The Australian Ministry of Health has banned smokers from going out for a smoke break during the day (http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/editorial/calling-time-on-the-smoko-201001...). This has brought down a predictable deluge of commentary in the Australian media. However, while the anti-nicotine police celebrate this ‘victory’ and talk about fairness and productivity, the Ministry has puffed on about ‘sending the right signals’ regarding quitting. Laudable stuff – on the surface – but this ‘filter’ has all the guile of a certain script from Cheech & Chong about dog droppings.

Don’t misunderstand me – I’m not saying that smoking’s good for you or should be encouraged. However, I am interested in fairness and good laws. It’s probably just as well that the Aussie Health Ministry took the media line that they did because the reality is that, in almost all organisations, the greatest threat to productivity is a culture of attendance over performance. If the primary measure of workplace value is sitting up straight at your workstation or gobbing off in endless meetings then we must assume that there will soon be similar bans in Canberra on time spent at the water cooler, coffee machine, in the lavatory, on social networks, auction sites and personal email. Don’t even think about eating a peanut bar at your desk because someone else, who is allergic to such devilish creations, may have to touch your keyboard! If you’re overweight it would be foolish to contemplate a job in this Ministry because everyone knows that obesity is a far bigger drain on Western health systems than cigarettes!

However, this insightful resolution from the Health ‘Australique’ has an upside. (Mandarins from Oz have a brand just like we have for our Kiwifruit – in case you ever wondered when a mandarin becomes a tangerine [ANS – when it comes from Tangiers!]). They have provided hope for the many aviation security ‘bag sniffers’ who will eventually be made redundant when the world realises that serious terrorists tend to congregate where there are few defences. This projected employee Diaspora will be able to find work in Canberra running random ‘sniffer tests’ on employees’ clothes to establish whether they have been in contact with cigarette smoke while out at a meeting.

I await with interest how the Ministry will further their non-smoking message by replacing frontline doctors and nurses who partake of this most evil of legal drugs with clinicians from the abundant pool of those who can’t yet find work in the Australian health sector! New Zealand beware; our highly-skilled health workforce may be threatened further – as long as they have no vices!