Australia will ban smoking in all hotels and bars, except those in the outback Northern Territory, in a move to stop the death of hundreds of bartenders each year from breathing second-hand smoke.

Australia’s two most populous states, New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria, will impose total smoking bans in hotels and bars by 2007. Australia’s other five states will impose smoking bans in licensed premises from January 2006 through to 2007.

“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,” said NSW state premier Bob Carr in a statement received on Wednesday.

In March, Ireland became the first country in the world to ban smoking in restaurants, bars and pubs. Norway and Malta have since imposed bans and Sweden will in 2005.

Australia’s Cancer Council says up to 97 of NSW’s 40,000 bar and club staff could expect to die from passive smoking-related heart disease and lung cancer each year.

“The era of smoky bar rooms is coming to an end because the ever-growing evidence of the health damage being done to customers and staff,” said Victoria state premier Steve Bracks, adding almost 5,000 people died in the state each year due to smoking-related illnesses.

The NSW ban will be phased in from July 2005 with smoking banned on dance floors, auditoriums, toilets and foyers, but allowed in one room in licensed premises. By July 2006, the one smoking room must not take up more than 25 percent of the bar.

Smoking will still be allowed in outdoor areas of NSW hotels and private gaming rooms at casinos.

Victoria will also phase in the smoking ban.

Smoking is already banned in restaurants and shopping centers across Australia, and as well as on the sands of two of the country’s most famous beaches, Sydney’s Bondi and Manly.

Sydney City council said on Wednesday it was awaiting a report on whether to ban smoking in city parks.

The Australian Hotels Association opposes the smoking ban, warning that up to 8,000 jobs could be lost, but Carr said a New York report showed that since the city banned smoking in licensed premises, bar jobs have risen by 10,600 and an extra 234 bars opened. He said Ireland has reported no downturn in bar trade.

The government in the Northern Territory, which is predominately desert, has no plans to ban smoking in hotels and bars.