Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (28 November) . . Page.. 3254 ..

MR QUINLAN (continuing):

read the local newspaper. The liquor stores will be open, but when you go in and say, "I would like a slab, because I am having a barbecue," you will be told, "No, sorry. You might throw the bottles at each other in the privacy of your own backyard, so their sale is therefore banned for the second half of New Year's Eve."

I have to agree with those people who have spoken against this legislation. It demonstrates that some people in this place, and possibly their advisers, are a little bit out of touch with the community that they are supposed to serve. None of what I have said should be taken as not being concerned about public safety. We certainly are concerned for public safety. But if public safety becomes the sole criterion by which we frame legislation and regulation then we are heading in a rather concerning direction.

The point has been made that this legislation, once passed, would allow this regulation to be invoked again and again. I agree with Mr Berry's point that it has obviously been done in haste; it is ill prepared. Maybe there is room to invoke some regulation that ensures that in particular public places people do not carry alcoholic beverage of any kind in glass containers at specific times. I would be prepared to look at such legislation that had some rational basis and was not a blanket inconvenience for everybody in an attempt to address a problem in a simple way as opposed to a reasoned, intelligent way.

I would still like to be able to go down to Cooleman Court on New Year's Eve and pick up a few cold bottles of beer for New Year's Eve and not have to stick them on ice for half a day because I have lost control of my refrigerator to the cheesecake and the salad.

MR HUMPHRIES (Chief Minister, Minister for Community Affairs, Attorney-General and Treasurer) (11.06), in reply: Mr Speaker, I would be very happy to explain to the Assembly what the genesis for this legislation was and why it was brought forward. My habit on New Year's Eve, at least in recent years, has been to go out with the police and observe ways in which issues of public order and so on are being handled by the police on such occasions.

In the last couple of years the point has been made to me very consistently that we have a major problem in Civic and sometimes Manuka with people consuming large amounts of alcohol in those places and then in fun or perhaps accidentally smashing bottles on the road or on the pavement, resulting in serious injury. In recent years the ACT Ambulance Service, which has generally stationed people in public places such as Civic on New Year's Eve, has dealt with a large number of injuries as a result of people stepping or falling on broken glass.

I can advise members that the glass is almost exclusively beer glass. There are possibly other bottles in the broken glass. My observation in previous years-and I invite members to make their own observations on this-is that that glass has been exclusively beer glass. I have not encountered too many broken Bollinger bottles or chardonnay bottles amongst those contributing to the problem.

The government saw this problem and said, "What can we do to fix it?" People being injured in this way on New Year's Eve is a serious social problem, apart from the cost that flows on to the community in having to deal with those injuries. We looked at the options available to us. Members may be aware that the territory's law already states that it is an offence to consume alcohol from an open bottle within 50 metres of a shop. At

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .