Page 4108 - Week 09 - Thursday, 26 August 2010
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even involve setting up a liquor accord program in which consumers and licensees and other stakeholders, such as the police, work together to achieve a safer environment for our community in our entertainment precincts. This has worked in other places, and it could work here. Indeed, Madam Assistant Speaker, I note that the exposure draft for the regulation contemplates the establishment of liquor accords in Canberra.
At this point I have not articulated in other amendments how a proactive element of this objective might be achieved. Certainly, personal offences provisions are clear in the bill but, as I said in the in-principle stage, there are some personal offences provisions which have not been addressed in this bill which were called for by the Australian Federal Police Association and by working police. More proactive elements will come over time, as the new laws bed down. Importantly, it should form a key part of the review of the operation of the new laws in two years time.
The purpose in putting this amendment forward now is to put it up-front, as the other objectives are, and to demonstrate that these law reforms are not just about setting up bureaucratic processes and offences and penalty provisions. They are, and should also be, about working with the community to achieve better outcomes for the community. It puts a human face and human responsibility on the legislative framework, and I commend the amendment to the Assembly.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (5.39): The Greens will support this amendment. Personal responsibility was certainly a repeated theme that we heard throughout our consultations on our discussion paper and in the conversations I had with members of the community and people that I know on an ongoing basis, and certainly I touched on it in my earlier comments. I think, by inserting personal responsibility as a new object of the act, there is a potential built into the act for expansion in the future on the provisions of the act. This may take the form of education about the effects of alcohol and the importance of being aware of how drinking affects people’s judgement. I think there is a range of possibilities here. As I touched on earlier, there are some real issues around drinking culture in Australia. I think the addition of this into the act points to that and does open up opportunities for the future.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Water, Minister for Energy and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (5.40): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Just before I turn to the detail of Mrs Dunne’s amendment, can I just clarify a comment I made in my closing comments before the vote on the in-principle stage. I indicated that I had written to the vice-chancellors of UC and the ANU in relation to their liquor regulation framework but, in fact, I am intending to write to them; I have not yet done so. I apologise for that confusion. Unfortunately, with so many of these things, some knowledge of everything that you are doing day-to-day does get mislaid from time to time, so I correct the record, and I apologise for any confusion that has been caused.
In relation to Mrs Dunne’s amendment, the government will be supporting this amendment. The amendment reflects what parts of the bill already do in practice. As an example of this, there is the public order offence in clause 108, where a patron will commit an offence if they abuse, threaten or intimidate a staff member who refuses to supply liquor under the responsible service of alcohol principles. Similarly, the
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