Page 4097 - Week 09 - Thursday, 26 August 2010
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I thank members for their courtesy. I did raise this with members earlier. It is an important bill and an important reform and I think that it is worthy of extending the time a little. The bill has plenty of offence provisions and penalties, but where are the proactive elements to support our society? Another element in the bill which is deficient is that too much power rests in the Commissioner for Fair Trading, notwithstanding that many of these decisions are able to be challenged in the ACAT.
In addition, there is no mechanism for the minister to take advice on matters relating to the liquor industry or alcohol consumption in the ACT. I mentioned earlier that the industry had proposed the establishment of a liquor advisory board and that Mr Corbell had apparently indicated some support for the proposal, but it did not materialise in the bill. A board could allow the advisory function to operate and would provide some process for scrutiny and support of the commissioner.
One of the measures the government introduced in its 2010-11 budget was to fund 10 more police officers to enforce the provisions of the new laws and, in doing so, to address those two primary objectives of the harm minimisation and public safety. This is to be applauded and goes to a matter which the Canberra Liberals have been calling for for a long time. But in doing so, Mr Corbell has flagged that his new licence fees will be designed to recover the full cost of that measure as well as the cost of the rest of the licensing regime. On top of what will be significant increases in licence fees, there are considerable other financial implications for business in the ACT.
There will be significant increases in compliance costs for matters such as RSA training, RAMP preparation and record keeping. The industry questions, as do I, whether it is appropriate for a regulatory regime that is designed to provide protection to the public, often from themselves, to be funded entirely by industry. I raise this as a matter that the Canberra Liberals will be monitoring and which we believe should be considered in the context of the review of the operation of the new legislation in two years time.
As I have said before, this bill fails on many fronts but, most importantly, it fails, on its own, to achieve Mr Corbell’s liquor reform. As I have said, this is the first volume of a three-volume novel. So far we have not seen volumes 2 and 3. It cannot succeed by itself. I think that it is insulting to this Assembly to expect it to consider only one part of it today.
Under the circumstances, we will not be supporting this legislation. We are also not supporting this legislation for all the reasons outlined in my remarks today. One of the things I want to highlight is that we have had a lengthy process, going back to February 2008, where the minister has been talking about he is going to do. It is interesting to note that the small people of Canberra have not been involved in that conversation.
For whatever reason, the hardworking owner of an Indian restaurant or a Chinese restaurant or a small tavern in the suburbs was not engaged in this conversation. I have met with many of the smallholders. They are concerned about the impact that this will have on their community and their business and what it will do to the fabric
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