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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 9 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 2579 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

This particular issue made no difference whatsoever to health. In fact, my personal opinion is that the porcelain urinals are much cleaner and are easier to clean than the stainless steel ones, but that is an aside.

Ms McRae: Have you ever cleaned them? Here is a man who has cleaned one. Wow!

MR MOORE: I am getting interjections from Ms McRae about cleaning such things. Although it is genetic that men are not able to clean toilets, some of us actually have been able to overcome those sorts of problems occasionally, under great duress, and are able to do it. Now that that is public, I suppose everybody is going to think that I am much too thin.

Mr Speaker, that situation illustrates something to me and I have been watching out ever since. Is there too much power in the hands of this group, and does this legislation provide that public servants basically have too much power, particularly with reference to occupancy loadings and other issues? This issue of occupancy loadings has come up again and again. It has been the subject of a great deal of debate in this Assembly. The main argument for giving power over occupancy loadings up until now has been the fire issue. The arguments have been quite persuasive. Often they have been opposed by the Australian Hotels Association, who are saying, "Look, it is just an excuse; it is not really about fire at all". However, this Assembly has overridden that view and I have supported the Assembly decision to allow the fire officer to determine the loadings from a fire perspective - in other words, from a danger perspective.

We now see this legislation introduced to provide more power for public servants to say that there is a certain occupancy loading, and more power to say that restaurants and so forth in Canberra can sell liquor only so far out into a public area. On the surface, most of us would say it is appropriate that there should be a limitation on that, but effectively we are giving power to people who in the past have said, "No, you have to spend $20,000 to change a couple of porcelain urinals to a stainless steel one", and I have real doubts about it.

That is just one story, Mr Speaker. I am sure members have heard many stories about problems associated with this particular section of the bureaucracy. There are always going to be stories, of course, because there is power in somebody's hands, and people who are being told what to do with their business will always bring out stories. We have to keep that in perspective as well. That is why, Mr Speaker, I want the Minister to tell us why he believes in this legislation, which also includes changes to the board. What other action has he taken to ensure that we will not have the sort of urinal decisions that we have had in the past? Unless he can assure me of that, I will be voting against this legislation.

MS TUCKER (11.21): The Greens will be supporting this legislation. I was interested to hear Mr Moore's story, but I am aware that there is an appeals mechanism, and the registrar, while being a member of the board, does not have voting rights. I am not totally convinced that it is totally fair in some ways. On the other hand, because the Greens recognise the alcohol-related harms in our community to be extreme, we applaud the fact that this is making quite clear that the industry dealing with alcohol does need to take great responsibility.

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