Federal Coalition frontbencher Tony Abbott has accused NSW of being a nanny state for banning smoking in cars in the presence of children.
The former federal health minister attracted harsh criticism yesterday after telling a public health debate at Sydney University that smoking in front of children was a "trivial issue".
Detractors pointed to the hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations received by the Liberal Party from tobacco companies each year.
Mr Abbott said there were worse crimes as far as parenting were concerned. "I was a child that was regularly imprisoned in a car with heavy smokers ... My parents both smoked heavily when I was a kid. Now has it done me any harm?
"You be the judge ... maybe I would have been six foot six and I would have had much greater intelligence, who knows?"
Brad Pedersen, founder of the not-for-profit group Democracy Watch -- Australians For Political Funding Reforms, said the passive smoke may have affected Mr Abbott's brain development.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25725807-5013404,00.html |
