CAKEAGE

Ms FOX (Bright) (15:24): I rise today to speak on a matter which may seem trivial to some but, for many working Australian families struggling to make ends meet, I think this is a symptom of a greater malaise in our society. This new phenomenon is called 'cakeage', which is the charging of a sum by a restaurant or pub for the bringing of a birthday cake into those premises. Birthdays are celebrated all over the world, and part of the Western European tradition is to celebrate it with a cake. Here in Australia, it is quite common for a person to bake or buy a cake for a family member and take it to a pub or restaurant where the celebration is to be held. I do not think there is anything wrong with this. However, recently, restaurants in Adelaide and, indeed, Australia-wide, have started to charge families for the privilege of bringing their own cakes.

On Sunday I attended a birthday party in a public house, and I was the bearer of the cake. I spent quite a long time making the cake, and I made sure to bring it on a tray so that, when eaten, it would not leave a lot of mess. I walked into the public house and the barperson peered suspiciously across the bar at the offending cake, and he said, 'Is that a cake?' I said, 'Yes.' And then I said, 'You're not going to charge me cakeage, are you?' And he said, 'Yes.' It emerges that the pub in question wanted to charge me $20 for the pleasure of having a cake there.

When I asked what it would cover, I was told that the $20 covered the cost of the chef cutting the cake, putting it on plates and then washing the plates. The thing was, we did not ask for or want the chef to cut it. It did not need plates, and it was going to impose no extra cost on the pub at all. Some sympathetic staff member eventually gave us serviettes, and we recklessly cut and ate the cake anyway! It seems mean and greedy to me for a restaurant to deny people the right to bring a birthday cake or charge them for the pleasure. Apparently, some places are charging people $6 per head in cakeage!

This new custom has not escaped the eagle-eyed fourth estate, with a recent report in The Age describing our cakeage crisis. One restaurateur in that report said that it was bad for business to charge customers for a birthday cake, and he would not do it. Other restaurateurs admitted they do not want people to bring birthday cakes because they want their clients to spend money on desserts instead. Struggle as I might, I cannot bring myself to understand how $6 per head to bring a cake can be justified in any way at all.

I think that many everyday Australians are really struggling at the moment. They are struggling to make ends meet. House prices are soaring, fuel prices are high and the cost of food is escalating as it never has before in my lifetime. If a family chooses to spend their hard-earned money celebrating someone's birthday in a pub or a restaurant and that family pays to buy a cake or pays to buy the ingredients to make the cake, it is very wrong indeed to charge cakeage.

In fact, I think it is scrooge-like to charge the clients more money to cut a cake. I think that people should be aware of this matter, and I think that if this happens to any family or any individual they should just refuse to pay it. What is the pub owner or restaurateur going to do? Make them eat the cake in the toilet? No, indeed. Take your cakes with you and be proud.