Attorney-General's Department, $118,141,000

Administered Items for the Attorney-General's Department, $101,555,000

Independent Gambling Authority, $1,809,000

Department of Treasury and Finance, $55,641,000

Administered Items for the Department of Treasury and Finance, $1,582,470,000

Minister:

Hon. J.R. Rau, Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Child Protection Reform, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for Consumer and Business Services, Minister for the City of Adelaide.

Departmental Advisers:

Ms C. Mealor, Acting Chief Executive, Attorney-General's Department.

Mr D. Soulio, Acting Deputy Chief Executive, Attorney-General's Department.

Mr A. Swanson, Executive Director, Finance and Business Services, Attorney-General's Department.

Mr G. Kamencak, Acting Commissioner, Consumer and Business Services.

Mr J. Bonnici, Manager, Business Services, Consumer and Business Services.

The CHAIR: We are now looking at Consumer and Business Services. Of course, we have the Attorney-General here as the Minister for Consumer and Business Services. I declare the proposed payments open for examination, and I refer members to the Agency Statements, Volumes 1 and 4. I call on the minister to make a statement and introduce or reintroduce his advisers.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: First of all, to my extreme left, again, we welcome Caroline Mealor, the Acting Chief Executive of the department. On my immediate left is Mr Swanson, who knows things about matters financial and has helped us thus far many times today and, of course, on my right is Mr Soulio, the Acting Deputy Chief Executive, who has, I hope, turned off his phone.

The CHAIR: You have a statement, Attorney?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I could say a number of things, but I will say a few little things. Basically, I have been impressed with the way CBS has actually improved its performance over the last few years. It was not that long ago, and certainly within my memory and, I am sure, the memory of others here, when CBS was regularly in the news and the subject of questions in the parliament for all the wrong reasons: delays with issuing of licences, problems with this and problems with that.

I think the staff and the leadership there deserve to be congratulated for the way in which they have actually improved the performance of CBS and made it into one of the agencies that you do not hear much about. At least I do not hear much about it, and I do not mean that in a bad way. I can assure you that, as a minister, an agency you do not hear a lot about is one that is probably doing things well because nobody is grizzling about it.

CBS do a lot of important work. They are very active at the moment in working out ways to assist the government and me, in particular, to find ways of eliminating red tape and duplication of unnecessary process. The licensing function alone of CBS involves considerable opportunities for the stripping out of unnecessary repetitive or annoying form filling and other sorts of things, and we are looking constantly at opportunities to make improvement there.

The deputy chief executive, acting currently in the Attorney-General's Department—who, in his spare time, is also the Commissioner for CBS and who is also the liquor licensing commissioner—in that space has actually been trying to take a number of initiatives to improve the way in which the whole culture in South Australia, which involves the availability of liquor, is moved from a culture which can become boorish and dangerous into a culture which is more orientated towards enjoying oneself in a safe environment and contributing to the vibrancy of this city and to the wine and food flavour of South Australia that we are trying to promote, both domestically and for tourists, whether they be from other states or overseas.

We are presently about to finalise a position in cabinet in respect of the recently completed review of the Liquor Licensing Act by former Justice Tim Anderson. He has made some 129 recommendations. A very thorough report which I invite people, if they have not looked at it, to please consider looking at—it is a very good piece of work. Within this current year, my expectation is that we will be moving on some substantial reform and red tape removal in the liquor licensing area, but always with the clear objectives in mind of enhancing public safety and making alcohol and food part of a lifestyle which is a positive lifestyle for South Australia, not part of boorish undergraduate sort of behaviour that winds up manifesting itself in admissions to hospital and other forms of unnecessarily unpleasant things.

That is a bit of an overview and I am very happy to attempt to assist the committee with anything they may care to ask.

Ms CHAPMAN: The member for Davenport, I know, has some questions. I will not have an opening statement, given that was so long.

Mr DULUK: Agency Statement Volume 1, page 30: this is around the income from fees, fines and penalties. It is increasing by about 4.12 percent in 2016-17. Is there a reason why the increase is so much above current CPI? It is budgeted to increase by $1.2 million for the financial year 2016-17.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I was going to get the acting deputy chief executive and commissioner to answer that, because it is his doing, but I think I probably should try first.

Mr DULUK: You did not know that it was going up by so much?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I had an inkling that might be happening.

Ms CHAPMAN: This department actually makes money.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: The 2016-17 budget versus 2015-16 estimated result: the increase in total income for the 2015-16 estimated result of 35.7 to the 2016-17 budget of 37 is mainly due to the indexation and increased activity levels for regulatory fee income in 2016-17.

Mr DULUK: So there has been no factoring of any review—obviously the Anderson liquor review—and a new fee penalty regime put in?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: No. It is way too early. The cabinet has not even considered that.

Mr DULUK: Is it intended that any response from the Anderson liquor review will include a new fee structure that will increase cost to licensees?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: That would depend on the decision of the cabinet. At the moment there is no decision, and all we are facing is a set of recommendations from Mr Anderson that depends on what cabinet finally resolves in respect of those recommendations. At the moment they are simply under consideration.

Mr DULUK: So you are not ruling it out?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: No, I am not ruling anything in or out, but I emphasise Mr Anderson's report is, at the moment, nothing more than a report. We will be giving consideration to those recommendations. I need to spend some time talking to the commissioner about whether he believes there need to be refinements on those recommendations, or indeed if he disagrees fundamentally with some of those recommendations.

Ms CHAPMAN: How could he disagree with them? He recommended them.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: No, this commissioner. I should refer to him as the acting deputy chief executive and commissioner because that would be more comprehensive.

The CHAIR: Thank you. Now we know who we are talking about.

Mr DULUK: Moving to page 32, Activity indicators, No. of alleged non-compliance matters assessed. It is estimated at 350 between February and June 2016, but there is a projection of only 80 for 2016-17. Why is there a dramatic fall off in the projected assessments?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I am advised that this is actually one of those serendipitous typing errors and it should actually be 800, so I think your question might need to be reversed. If you were to reverse your question and ask me why there has been such a dramatic increase, I would tell you that the 2015-16 year was not for a full year and therefore is not indicative of a full year's recording.

Mr DULUK: Correct, because my full statement was that the last third of the year reflected the decrease. Very well picked up. What about the number of fair trading and related inspections, 2,400 estimated in 2015-16, down to 1,500?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: There is a measure that replaces the trader visits to monitor compliance with legislation to include visits for product safety purposes and fair trade legislation.

Mr DULUK: I know that; that is what it says. Is there any concern that consumers could be left exposed due to fewer inspections?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I might invite the acting deputy chief executive and commissioner to respond to that.

Mr SOULIO: Thank you, Attorney. We have gone through a process in Consumer and Business Services to basically do a full review of how we do our compliance and enforcement work. We have brought in a new director as the deputy commissioner and have gone out to industry. We wrote to about 50 industry bodies and agencies to get feedback on how we are doing our compliance work. The figures in there are reflective of making sure that we are focusing on the right harm.

We want to move away from a situation where we are trying to achieve a target by a measure of a number in here by having a flexible approach to the inspections that we are doing and using more of an intelligence-focused approach to that to get outcomes. So that is more the reason for that change. This is a year when we will assess those numbers of inspections and how they are working. We may do more of those but we are thinking of setting a target which means that we are doing intelligence-led, which will have better outcomes is the focus for that.

Mr DULUK: How are we on track for the first 28 days of July then?

Mr SOULIO: I do not have those numbers in front of me. I will take that on notice if you would prefer.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: But you can rest assured that the agents are in the field.

Mr DULUK: Does that then apply to the next line down, in relation to liquor, gaming and casino inspections?

Mr SOULIO: Yes, that is correct.

Mr DULUK: Are there any particular areas of liquor, gaming, casino or wagering that are likely to have significantly fewer inspections?

Mr SOULIO: If I can answer that, part of it is about making sure that we are targeting the right levels of harm. Where we have, after conducting that review, identified that there are areas where we go out and visit and over a number of years never find a problem, whether it is small clubs or restaurants and things like that, it is moving away from that process and having a look at where are the higher risks of harm and spending more time in those clubs.

Mr DULUK: But we are not seeing an increase in gaming licence is across the board. There is still only one Casino and so many wagering places. In fact, wagering places are probably actually closing.

Mr SOULIO: The Casino is a large operation. We spend a lot of time in the Casino reviewing how they are operating and any concerns that we have identified with the Casino. So that is a resource-intensive compliance and monitoring exercise.

Mr DULUK: How does this decrease relate to some of the new measures that are proposed to the late-night code, obviously prompted by the government and also the Anderson liquor review? How will that be monitored between the recommendations and the late-night code and obviously a decrease in inspections. Are we expecting the police enforcement branch to be looking at more policing in the late-night code area?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: These are very interesting questions because each one of these elements is interrelated. I will invite the Deputy Chief Executive/Commissioner to say a few words about the interaction between his agents in the field and SAPOL but, from my point of view, the Late Night Code is there to set a minimum set of standards that reasonably assist in maintaining a standard of safety that the community might be hoping to expect in some venues and some parts of the city.

This is to be supplemented by the recent amendments to the Summary Offences Act that I brought into the parliament, which would enable areas—probably the same areas—to be the subject of declaration by SAPOL in respect of certain enhanced policing capabilities. Another layer of that same thing is to see the liquor licensing commissioner and his agents focusing on bad behaviour rather than on routine blind audit type activity. That is not to say that there is not a role for spot audits or things of that nature. There are, but I am very keen to have his trained operatives in the field pursuing risk-based investigations, rather than being in the field doing pro forma audit type activity.

Whatever happens out of Anderson, I am pretty confident it will be the case that we will be looking at a system for liquor licensing where those people who misbehave are going to feel the consequences of that and feel it quickly. In this respect, I do sympathise with some of the comments that have been made to me by the AHA, saying, 'Look, for those people who are doing the right thing, why don't you just leave them alone?' I do not disagree with that.

We are going to try to increasingly focus the activity of the field operatives on the high-risk operators, and the consequences of those operators transgressing the rules, I think, need to be direct, immediate and stern. That is, I think, the flavour of Anderson's recommendations. I agree with that general flavour. We have, in any event, been moving the focus of activity within the CBS into that sort of thinking, rather than the, 'Hello, hello, hello. Here I am. It's Thursday. I'm here to check whether you've got all the signs up in the toilet again.'

Mr SOULIO: An example of that is a matter in Mount Gambier not too long ago. I think the media described it—or perhaps the Attorney described it—

The Hon. J.R. RAU:Coyote Ugly?

Mr SOULIO: —as a Coyote Ugly situation. A couple of our agents were in that venue for some time observing the conduct and stayed there after the venue had closed. The doors were shut and drinks were served and inappropriate conduct was going on and that resulted in a disciplinary action being taken. It is a much more resource-intensive activity to get an outcome compared with going around checking signs and things like that.

We would rather focus on where we are identifying those sorts of breaches but spending the time to identify those. It may be that we say we are looking at less activities, but we are getting a much bigger general deterrence outcome and a better outcome. I would like us to be focusing on outcomes rather than stats.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Can I just add, too, if you have a look at Mr Anderson's report, which I really think is an excellent piece of work, he makes a point about things like, for example, service of alcohol to underage people in venues. I personally believe we should be getting onto that and dropping that on them like a ton of bricks.

If the agents are out there investigating that, it might be quite an intensive piece of work but, if they pinch somebody for it, the book should be thrown at those people because—and, again, I think this is a recommendation of Anderson's—if there is anybody who appears to be 25 or under, they are supposed to be getting their ID off them. If these people are too lazy to do that and, as a result, they are allowing underage kids to get in there and consume alcohol against the law and place themselves in an environment that is unsafe, that is not okay.

Ms CHAPMAN: If I may, now that the Attorney has raised this issue, there are two issues I want to raise about that. One is in respect of the serving of alcohol to underage patrons in hotels or other liquor outlets. It might be Adelaide Oval, or others—I do not want to name them specifically, but other venues which have a liquor licence. My recollection is that it may not be the case, although I want some clarification on this, that there is still no penalty for a young person under 18 using a false ID.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I think the deputy leader is correct and it is something that we have been discussing. I think there is a fair case to say that you should not just be penalising the licensee. You should also make it an unattractive proposition for the young person to do that as well.

Ms CHAPMAN: One day we might look at the Hansard on that with your predecessor, who made it clear in the legislation when updating this 10 or so years ago that he would not be including minors in the category of having to be the subject of, not necessarily a penalty, but some kind of conviction—

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Sanction.

Ms CHAPMAN: —or sanction. It happened to be only a few months away from the next election, which could have had something to do with the 18-year-old vote, but in any event I make the point—

The Hon. J.R. RAU: My personal view is that we should be considering an expiation-type response if we find underage people going in. They know that they are not supposed to be there, that they are not supposed to be seeking to be served alcohol. If we are going to be pinching the people who serve them and imposing quite severe penalties on them, especially, as you say, if they are using dodgy ID material, that might well be a decent defence, assuming it is not just something cut out of a piece of cardboard with 'Hello. I'm 25' written on it and a photo of somebody they have met once. If it is a genuine mistake where the licensee has been reasonably misled by the behaviour of a young person, I think it is not unreasonable that that young person should at least have an expiation or something.

Ms CHAPMAN: Good. I will keep that little bit of Hansard on that from you. The second, and it is a form of complaint which I am sure other members of the committee have had too, is in presenting an ID, fake as it may be, or using the brother's or sister's who is older, and the failure of the person who views it on entry to the premises to identify the gross inconsistency that would be obvious that they are not that person—a 16-year-old blonde girl walks in and there is a freckle faced redhead on the card. I do not know about other members, but I have certainly had that complaint put to me, usually by a parent who is very angry about the fact that their child has been entering premises and for whatever reason has got into trouble with it.

What action has been taken in the enforcement side of things to ensure that there is a checking of this equipment for some reasonable verification? Bear in mind, I quite appreciate that it is very difficult for a person at the door to necessarily distinguish whether someone is 16 or 22, I accept that, especially for young women and so on, but it just seems to me that there is scant regard for even an attempt to identify whether the person in the picture is the person standing in front of them.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: This does rely on the security staff that venues have and Mr Anderson, again, in his report does make some recommendations about ID scanners, which we obviously will have to consider, or the actual recording of an image, both of the ID and the person.

Ms CHAPMAN: But apart from his recommendations, I am asking: what is the agency doing at present to actually look at the picture, look at the person who is presenting it and make any assessment?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: It is not the agency doing that, unless they are actually on one of their covert operations.

Ms CHAPMAN: That is right. That is what I am saying. Is the agency supposed to be the supervisor of this?

Mr SOULIO: Certainly it is in relation to the fact that if there are minors on premises when they are not meant to be or certainly when they are being served when they are not meant to be. One of the issues that we have had, and it is a recommendation again of Mr Anderson, is the ability for my agents to ask for identification. We do not have the power to do that for people and that is one of the recommendations to be added, so it becomes a police issue for that authority to—

Ms CHAPMAN: Has there been any attempt by the agency to scrutinise or supervise the failure of people to actually even observe the picture with the person? I am not talking about giving your enforcement officers higher powers to call for their identification. That may or may not come to fruition. I am talking about what is happening now.

Mr SOULIO: I understand what you are saying. I will have to come back to you to confirm this, whether that has been picked up in any of our themed inspections, but I am not sure that we have had officers standing over the shoulder of a security guard checking that he is looking at the photo and the person and there is a match. I am not sure that that has been done, but I will come back to you.

Ms CHAPMAN: But that would be obvious, if you know full well that people are using false IDs, that there is some checking of them happening. I am not talking about the electronic scanning, that may or may not happen, but now.

Mr SOULIO: Certainly, the industry has raised the concern of not even being able to seize fake IDs where they identify them, or where people have tried to use that. They have made that submission. They are identifying people who are using fake IDs, they are refusing them entry, but they then cannot seize them to refer that to the police or do something with it. That is another of the recommendations from Mr Anderson.

Ms CHAPMAN: The flip side of all of this is then the responsibility of the proprietor not to serve alcohol to an under-age person, or to serve someone when they are completely inebriated, or in fact it is a lower threshold than that. This obviously is particularly concerning if it is to an under-age patron, bad enough if it is to an adult. You are not the first commissioner I have asked this question, and you probably will not be the last. I do not mean that your job is about to go—

Mr SOULIO: Depends how the next 20 minutes goes.

Ms CHAPMAN: I did notice there is a one-person reduction proposed this year in the workforce, so you had better be careful. How many outlets have you suspended the licence of in the last 12 months for a breach of the Liquor Licensing Act in respect of serving alcohol to inebriated customers?

Mr SOULIO: Suspended the licence of serving intoxicated—I do not have the figures, but I assume it is zero.

Ms CHAPMAN: You assume it is zero?

Mr SOULIO: I do not know of any that we have suspended, so I will say that the answer is no. Again, a lot of that investigation in relation to serving intoxicated is a matter where the overlap with police comes into this. Police spend a fair bit of time on observations in relation to that. They have taken action in relation to licensees, for example on Kangaroo Island, for serving people intoxicated. Then that follows a disciplinary proceeding that the police take. So they are spending more time—

Ms CHAPMAN: That was a prosecution at the Penneshaw Hotel for a person who was killed on the way home. That is one-off.

Mr SOULIO: Yes. That is an extreme example.

Ms CHAPMAN: That was an offence in relation to that, but I am talking about what action you have taken, as the commissioner, to suspend. If you have not done one in the last 12 months, can you remember the last time you did one?

Mr SOULIO: No, I cannot.

Ms CHAPMAN: How long have you been the commissioner?

Mr SOULIO: Two years. That is again an issue where we have looked at the processes that are undertaken to observe people who are being served. It is complicated in trying to identify that, and I think it is the feedback we have had from the police in relation to proving the elements in relation to the offence of someone is intoxicated and they have been served. I think there is work that can be done in relation to identifying that through CCTV footage and things like that. Certainly, there is some work that can be done in relation to that. Also Mr Anderson, through feedback from my office and through the police in this process, has identified offences in relation to breaches for people being intoxicated on premises as one of his recommendations. That will need to be assessed as to how that works.

Certainly, I think the rationale in his recommendation is that if someone is on premises and intoxicated, either you let them on to the premises or you served them to the point where they became intoxicated, and that puts the onus again on the licensee in relation to that, but it also makes it easier in relation to a proof of an offence. One of his recommendations through the feedback on that process has been to identify ways to make it easier to tackle that issue, to ensure that we are able to establish that someone was intoxicated, they were served. There is some nuance in relation to the recommendation that the government would need to look at.

Ms CHAPMAN: In the last 12 months, is there any licence that you have suspended for any reason?

Mr SOULIO: I think it was in the last 12 months, but certainly we have looked at suspension of licences for safety issues and for noncompliant building work—

Ms CHAPMAN: Looked at, or suspended?

Mr SOULIO: I will have to get back to you on the details of that.

Ms CHAPMAN: Finally, in respect of the trade and occupational licensing which you provide through your service, is there any industry or group of people who are proposed to be regulated?

Mr SOULIO: Who oppose to be regulated?

Ms CHAPMAN: Who are proposed to be regulated in the forthcoming 12 months.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Who are not presently regulated?

Ms CHAPMAN: Who are not presently regulated. I mean, just like we have done the hydroponics industry and the like.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: We have been in discussions, and I will be corrected, no doubt, if I am wrong about this, but we have been in discussions with the real estate people about property managers because there is a view that—

Ms CHAPMAN: People like strata title people or—

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Yes, people who collect rent rolls and rent agents. There is, I think, a legitimate concern that some of those people are cowboys and there needs to be some sort of, perhaps, licensing arrangement there.

Ms CHAPMAN: So, if they are not already a registered real estate agent and they are just operating a rental management business, that they need to be caught somewhere or other in the regulatory process.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Yes.

Ms CHAPMAN: I understand. No other questions, Mr Chairman, thank you.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Before we finish, can I thank all members of the committee for their time today. I must say the questions the deputy leader was asking about people bobbing up with false identification reminded me of an old film starring Steve Martin where he is working in a garage for a fellow called Mr Hartounian. A man in a very sharp looking Latino sort of hotted up car turns up asking for a bunch of tyres, lots of drinks and various other things and Steve Martin, who is the service station attendant, loads them into the car and says to the fellow, 'Are you paying cash or card?' The fellow gives him the card and he looks at the card and says, 'Thank you very much, Mrs Nussbaum.' Anyway, I thought I would finish on that note.

Ms CHAPMAN: Very good. Better laugh, guys, you might be the one who loses his job.

The CHAIR: Was it The Jerk?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Yes, it was.

The CHAIR: I recognised it. Thank you for that. I want to thank all members of the committee too. I want to thank the Attorney-General and his staff for all their time today and all the hard work they have put into answering, largely, the deputy leader's questions. There being no further questions, I declare the examination of the proposed payments for the Attorney-General's Department and administered items for the Attorney-General's Department and the Independent Gambling Authority be completed, and the examination of the proposed payments for the Department of Treasury and Finance and administered items for the Department of Treasury and Finance be adjourned until tomorrow.

At 17:17 the committee adjourned until Friday 29 July 2016 at 09:00.