Tattooing Industry Control Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 14 October 2015.)

Mr TARZIA (Hartley) (15:44): Obviously, this bill has attracted extraordinary criticism from many stakeholders, including the owners and operators of tattoo parlours, as well as the Law Society of SA, the peak body that represents the legal fraternity in this state. They say that it will force innocent business operators to close. I would encourage the Attorney to ensure that he satisfies the house in explaining what is fear and what is fact, and exactly how this bill will operate and result in the solution that he is after.

The Tattooing Industry Control Bill was introduced to the house on 10 September and it proposes to regulate but also stop the criminal infiltration of the tattooing industry. I want to pause for one second and make the point that for some reason the Attorney seems to be highlighting the tattoo industry for one reason or another. I want to make the point that there are criminals in many types of organisations, not just the tattoo industry.

For one reason or another, he is focusing on the tattoo industry. We are kidding ourselves if we think that by targeting solely the tattoo industry that the work is done on organised crime because we know that organised criminals are always ahead of legislation. They are called organised crime gangs because they are organised. You can bet your bottom dollar that by targeting one industry it does not mean that we have eradicated the problem.

Another thing I wish to highlight is that I hope that this sort of legislation will not punish what are legitimate businesses in this area because there are, like any sector, legitimate businesses and illegitimate businesses. By all means, if illegitimate businesses are operating illegally or in a manner that calls for such measures, then obviously they need action to be taken against them. But there are a number of legitimate business owners and legitimate businesses in this space, and so the Attorney has a duty to ensure that legitimate business owners will not be affected in the transition period that is focused on in this bill.

It is concerning to the Attorney, and obviously to others, that the tattoo parlour industry is somewhat unregulated in South Australia; however, other industries, such as, for example, pawn shops, are regulated in the Second-hand Dealers and Pawnbrokers Act. This bill provides a negative licensing scheme for the industry that is the tattooing industry and makes other amendments to the Second-hand Dealers and Pawnbrokers Act.

Under this bill, a person will be automatically and permanently disqualified from providing tattooing services if he or she is, firstly, a member of a prescribed organisation that is defined in the legislation; secondly, a close associate of a person who is a member of a prescribed organisation; or, thirdly, subject to a control order under the Serious and Organised Crime (Control) Act 2008.

That legislation was introduced in 2008, and it is very interesting to look at how many people have been subject to a control order under the Serious and Organised Crime (Control) Act 2008. I put it to the Attorney that it has not been many, and the reason it has not been many, if any, is that it highlights a flaw not just in this law but in much of the law—that is, that the police have ample powers much of the time to do their work and prosecutors have ample powers most of the time to do their work, and so the answer is not always to inflict more laws and more regulation on the people of South Australia all the time.

To continue the list, fourthly, if they are disqualified from providing tattooing services under a law of the commonwealth by any state or territory or, fifthly, if they are a person of a class prescribed by the regulations. I also note that the Commissioner for Consumer Affairs also has the power to disqualify a person under circumstances including if they have at any time in the previous five years been a member of a prescribed organisation, and there are significant offences if the legislation is not abided by.

There is a negative licensing scheme, and what that means is that a person must not provide tattooing services if the person is disqualified from providing tattooing services. For example, a licence is not required. The offence for doing so will be a maximum penalty of four years for a natural person, or $0.25 million for a body corporate.

The bill also allows for people to enter tattooing premises without a warrant and carry out general drug detection using a drug detection dog or an electronic drug detection system. The concern that has been brought to our attention is that people's liberties will be infringed without an acceptable reason or rationale behind it, and that is a legitimate concern with the legislation. I would encourage the Attorney to elaborate on what safeguards there are to ensure that people whose premises are entered into will not have their civil liberties infringed upon without due course.

It is estimated that there are somewhere between 80 to 90 tattoo parlours currently operating in South Australia, and most of these would be in metropolitan Adelaide. Obviously, the act that we are talking about, which relates to the Queensland Tattoo Parlours Act 2013, highlights that the Attorney, when it suits him and his government, is willing to look to interstate laws for ideas.

I would once again encourage him to look at what they recently did with drug trafficking in Queensland, where there is a bill before the house in regard to a Queensland improvement on drug trafficking. I notice that he has looked at the Queensland Tattoo Parlours Act, along with other legislation aimed at organised crime, and that this bill is similar in that regard. Obviously, this follows on from a long-term election promise by this government to remedy this issue.

We have a licensing or registration scheme for a number of businesses and, in any one of these registration schemes and licensing schemes, there obviously needs to be a balance regarding regulation, because regulation can provide a number of solutions that are beneficial to the business and also to the taxpayer and the public. However, we want to make sure that the requirements of the legislation are not onerous and do not overburden businesses that are already doing it tough paying the highest taxes in Australia and at a time when unemployment is the highest in Australia as well.

We are certainly willing to give it a go but, as I said in my earlier remarks, be under absolutely no illusion—organised criminals are not silly. They will be looking for the next kind of business to be involved in. I am not sure what that is, but they have many options. What I would suggest is that this only addresses one piece of the jigsaw puzzle and there is much more to be done.

The Hon. T.R. Kenyon interjecting:

Mr TARZIA: And you can vote on my drug trafficking bill as well. With those few remarks, I ask the Attorney to speak to some of those concerns that we have raised with the legislation. I look forward to that debate, and I commend the bill to the house.

Ms REDMOND (Heysen) (15:53): I rise to make a brief contribution on the Tattooing Industry Control Bill. I will keep it brief because I really do not see the point, given that I believe that this parliament is failing significantly in its duties to the people of this state. I have already spoken before about the manner in which this parliament has given up the rule of law and the separation of powers. Once again, this bill, I believe, offends deeply the idea of the rule of law, and I want to place on the record my utter contempt for the Attorney for bringing in such a bill as the Attorney of this state, as the first law officer of this state, and to also place on the record my opposition.

I come from a position of actually having an extremely high regard for the police in this state, and I have no interest whatsoever in tattoos. In fact, when I think about tattoos, I think about that wonderful ad on the TV with the elderly lady doing the ironing who has got a faded tattoo on her tuckshop lady arm. I think a lot of people are going to live to regret the actions that they may have taken as young people in getting tattoos, and I certainly do not like them at all.

That said, however, this bill offends everything that I think we should be standing for as a parliament. It criminalises people who have done nothing wrong. It gives them no opportunity to defend themselves. I will just take a couple of minutes to go through some of the definitions and the terms of the legislation.

Basically, 'domestic partner' is defined as anyone who is a domestic partner within the Family Relationships Act, whether declared as such under that act or not—so, people who are potentially domestic partners are caught by the act. People are 'close associates' of a person if they are a spouse, a domestic partner—and that means a domestic partner not necessarily declared under the Family Relationships Act—a parent, brother, sister or child, or if they are members of the same household or if they are in partnership or so on.

Then, the offences come about under the definition of 'providing tattooing services' in clause 4, which says that a person provides tattooing services, first of all, if they tattoo another person whether or not for fee or reward. They are providing services even if they are doing it free of charge, and even if they simply sell or supply, or offer to sell or supply, prescribed equipment for tattooing.

Theoretically, technically, if you are the sibling or a former partner or you even briefly shared a house with someone who, whether you knew it or not, was or is a member of a prescribed organisation and you offered to give away to that person or to some other person your tattooing equipment to use on another person, you are potentially going to be in breach of this legislation.

Once again, as in the anti-bikies legislation, we have in this legislation provisions about criminal intelligence. It is defined in clause 4 of the bill as being information that is classified by the Commissioner of Police—so the person who holds that office gets to do the classifying—as criminal intelligence, and it may not be disclosed to any person other than the Commissioner for Consumer Affairs, the minister, a court or a person to whom the Commissioner of Police authorises disclosure.

If the Commissioner for Consumer Affairs disqualifies a person from providing tattooing services and the decision to do so is made because of information that is classified by the Commissioner of Police as criminal intelligence, the Commission for Consumer Affairs is not required to provide any grounds for that decision other than that it would be contrary to the public interest.

All they have to do is issue a notice that the police commissioner has said, 'I've got criminal intelligence. I've decided that it's criminal intelligence, and I'm not required to tell anybody else about this criminal intelligence. I can, if I wish tell, the minister. I could tell a court, but I don't have to tell anyone and, if I tell the Commissioner for Consumer Affairs that he should declare particular premises to be prescribed because of this criminal intelligence, then whoever has the premises declared in that way is not entitled to any further explanation than that the consumer affairs commissioner says it's based on criminal intelligence that it's not in the public interest that your tattoo parlour be allowed to continue to exist.'

The previous speaker represented that there are some 80 to 90 tattoo parlours in this state and I understand that the police acknowledge that, indeed, the vast majority of them are not, even in their opinion, connected with criminal activity, and yet we have these onerous provisions. Then, the proposed legislation goes on to say that, in any proceedings, the court determining the proceedings must, on the application of the Commissioner of Police, take steps to maintain the confidentiality of information classified by the Commissioner of Police as criminal intelligence, including steps to receive evidence and hear argument about the information in private in the absence of the parties to the proceedings and their representatives and may take evidence by way of affidavit.

In other words, the people who are being penalised by this are not entitled to know the case that is being mounted against them, they are not entitled to hear any of the evidence upon which that is based, and they are not going to be given an opportunity to make any controverting evidence. What is more, it can all be done by affidavit so that even the court may not have the ability to cross-examine the person whose evidence is being taken.

In my view, this legislation is simply an outrage, and I despair that this parliament, on both sides, is going to pass this bill. Either people do not know what they are doing or they do not realise the effect of what they are doing. Either way, to me, it is just unacceptable and I simply say, once again, as I did on a previous occasion with the anti-bikie legislation, we will rue the day that we have ignored these fundamental principles which have served our country, our parliaments and our courts for so long.

We are just casually throwing them away by passing legislation like this, all in the name of political expediency by an Attorney-General who does not care about the rule of law but simply wants to look tough on law and order. With those few words, I will conclude my remarks because I simply see no point in continuing them.

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Child Protection Reform) (16:01): I thank everybody who has contributed and I gather there are a few questions in committee, so I will leave it at that.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clause 1.

Ms CHAPMAN: I just ask the Attorney whether he will agree to provide the material which had been requested during the briefing from the Queensland police commissioner, or equivalent, in respect of either a submission they have put to the Queensland task force or advice confirming their review of the position in Queensland over the last two years. It was discussed during the course of the second briefing provided by the government via the two senior police officers. I appreciate that was only, I think, Monday. I just mention this as something we would like to have and ask that that could be made available or an indication given that it will be pursued and provided between the houses.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Whatever it was that the police undertook to provide, I will do my best to make sure that they do.

Clause passed.

Remaining clauses (2 to 30), schedule and title passed.

Bill reported without amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Child Protection Reform) (16:03): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.