh not polluted with more disgusting smoke from a filthy nasty habbit. You smokers talk about choice but only choice that suits you. We have no choice as we usually have to put up with your disgusting second hand smoke or move.

      Reply

    • AdamC says:

      04:53pm | 28/09/10

      As sometimes happens online, I am unsure whether this comment is serious or sarcastic. Assuming the former, I contend you are simply being intolerant. Surely the scent of smoke can’t be that offensive? Were you that offended by smoke when smoking was commonplace in restaurants and pubs, let alone offices? Or, is it just easy now to beat up on a minority that it is politically correct to stigmatise?

    • Help the smokers quit says:

      05:27pm | 28/09/10

      You are selfish and need to get back in that corner you have been pushed into. Smoking is an addiction and people like you refuse to acknowledge this. Smokers pay huge amounts in taxes and get absolutely no support to try and break the habit unless they pay large amounts of extra money for gimmicks that work for very few people. Instead of ranting on about “your rights” how about trying to get the govt to use the money collected from the cigarettes to help the smokers quit by using tax deductable programmes similar to drug addicts and alcoholics. It is a disgusting habit that I’m sure 99% of people who do smoke would prefer not to.

    • AdamC says:

      09:29pm | 28/09/10

      Um, again, not sure whether you are being serious or not, but for the record, I don’t smoke. Like the article’s author, I am a reformed smoker. I fully agree that smoking is an unhealthy addiction.

      What I disagree with are extreme, unnecessary restrictions on smoking, especially in open, well-ventilated areas.

    • Over This. says:

      02:50pm | 28/09/10

      Look, if we cannot attack the fat people for their disorder, then we shouldn’t be attacking the smokers for theirs. Leave them be. No point in getting money out of the smokers when it’s the supersized ambulances for the hefties we really need.

      Reply

    • Lara says:

      04:22pm | 28/09/10

      The day I left hospital with my first child, we went to an outdoor lunch venue to celebrate.
      I loved being otuside after a week cooped up in bed indoors!
      Alas, within minutes a smoker at the next table lit up the fag and I watched the ash drift centimetres past my newborn baby’s nose as she slept.
      Sorry smokers, but we wouldn’t let you cut yourself in public. Why should we be forced towatch - and partake - of your self-harming habit?
      I’m so sick of this argument.
      Smoker, if anyone belongs safely at home, away from the public’s lifestyle choices, perhaps it is YOU.

      Reply

    • Fu says:

      07:21pm | 28/09/10

      I don’t smoke and also hate the habit, but I disagree with your arguement. Your imposing your “want” to sit outside while you eat to “restrict” another person from doing something. You should never take away a person’s rights to accomodate another person’s wants considering there are measures in place already “you can eat inside where it is smoke free”.  There was a time in history where non-caucasians couldn’t sit in the same bus as a caucasian puerly because it made the caucasian uncomortable. That is an extreme example of taking one person’s rights away to accomodate anouther’s want but the slope is indeed slippery.

    • Lara says:

      12:19pm | 29/09/10

      Why should I move to another table (the place was crowded, btw, there were no spare tables) to accommodate another person’s intrusive behaviour.
      Would you say the same thing if the person at the next table started up a huge loud boom box?
      What if the burning ash from the ciggie hit my little girl in the face? It drifted right by her nose… would I then have had cause, in your mind, for me to become upset?

    • slowbreather says:

      02:34pm | 30/09/10

      There are people with heart/lung conditions such as heart disease, asthma, chronic obstructive airways disease and emphysema who can’t tolerate tobacco smoke as it makes them breathless. I am in this category and avoid places with lots of smokers, being in the vicinity of 1 smoker is about my limit. Thus I would choose a non smoking area or get as far away from the smokers as possible. I recognise their right to smoke but I have a right to minimise my inhaling of their smoke. Incidentally I have problems with train diesel fumes at Southern Cross station, Melbourne.

    • j Vine says:

      05:18pm | 28/09/10

      Read a book by george orwell called 1984, that is what we are very close to now. Political correctness is just another form of doublespeak

      Reply

    • Lara says:

      06:43pm | 28/09/10

      I feel that with the current euthenasia debate that we are getting closer to Orwell’s fabled land.

      I also felt that way when I was screened (standard process) for Down Syndrome babies, so I could abort them.

      The rules just keep on coming… and the political double-speak just seems to get thicker.

      I know we are in the realm of ‘choice’ with each of these social issues I mentioned, but there is a herd mentality that makes it hard to swim against the tide.

      Dont’ feel that way about smoking though - hah!

    • Stuart James says:

      05:28pm | 28/09/10

      The so called handfull of idiots that ruin it for everyone else should be targeted and banned from any event that serves alcohol instead of punnishing law abiding people.Remove these trouble makers and dish out severe fines and if they repeat their behavior gaol them and ban them permanently from licenced premises.We don’t need fools like them in our midst.

      Reply

    • hot tub political machine says:

      06:32pm | 28/09/10

      Last year I was standing at a pedestrian crossing - busy intersection, takes about 2 minutes to cross. Just after work so everyone is packed up to each other real close. There were probably 15 of us confined to 3 or 4 square meters. A lady just up and lights up in the middle of us, puffing the crap all over everybody.

      I lost all sympathy for the right to smoke that day. A couple of weeks later I got hit by ash from a smoker outdoors on a windy day - went right in my eye, bloody hurt. Dude was 4 or 5 meters away and didn’t even notice.  I see babies closer to ground level crying a lot in crowded malls where people smoke - wonder if the ash cools down by the time it gets to pram level

      Reply

    • Youdy beaudy says:

      10:31pm | 28/09/10

      There is smoke all around you everyday. Smoke from Exhaust fumes, smoke from barbies, smoke from many places. Why do you worry about your precious children and put on the guilt trip to tobacco only. I find it offensive to even to be near people breathing their germs all over the place, coughing up their guts in public places and their children with their snotty noses always with the flu or some other transmittable disease.  We would’nt know where all the sickness come from but most of it from your constantly sick kids. Kids go to school and come home with nits and other illnesses. Schools and Kindergartens are a breeding place for diseases and the rest of us have to put up with that. Get a grip all you peter perfects and see that apart from smoking that the main problem is your constantly sick children that are pushing illness on all of us.

      Why is this not noticed. What is the problem with your thinking. I have grandchildren and they are always catching something from the schools they go too yet their parents try to give them a good diet and a healthy way to go. Maybe parents instead of complaining all the time about smokers should look at the way they bring up their children.

      Smoking is not good but there are other areas that bring bad health and children are sometimes the biggest carriers of disease and this comes from slack upbringing. You see the so called precious children sitting in their prams with snotty noses, colds and flu and god knows whatever else they carry and their stupid parents don’t even wipe their noses while in a public place. God that makes me sick, i don’t know about others but I hope you get my drift on this. Yes everybody I’m attacking the children but more so their stupid moronic Mothers. God some of these women need a good kick up the backside. I don’t know why anyone would even breed with many of them as they are obviously morons. God help us all and save us from the modern families with their perfect children.

      Reply

    • Lisa P. says:

      11:08am | 29/09/10

      So now I’m a bad parent because my child catches a cold? I’m not meant to care about what they breathe into their lungs because there are factories elsewhere in the world spewing out smog?

      I’m glad that the government has banned smoking in cars with young children. TBH its a shocker that it ever had to get that far. Smoking in a car with children is abusive of the children’s health, as far as I’m concerned. It’s disgraceful that the self-interest of smokers has taken it that far, where it actually has to be legislated against.

      Your argument that there are other pollutants in the world runs along the lines of ‘forget about the forests, go save the dolphins instead’.
      It smacks of self-interest and sheer head-in-the-sand bloody mindedness.

      Don’t force me to breath your smoke, and don’t force my little kids to breathe your smoke!

    • Brian says:

      01:13am | 29/09/10

      Im a non-smoker, but after a weekend of seeing everyone standing between the flags at my local beer garden so they could smoke, im thinking the Conservatives in WA have gone too far. We have had “crackdowns” on drinking, and “Crackdowns” on Northbridge, and now when liquor licence holders are under more presure than ever before, to uphold the law,  we bring out laws that they now have to tell people what part of a beer garden to stand in when smoking. Pathetic

      Reply

    • Youdy beaudy says:

      06:10am | 29/09/10

      Hey Hot tub, I wonder how much exhaust smoke you people and the baby in question breathed in while waiting for the lights to change , didn’t you even notice while you were sticking it mentally to the person with the fag in hand. I’m sure if they did one of their mighty ozone tests right there people would be surprised at how much carbon monoxide was in the atmosphere generated by the traffic. I would think much more that the one ciggy that was lit up there.

      Anyway you are right, but there would have been other things going on at the same time that will definately kill, not now maybe but in about 30 years time. At least people can choose to smoke or not to, but in cities pollution from vehicles is terrible but people breathe fumes in everyday and don’t notice as they have it right through their systems probably. While having a choice re smoking we don’t have a choice regarding asking people to stop driving their polluting motor vehicles. If that happened we wouldn’t need lights and crossings. Get cars out of cities would be best but that’s impossible really. We can always walk away from a smoker and stand elsewhere maybe next to the person who is coughing their flu and other viruses into the air.

      Reply

    • dare2go says:

      08:53am | 29/09/10

      Reminds me of the stupid anti-smoking laws in Queensland, where one is not allowed to smoke within 4 meters of any ‘Public Building’ - which means you cannot walk down any footpath in a business area with a cigarette - better take the median strip (that’ll be safe…).

      Reply

    • Big Dunning says:

      10:25am | 29/09/10

      Perth is considered “laid back” but after living elsewhere the last few years and returning recently, I consider Perth people incredibly uptight.
      It’s illegal to get drunk here now.. Pubs can’t serve drunk people.

      You can’t stand up and drink on a outdoor terrace, NEED to be seated.

      Alcohol banned form Australia Day

      now all this other bs listed in the article

      yeah real laid back city “mate”

      I’m sorry to say but I simply don’t want to be an Australian anymore, for the most part the people of this nation are idiots who manage to ruin anything slightly enjoyable by being complete drunken idiots who can’t handle their booze.

      Reply
 
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Paul Colgan

Colgo 26 May 12 12:44PM

It's a Sydney thing, but 95.3FM... Why? It used to be all Bohemian Rhapsody and Walk this Way; now it's Father to Son and Country Road. Wah.

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We don’t deserve this huge, exciting scientific project

by Claire Connelly

8

We don’t deserve this huge, exciting scientific project

I’d like to be able to say that sharing the world’s largest radio telescope with South Africa…

Mining money talks the loudest in Australian politics

by Laurie Oakes

46

Mining money talks the loudest in Australian politics

When North Queensland Liberal MP George Christensen got the idea of launching a new political organisation…

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by Lucy Kippist

24

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Help! I’ve succumbed to a crippling modern illness that can strike at any moment. Symptoms include:…

Nosebleed Section

choice ringside rantings

From: They must pay for one’s bitter disappointments

Michael S says:

"A teacher at Geelong Grammar had criticised her for using words that were too long, which had left her confused and had made her doubt her ability to write essays. She became ''quite distressed'' when her English marks began to fall." I can sympathise. My scholastic mentors conveyed to me a causal relationship… [read more]

From: Welfare for breeders is a bonus for everyone

Change Up! says:

I have no problem paying my taxes. As a single, childless person on a very decent income, I can afford it and not have my life severely altered. Plus I understand that my taxes paying for things like schools, childcare and infrastructure is ultimately a good thing. A better community is better for me… [read more]

Light weight

Gentle jabs to the ribs

They must pay for one’s bitter disappointments

They must pay for one’s bitter disappointments

A private school girl’s family is sueing her elite, extremely expensive private school for not… Read more

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