Page 4751 - Week 16 - Wednesday, 28 November 1990
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There are provisions for the Gaming and Liquor Authority, and any authority that replaces it, to penalise such establishments. In the past, until this Bill, all we had, as Mr Connolly has said, was a provision whereby the authority would do nothing or the licensed establishment would have its licence cancelled. That was a quite draconian step. There was nothing in between. I am therefore quite delighted - I say this from my experience as a prosecutor and as a director of a couple of licensed clubs around this town, where you do see it from the other side - to see a range of penalties, from do nothing, to suspension of licence, to cancellation, and formal reprimand. I think that is a very positive law reform step taken by the Attorney-General, the crown law officers and this Government. I think it will benefit the industry, it will benefit potential defendants and it will benefit the authority. It is a very positive move indeed.
I am also pleased to see attention being given in this Bill to the question of proof of identity, especially in relation to under-age drinkers. I recall on several occasions being duty director at a club which was tightening up its procedures. It had about four procedures. The first one was that you had to go past the director at the door and provide proof of age. Our instructions, of course, were that you picked anyone who might conceivably be under 18 years of age. I remember picking one young lady, I thought, who I was not sure of. I thought she was probably right, but I picked her just in case. She burst into rather hysterical laughter. She produced her licence and said that she was terribly flattered. She was to turn 30 the next week and that was the first time in about five years anyone had queried that she might be under 18. I felt rather embarrassed, but she felt quite happy about the whole set-up. I have certainly been involved in this issue as a prosecutor and also as a director of several licensed clubs, and I think some of the reforms here are well overdue and are very welcome indeed.
I heard what Mr Connolly said in relation to some of the other amendments proposed by the Attorney-General. I am pleased with the promptness with which one of the problems picked up by Professor Whalan and the Scrutiny of Bills and Subordinate Legislation Committee yesterday has been attended to, and that is in the amendment to be moved by the Attorney inserting "undue" before "disturbance" in proposed new section 46(1)(c). This will largely alleviate the potential problem which the Scrutiny of Bills Committee saw. Perhaps Mr Connolly might be being slightly too legalistic in saying that the Government law officers could have done a full amendment. There is probably no practical difficulty in it and, on my instructions and understanding, there certainly is no practical difficulty. There is no likely pending case that would be affected by this in the hiatus period before this legislation is gazetted and becomes law. I hear what he says in relation to that, but I certainly believe that there is no practical difficulty.
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