Page 3356 - Week 09 - Thursday, 24 August 2017
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This government is getting on with the job of making it easier to do business in the city. The Access Canberra liquor team is poised and is ready to help new liquor businesses in Canberra get their new and innovative business ideas over the line to help increase the diversity and vibrancy of this city’s nightlife. They provide a case managed service to help ensure that businesses have everything they need to open a safe and compliant business.
The team works with venues and events of all sizes which require a liquor licence to ensure that all needed government approvals are secured in a timely manner. This includes liquor licensing, compliance with building, gas and electrical codes, food safety and other governmental approvals or permits.
By providing this service, the government is helping innovative businesses to better understand how the regulatory regime applies to their particular idea and location. This service is saving businesses time and effort by making the government do the running around. They work to ensure that businesses have all the information that they need. They work with businesses to check that they have applied for all the relevant licences and permits. The team can even schedule joint inspections when they are needed.
The result of this is that business owners can spend less time searching for information and more time opening and running the next new business here in Canberra.
MR PETTERSSON: Can the minister advise how the government is reducing red tape and compliance costs for the small businesses that contribute to Canberra’s night-time economy?
MR RAMSAY: I thank Mr Pettersson for the supplementary. As part of the recent reforms to the liquor industry, we have reduced liquor licensing fees for smaller, low-risk venues, that is, those with lower occupancy levels and earlier closing times. This government strongly supports the development of small businesses in unique boutique-style venues in Canberra. We know that this approach has already been shown to be effective in other Australian cities and we are confident that that will be the case here too.
We have also introduced perpetual liquor licences. Under these liquor licences, businesses will not be required to go through a whole new application process every one to three years, saving those running businesses time and effort in reapplying, as well as bringing us into line with a number of other states.
We are also promoting a diverse and vibrant sector by providing all on-premise licensees six extended trading authorisations per year. These authorisations will allow these licensees to trade outside their standard licensed hours for special events such as to show overseas sporting matches, host visiting bands or DJs, or put on special events such as on New Year’s Eve.
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