Page 3105 - Week 10 - Thursday, 18 October 2007
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table. Have I received anything from the industry on it? No. No, I have not. That is the short answer.
Mr Mulcahy: It is not what I am hearing.
MR HARGREAVES: What part of “no” do you not understand? If Mr Pratt would like me to say it again—he might have had a phone call from somebody to the contrary—I will say it again: “No, I have not received any correspondence from it at all.”
Outdoor cafe fees in Canberra are zoned according to the relative levels of commercial activity. The scale of fees reflects these zones to provide equity for cafe operators. The zones are the prime areas like Manuka and Kingston; secondary zones like the city surrounds and north and south Canberra; and tertiary zones, which are all other suburbs—for example, the Yarralumla shops. Guess what you can do there? You can have a meal out on the footpath in Yarralumla. I am sure that Dr Foskey, a former resident of that suburb, has dined in an outdoor area in Yarralumla. No doubt Mr Mulcahy has been to Deakin and dined outside—I would hope. You do know where Deakin is, Mr Mulcahy?
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Hargreaves! Direct your comments through the chair.
MR HARGREAVES: I was just checking, Mr Speaker. We need to understand this. I have been accused of the consultation process not being to their satisfaction. I need to put on the record that when we talked about the increase of these fees, we had a chat with the industry—the AHA—
Mr Mulcahy: Oh, a chat.
MR HARGREAVES: Yes, a chat with the AHA and the chamber of commerce and industry. Each of them put a case to government which we found compelling. One of them was to stagger the increase. Why did we increase it by 100 per cent in the first place, Mr Speaker? Because we were so far behind everywhere else in the country that it was just not on that we would allow free public access for the purposes of profit making. That was accepted by the industry, but they did not want it imposed in one hit. We said, “Fine.” They suggested that we do it over three years, so we did. We agreed with it. It was a positive outcome of the consultation process.
Furthermore, it was put to the government that there was an inequality in the insurance regime around public liability. Some businesses were required to have $20 million worth of public liability insurance for the outside area, yet, strangely, they had only a $10 million policy inside the building. We concurred with that. Realising that there was a discretion available to us, we said, “Yep, we agree.” For example, if you have a cafe that wants to use the outside area right up to the kerb on an intersection, they can have $20 million worth of liability because their risk is much higher. If another cafe is halfway down the road—halfway down the strip—where the chances of a car mounting the kerb and going through that particular area is considerably lessened, it can have $10 million coverage under public liability insurance.
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