Page 5661 - Week 13 - Thursday, 18 November 2010
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that have been invested in closed circuit television surveillance networks that are now monitored live in real-time on Friday and Saturday nights because of the risks associated with late-night trading in places like Civic, Manuka and Kingston, and indeed elsewhere.
I will point to the significant investment the ACT taxpayer has made in the most recent budget to employ additional police—10 additional, dedicated police officers to work with licensees in a proactive way to address the problems associated with alcohol-related violence and antisocial behaviour. I could point to the additional regulatory resources that the government is having to invest in to address these issues. These are the real costs and investments our community has to both address and make to deal with the challenge of abuse of alcohol in our community.
I am not saying that licensees are solely responsible for this harm. They are not. Under the new legislative regime, consumers of alcohol have considerable new responsibilities and they face new penalties if they do the wrong thing. So they also have an important role to play. Licensees are extended a privilege when they are granted a liquor licence. It is not a right; it is a privilege. It is a privilege that must always be exercised responsibly. I know that the great majority of liquor licensees in this town do exercise it responsibly. But, at the same time, we also have to recognise that the cost to our community from the prevalence and availability of alcohol has to be addressed. That is what these new fees do.
This is not a one-size-fits-all proposal—far from it. To characterise it as such is simply deceitful, because it is an incremental and staged series of fees that reflect the risks presented by the premises. The later you trade and the larger the volume of alcohol that you purchase, the higher the fee. When it comes to off-licences, the larger the volume of alcohol you purchase and therefore make available to sell, the higher the fee. So a liquor licensee that has five licences is not a business I would describe as a small business. That is a significant commercial undertaking and the fee structure reflects that.
Mrs Dunne has made some claims today that are simply wrong. Firstly, she said, “Well, you can vote for this disallowance because the old fee structure will continue.” Well, no, it will not. The old fee structure will lapse on 1 December when the new act commences. So it is wrong for her to claim otherwise. If Mrs Dunne were serious, really serious, about wanting a new fee structure, why did she not take the time to bring this debate on last month and not leave it eight days until the existing fee determination expires—certainly not seven working days? Why did she leave it until the last minute? Was it because she was serious about making a change or because she wanted to grandstand on the issue?
I would submit it is the latter, because if she were serious she would have said: “This needs to be fixed now. We’re going to give the government adequate time to make a new determination and we’re not going to cause confusion amongst licensees by leaving it till the last minute.” But that is exactly what she has done—she has left it to the last possible sitting day before the new fee structure takes effect to move disallowance. That is what she has done. She is not serious.
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