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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Thursday, 24 June 2004) . . Page.. 2678 ..

While I welcome the proposed section, the problem is that not many people scrutinise the newspapers’ public notice section to find out what consultations are coming up. Organisations such as ACTCOSS, CARE, the Consumer Legal Centre or Lifeline are more likely to notice such a notice and would be in a position to provide important comments and evidence, but most members of the public would not realise the opportunity was there. My amendment is a small step towards improving that situation. Requiring notices at the local shops would also improve it, but unfortunately I did not think of that until this morning.

Development application signs are put up on the public boundary so that passers-by see them. A potential problem with these signs is that they may not be seen by people who are just passing by, as distinct from people entering the club. The requirement, however, is worded to say that the sign should be prominent outside all public entrances and I believe this would attract the attention of some interested people at least.

In the case where a new premises is proposed, it would be sensible for the signs to be at the public boundary of or public entrance to the site. This is part of a process of recognising that establishing poker machine venues is not something to be undertaken lightly. I say poker machine venues because it is not only the machine itself. This is a straightforward amendment that will facilitate more scrutiny and input from the general public on the installation of poker machines.

MS DUNDAS (5.12): The Democrats will be supporting this amendment. It is quite sensible to put up a sign indicating that there is an application for a licence or amendment to a licence in relation to the social impact statement at the place where that licence is or may be in operation. That is, as Ms Tucker has indicated, what we do for development applications. I see no reason why we should not do it for these licence applications.

MR STEFANIAK (5.12): The opposition will be supporting this amendment. I note that there are quite a few good provisions in clause 19. Indeed, they could be dovetailed into the subclause of Ms Tucker’s amendment in terms of where the assessment for application will be available. It could just as easily be from the commission. I think that there is logic in this amendment. It is very similar to the provisions in relation to development applications and seems to fit in quite nicely with clause 19.

MR QUINLAN (Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Business and Tourism, and Minister for Sport, Racing and Gaming) (5.13): The government does not have a real problem with this amendment. It will be fascinating to see how it works in action. I very much doubt that it will elicit much of a response, but I do not have a great problem with it.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 19, as amended, agreed to.

Clauses 20 to 24, by leave, taken together and agreed to.

Proposed new clause 24A.

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