Page 4104 - Week 09 - Thursday, 26 August 2010
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licensees greater power to deal with unruly customers. They will oppose and vote against provisions that provide for offences against patrons who try to buy drinks for intoxicated friends or colleagues. They will oppose all of those reforms today. What a disgrace! What an absolute failure of leadership on the part of the Liberal Party and Mrs Dunne! If they were serious about dealing with the issue of alcohol-fuelled violence in our city, if they were serious about reforming our liquor laws to bring them up to date and create a modern framework for dealing with risk, they would be supporting this bill. But Mrs Dunne simply has no capacity to engage constructively in these types of debates. For Mrs Dunne, it is always a glass-half-empty view of the world. And today that is what we have seen from Mrs Dunne and the Liberal Party.
There was a range of comments made in the in-principle debate that I will take the opportunity to respond to this evening before we proceed to the detail stage. Firstly, I want to address the issue of public consultation. It is always the old red herring that gets raised. When you cannot find anything else good to say about the legislation, you can always try to pick around the issue of public consultation.
Let us be very clear about public consultation. I have worked very hard to engage with the peak industry bodies and with a broad number of individual licensees who have had an interest in this bill and who have wanted to raise their concerns about it. For example, I have worked very closely with the Australian Hotels Association and, given that Mrs Dunne has raised this issue, I would like to draw Mrs Dunne’s attention to the comments of Mr Capezio, the president of AHA ACT branch, in the latest edition of Active hospitality, the official magazine of the Australian Hotels Association. I quote Mr Capezio:
I commend Mr Corbell for his willingness to consult with industry throughout this process and for the amount of time he has put in to considering suggestions from outside his Department. Often times it can seem that public consultation processes are a waste of time, with Governments having already made up their mind based on advice from bureaucrats who may not be experienced in the matter they are seeking to legislate. I am pleased to say that Mr Corbell has given the AHA a fair hearing on an issue that he knows is critical to the viability of our members. It is inevitable that there will be aspects of the new legislation on which we will disagree, but at least the industry has had the chance to be heard.
I thank Mr Capezio for his comments. I have found the process of engagement with Mr Capezio, Mr Fenner from the AHA and Mr House from ClubsACT to have been a very constructive and engaging process. It has been one of the more interesting and stimulating detailed negotiations that I have had in my time in this place. I note the presence of Mr Fenner and Mr House in the gallery today and I thank them both for the very constructive discussions that we have been able to engage in and for the real concessions and the real comprises we have been able to work on with many elements of this legislation.
I note that Mrs Dune has criticised me for failing to meet with some licensees. If I have overlooked a request then I apologise for it. It certainly was not deliberate on my part. But I can assure Mrs Dunne that we have sought to meet with anyone who has come through the door. For example, last week, I met with the RUC, the Rugby Union Club, at Barton. They had a number of concerns. I met with the manager and we had a discussion about his concerns. Equally, I met with the owners of the Venue
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