Page 3264 - Week 11 - Thursday, 12 September 1991
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depends on licence money for revenue. I think we, ourselves, are hooked on alcohol. We need to come at this subject - similarly with the subject of gambling, but that is not what we are on about today - without any concern about whether or not we are going to get less money out of it. Yes, if we make the laws tighter and tougher we may get less money out of it, but that is not what we ought to be considering. We should consider the benefits of a new approach to the licensing laws - through a new independent inquiry.
We also need to be beyond the influence of the alcohol selling industry. I realise that this request is very late in the life of this Assembly, and it would be difficult now to say to the Social Policy Committee, "Here we are, Social Policy Committee. Remember that statement you made in February 1990? Go ahead and make a report to this Assembly". We do not have time. But an independent inquiry could go ahead immediately, even to cope with this subject by the end of the life of this Assembly.
Meanwhile, alas, there are young people in varied states of disaster. Our laws are not working effectively. I ask, urgently, therefore, for this inquiry. What can we do right now? We surely can ask the Government to have full and effective maintenance of the present laws, no matter what their present deficiencies are, and we can ask all members of the Assembly to support any move to have an independent inquiry.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (3.24): Mr Speaker, this is an unprecedented vote of no confidence from a member of the Residents Rally in the leader of the Residents Rally. Dr Kinloch today raises a crisis in the inadequate laws - the very laws of which Mr Collaery said, on 21 November last year when he introduced the significant amendments in the Liquor (Amendment) Bill, reported in Hansard at page 4428:
This Bill represents a significant milestone in ensuring that the Liquor Act is updated to reflect present community standards and expectations.
This significant milestone in legislation, introduced by the Residents Rally last year, is now woefully inadequate. We are told that there is a crisis - anything for the front page.
I ask my officers, "What is the crisis in under-age drinking?", and they tell me that indeed there has been a significant movement in the figures of detection. In 1987-88 there were 505 offences detected; in 1988-89, 479 offences detected; in 1989-90, 411 offences detected; and in 1990-91, 353 offences detected. There has been a significant movement, it is true - unfortunately, in rather the opposite direction from that suggested by this sense of pseudo-crisis that the Residents Rally is attempting to generate.
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