Page 5419 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 8 December 2009
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otherwise be required to introduce a DOSA. What is the correct pronunciation, minister?
Ms Gallagher: It depends where you come from, I think.
MR HANSON: Does it? Okay, I will run with DOSA then. My amendment is straightforward.
Mr Corbell: Very North Shore of you, Jeremy!
MR HANSON: Is it?
Ms Gallagher: Dosa is an Indian dish, I think.
MR HANSON: Right. Maybe it is a “dosser”. Anyway, Mr Speaker, I think we all understand what it actually is, rather than how to pronounce it.
My amendment is straightforward. It essentially permits licensed venues with a total outdoor area of less than 100 square metres—and that is quite a small area—to establish their entire outdoor area as a DOSA when the establishment has a single outdoor area. Where it may have multiple outdoor areas that still constitute less than 100 square metres of outdoor space, they would essentially establish one of those areas, that being the smaller of the areas, as the DOSA. This provision seeks to ameliorate the adverse impacts that a total smoking ban will have on the businesses as well as ensure that those smoking restrictions would not have other negative unintended consequences.
In looking at the legislation and the requirements for establishing a DOSA, it is clear that many smaller venues will be disadvantaged and would simply be unable to establish a DOSA because it would be impractical or overly costly to construct the screen that is required. In the separation between a non-smoking area and a DOSA, you are either required to establish a screen or you are required to create a buffer four metres wide between the non-smoking and the smoking areas.
If you consider some of the smaller areas—and I take Green Square as an example—it would simply be impractical and, indeed, potentially impossible to create a buffer of four metres in an area that small, or indeed to build a screen that would effectively separate the two areas, the DOSA and the non-smoking areas.
Certainly, many clubs and pubs, and particularly our larger clubs, will be able to do so under the proposed regime. Whereas particularly our clubs have large outdoor areas—indeed, some of them are actually enclosed and on the establishment—many smaller pubs will not. There are about 30 of those establishments within the ACT, and I am sure many of us would have frequented a number of them from time to time.
Our amendment is aimed at creating a fairer and more even playing field for all of our licensed clubs, bars and nightclubs. My view is that, under this legislation, there are certain provisions which support clubs and which are specifically aimed at having DOSAs that come off gaming areas, and the clubs are far more easily able to
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