Page 4747 - Week 16 - Wednesday, 28 November 1990
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It is a good procedural change but, again, a substantive procedural change affecting the substantive rights and liabilities of a large number of Canberra citizens - licensees of licensed premises, the club community, and the thousands of Canberrans who earn their livelihood in the liquor trade as employees of clubs, pubs or licensed restaurants. So, Mr Speaker, this is an important change to the law affecting thousands of Canberra citizens and this Assembly really has had only a week to get across the minutiae of the Bill. There has been no opportunity really for the Opposition to go out and discuss this matter with the community.
In this case, as I indicated, it appears that this measure has general support through the industry. Indeed, some of the initiatives probably originally came up through industry sources, and that is a good thing. Governments of any persuasion will legislate along that line. But it would have been far better had we had some further time to contemplate the effect of these changes and to go out into the community and allow the community to actually look at the Bill. To the extent that I have been able to speak on the phone with people from the liquor trade, both licensees and the relevant union, the indication I am getting is: "Yes, we support what we understand is in the Bill, but we have not really had the opportunity to study it in detail", and that is not a good way to proceed to legislation.
Mr Speaker, the other substantial feature of this new legislation which does bear comment from the Opposition is the change to the offence of providing liquor to a person under 18 years of age. The change that is effected by this Bill relates to a defence available to a person charged with providing drink to a person between the ages of 16 years and 18 years. It allows a licensee to defend a charge if the licensee can establish that he or she took reasonable steps to ensure that the person was 18.
This is a minor change to the legislation but one that probably will have the effect in the industry of making licensees far more careful in themselves checking their premises. The anticipation in the industry is that, with this amendment in place, premises that are at risk of under-age drinking, in particular a number of more popular disco establishments around the town, will probably establish a practice whereby their doorman will require proof of identity before allowing young people into those licensed premises. Should a person under 18 be sold liquor and a charge be brought, the licensee would be able to produce their employees to give sworn evidence that it was the practice in the premises that they sought identification, that they sought some form of ID from drinkers, and that they had taken all reasonable steps to avoid supplying drinks to minors but somehow someone had slipped through the cracks, as it were, and had been able to have liquor supplied. Encouraging the industry to self-regulate in respect of under-age drinkers is a good thing, and the Opposition supports those changes.
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