Page 2842 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 September 1994
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Detail Stage
Bill, by leave, taken as a whole
MRS CARNELL (Leader of the Opposition) (9.14): I ask for leave to move together the two amendments circulated in my name.
Leave granted.
MRS CARNELL: I move:
Page 2, after clause 4, insert the following new clause:
Interpretation
"4A. Section 4 of the Principal Act is amended by omitting 'or Part D1.13' from the definition of 'occupancy loading' in subsection (1).".
Page 2, line 5, clause 5, paragraph (a), after "recommendation", insert ", made having regard to Part D1.13 of the Building Code,".
Mr Acting Speaker, I have already run through the reasons why I believe that this is the appropriate way to go for licensed premises. Mr Connolly has been extremely simplistic in his approach to this whole matter. In his comments before, he suggested that the difference between my amendment and his initial Bill was the difference between a seething mass - to quote Mr Connolly, I think his words were that "the bartender would just see an arm plunging through the crowd seeking another drink" - and a very ordered, nice, very well-mannered bar area. That is simply not the case.
What my amendment does is not significantly change the issues involved here at all; what it does is simply make them fairer. What it does is make sure that bar areas, say, at ground level with good exit capacities, where people can get out in a hurry if there is a fight or a fire or any of those sorts of things, do not end up with exactly the same occupancy loading as a similar sized premises on the first floor with a single set of stairs. That is exactly what the current situation is. It is simply ridiculous. What we have to do is not have ridiculously restrictive public safety laws and the sorts of things Mr Connolly was saying. If we had only two people in every bar, then there would never be a fight. Maybe we should have only one and then they could not fight with themselves. You simply cannot go to that sort of length. Obviously, if you put fewer and fewer people into these nightspots there will be fewer fights. Where is the happy medium?
We believe that the flexibility that this amendment gives allows for that sort of balance and allows nightspots to have extra patrons if they have gone to the extra or added expense in some cases of having good, solid exit capacity - in fact, a good capacity to get out in a hurry if there is a fire or whatever - whereas others have not done that.
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