Trouble Down Under
Friday, September 2, 2022 at 13:25 The Daily Mail has a report about a minor confrontation outside Sydney airport:
You can read it for yourself but what struck me was the fact that the 'passenger' filmed the incident, asking the smoker, ‘Would you put your cigarette out please? There's a no smoking sign right there.’
He then ‘posted the footage online and tagged authorities including Sydney Airport, NSW Health, NSW Police and Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant in the hope they will take action’ adding:
‘What's the point of a no smoking area if you just let these morons blow smoke in the public's face?' he fumed.
‘Not a security guard in sight. No doubt you've got cameras everywhere. Pick up your act.'
Call me old-fashioned but I'm guessing the security guards have better things to do than patrol no smoking zones and the cameras are there primarily to protect the public from far worse things than someone lighting a cigarette in the open air, even if it is near a no smoking sign.
Moreover let's get this in perspective. It may have been a no smoking zone but the smokers were outside in the open air so posing no risk to anyone else's health.
Our hero could have walked past them in a second or two but instead chose to get on his high horse and start filming, exposing himself (in theory) to more cigarette smoke, although I don't see even a wisp of smoke in the images online.
His real beef I suspect had nothing to do with any perceived risk to his health. What he didn't like was the fact that a handful of people were ignoring a 'no smoking' sign in a state where it's against the law 'to smoke within four metres of a pedestrian entrance or exit of a public building'.
It's this that seems to have triggered him which makes me worry about the future because we are in danger (if we haven't already done it) of creating societies – even in allegedly liberal nations – where even the most minor infringement of the law is considered reason enough to publicly expose the transgressor.
I'm not encouraging people to break the law but I would put smoking in the open air outside an airport terminal in the same category as exceeding the speed limit on an uncongested motorway in good weather.
(I'm 100 cent in favour, btw, of raising the motorway speed limit to at least 80mph, or having variable speed limits that go up as well as down according to conditions.)
My question then to the complainant in this story is, has he never broken the speed limit, ignoring the signs that say 30, 60 or 70mph?
If he has broken the speed limit (is there anyone who hasn't at one time or another?) why is that so different to ignoring a no smoking sign outside an airport terminal building?
We're talking of course about Australia, a country responsible for some of the most illiberal and restrictive anti-Covid restrictions in the world, so perhaps there's a growing acceptance Down Under that people's behaviour must be micro-managed to the nth degree and if they transgress they should be exposed and reported to the authorities by members of the public.
But let's not be complacent. Similar restrictions have been introduced in the UK so perhaps it's only a matter of time before similar 'public service' messages are posted over here too.
Update: As if on cue ... Smoking within 15m of hospitals to be banned in Scotland from next week (The National).
How soon will it be before someone posts an image of someone smoking within 15m of the building? Anyone got a tape measure?
Reader Comments (2)
It's because of such attacks that I would never go to Australia. Decades of public hate campaigns have made it an unsafe country for smokers to visit. The smokerphobics down under even think they have some God given right to physically attack smokers who are, whether the haters like it not, legitimate consumers because, as far as I am aware, tobacco is not yet illegal there.
The authorities have a duty not to incite the public into hatred inspired acts but all too often seem to think that even if a smoker gets half beaten to death it would be a good thing if it stops them smoking.
Meanwhile acts of violence including murder of smokers around the globe are conveniently ignored. Before Frank Davis left us, he used to document such cases on his Smokers' Graveyard blog. All of the attacks on there have been inspired by the hatred and fear spewed forth from the anti smoker and tobacco control industry and the unintended consequences of making smokers the target of those anti smokers with pyschotic tendencies and severe mental health issues.
They should be ashamed of themselves and their lack of self control at turning up the scaremongering level as should governments which blindly follow any diktat tobacco control demands without considering the consequences of the smoker's personal safety.
Bloody hell, you guys are still allowed to smoke on hospital property? Here in BC, Canada, that's been banned for a decade or so. Legally, if you want a smoke you need to completely leave the property. Of course, no one does, but always expecting the confrontation from the non-smokers when you do.