Local Government (Mobile Food Vendors) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 28 September 2016.)

Mr DULUK (Davenport) (12:40): It was many weeks ago, on the day of the blackout, that I was last on my feet on this—

Ms Redmond: The lights went out.

Mr DULUK: The lights went out in the parliament and indeed—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Let's hope you don't make that happen again.

Mr DULUK: —across South Australia

Ms Redmond: That was this government getting us back in the black.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Mr DULUK: Getting us back into the black—indeed.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Mr DULUK: It is important to note that the existing rules or requirements in the bill before us are somewhat burdensome. I know that for the member for Kaurna, back there in the Premier's seat, this is his test as a legislator and his test for the caucus—to see if he can get this bill through the parliament and show the Premier that he is ready to lead. Unfortunately, the way things are panning out, that is not going to be happening—but I digress.

It has been put to me that, for food truck vendors, having to navigate their way through the different costs and different rules for each council is quite burdensome. We could potentially look at some improvements by simplifying that permit system, particularly around safety and the technical standards and perhaps streamlining food safety inspections. Any regulatory change should be designed to remove red tape and to make positive changes that make it easier for new and existing business owners. It should not add layers.

This legislation fails to achieve this end. Instead, it is counterproductive. Instead, it introduces state government legislation that overlaps with local government and results in more bureaucratic oversight rather than less. The state government believes that the legislative changes proposed under this bill will be a silver bullet to job creation. I do not know how many bullets the government has in the chamber but, if this is another in a long line of silver bullet attempts to stimulate the South Australian economy, we are in deep trouble.

Just in the last half an hour, we have seen the collapse of the Gillman process, which has been an absolute shame. We have seen a shambolic handling of the Gillman site—an absolute debacle and a waste of money—by this government. The government promised 6,000 new jobs for South Australia and millions of dollars of government investment in the process, and it has all collapsed at midday today. It really is a sad indictment of this government. It is all too hard to look at mining and recycling work for 6,000 new jobs, so we are going to turn to food trucks to try to stimulate the economy.

We have had Olympic Dam. That has come and gone. We have had the Gillman debacle. Of course, we have the NRAH project as well, which is well and truly over budget. For me, one of the favourites, which came out for estimates, was the Investment Attraction Agency, which cost taxpayers $13.6 million to administer $15 million worth of grants. If this government were really serious about supporting small business and supporting jobs growth, it would actually get out of the way. It would not create bureaucracy. It would not create more red tape. Unfortunately, this bill will not reduce red tape for existing operators.

Those of us on this side of the house are not anti food trucks. We are very pro food trucks. We are very pro any small business and pro anyone who wants to go out there and make a fist of it. Indeed, the system should look out for and reward those types of people, those risk-takers in our economy, but this bill is not the bill and this framework is not the framework that should be in place in terms of food truck regulation.

We will not see a simplified permit system. The application approval process will not be any easier, nor will it ensure consistency across councils. It will not streamline food safety inspections: each council will still be able to conduct its own inspection. So, if you are operating in the Mitcham council in my area, which obviously overlaps with the Onkaparinga council, you could in fact have two different food inspection regimes for selling exactly the same product to a very similar market. I do not know how allowing for these types of inspections that are not standardised could possibly lead to the claim of reduction in red tape, as is proposed by the member for Kaurna in this bill.

Each council will still be able to conduct its own inspection. Essentially, councils continue to have the same role and responsibility for the management of food trucks as they do right now; it is just that we will have a bunch of state government bureaucrats administrating the work and this process. We are just seeing another burden of administration.

I understand that the regulations councils will retain responsibility for the locations where food trucks operate, including the use of public roads and the minimum distance between land-based businesses and mobile vendors, and they must ensure that a mobile food vendor does not unduly interfere with vehicles driven on a road, vehicles parked or standing on roads, public transport or cycling infrastructure, and infrastructure designed to give access to roads, footpaths and buildings.

The effect is that councils can enforce restrictions on locations that could discourage food trucks, and they potentially could be used, deliberately or otherwise, to circumvent the intentions of this bill, leaving us with certainly no better outcome for the mobile food vendor industry and, indeed, leaving food truck operators worse off, with additional layers of government oversight to comply with.

I support reducing red tape; not further entangling South Australians in a web of regulations and bureaucratic red tape should be the desire of all of us. I do not support legislation that makes operating a small business more onerous. Local councils should be able to control what sort of businesses operate through sensible policy, just as they do with bricks and mortar businesses.

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (12:46): I am sure that most of what I am going to say has probably been said before by some of my colleagues, but I will put on the record my thoughts on the matter before the house. The reality is that not even the Labor Party over there is convinced about this matter. If they were convinced that this was a genuine way of saving the state, surely they would have a minister bring this matter before the house. They have gone half way: they have given up some government business time to allow this matter to be debated, but they have made sure that they have kept it almost at arm's length by ensuring that not one of the ministers is promoting or proposing this measure to the house. So, even the Labor Party is not convinced.

The notion that the economy of South Australia will be saved by having some food trucks running around is an absolute nonsense, but I am not surprised because one of the things I have learnt over the whole of my life, but particularly in the time I have been here observing much more closely the way the Labor Party operates, and the one thing of which I am absolutely convinced is that they have no understanding of the way business operates—no understanding whatsoever of the way business operates.

As somebody famously said a few years ago, the trouble with the Labor Party is that they think you can take a unionist, put a suit on them and turn them into a businessman: that is the reality. I do not know that there is anybody who sits on that side of the house I would call a businessman, somebody who has actually gone out, mortgaged their home, laid everything on the line, employed people and suffered through the vagaries of a marketplace and worked in that manner.

I do not think there is anybody on that side of the house who has been through the trials and tribulations of running a business, when you have all of your skin in the game—not just your skin but often that of your spouse and your children, their home, the roof over their heads, mortgaged to the limit, providing jobs for other members of our society, taking the responsibility to make sure that the business operates such that those jobs are as secure as they can be and then going out and facing the vagaries of the marketplace to ensure that the business operates and makes a return not just to give you some revenue to keep your home operating but to enable you to continue to employ other people. That is what running a business is about.

I can tell the member for Kaurna, who brought this matter to the house, that if you have not lain awake at night worrying about the mortgage and the business conditions that are impacting on it you have not been there and you do not understand what it is about. The Labor Party thinks that a businessman is somebody who goes to the bank, borrows a few dollars, invests a bit of money and sits back and watches the milk and honey flow. I can assure the member and his colleagues that that is not the way business operates.

If it were like that, everybody would be doing it. It would be pretty simple. Everybody would be doing it and we would all be multimillionaires. The reality of the real world is that it does not work like that. You have to be a fairly special sort of person to be able to take the pressure to run a business. You have to be a fairly special sort of person to be that in tune with your employees, to make sure that you do everything that you possibly can to ensure the survival of your business and look after your employees, who are very important people to you. Members of the Labor Party have no understanding or comprehension of the way that business operates and that part of our social structure.

The member for Kaurna in bringing this matter suggests that this is about encouraging entrepreneurs. I would suggest to the member for Kaurna that the way to encourage entrepreneurs is actually to get out of their way, unburden them—unburden those people and take the shackles off them—not put in more regulation, not try to rule what they do and not impose new and ever-increasing taxes on them. That is the way to encourage entrepreneurs, but the member for Kaurna, I suspect, has no understanding of that either.

I noticed the other day—it was probably in InDaily, where I think he writes from time to time—that the member for Kaurna suggested that people who did not support this particular measure were out there standing up for big business, for the big end of town. This is the old Labor Party class warfare tactic, where anybody who opposes anything that they are putting forward is standing up for big business.

I have to tell the member for Kaurna that I do not know that a few food trucks driving up and down the road are going to impact on the Westfields of this world. I do not know that they are the target of the food trucks, but I guarantee that the businesses that sell a sandwich, that meet the needs of those who are out on the streets of our cities looking for a lunch or a morning coffee, are mum-and-dad small businesses. They are not Westfields—they are mum-and-dad small businesses.

Do you know what, Madam Deputy Speaker? It is those people who turn the wheels of industry. It is those people who turn the wheels of our economy in this state. Eighty-five per cent of the people employed in South Australia are employed by small and medium enterprises. They are not the big end of town. They are not the Westfields, not those great big multinational companies—85 per cent of people are employed in small businesses, mum-and-dad businesses that employ fewer than 20 people. They are quite often employing a handful of people in the kitchen, heating up pies, cutting sandwiches and making coffee.

They are the people who pay the rates to the local councils, who enable the councils to do all the things that they do. They are the people who keep those councils afloat, not some fly-by-nighter who can come in and cherrypick, have his food truck parked in the street for that hour and a half in the busy time of the day when there is a bit of money flowing and then, whoosh, he is out of there.

It is those mum-and-dad businesses that open up at 6.30 or 7 o'clock in the morning to get that early morning trade—people who might want something for breakfast or an early morning coffee on their way to work—and then stay open for all that quiet time between then and when they might sell another coffee mid or late morning, and then stay open and sell a sandwich at lunchtime, and then stay open until that late coffee or snack in the afternoon just before people go home. They stay open all day, and a lot of that time it is very quiet and not much cash is going into the till.

The so-called entrepreneurs who the member for Kaurna would have us believe are going to resurrect the South Australian economy are those who want to come in and cherrypick, make the easy dollar when there is plenty of foot traffic on the street and plenty of people looking to buy that sandwich or piece of cake and coffee. However, it is the mum-and-dad small businesses that are open all day, that are there in the evening when we want to buy something at the local deli, that are the ones that are going to suffer.

The other group that is going to suffer is our local councils. This bill proposes that every council in the state has to have a food truck policy—every council. So councils in my electorate, the Robe council, will have to have a food truck policy. I do not know whether there are food trucks—during the summertime I am sure there are mobile ice-cream sellers in Robe—but one thing I do know about a community like Robe is that commercial operators in a town like that have to make their money in the summer months, in the tourist season.

It is a seaside resort. Their season does not last all year, and the food truck operators who would want to come to Robe are not going to be there in the middle of winter at all, when the mum-and-dad businesses, which are there catering to the tourist trade during the summer, are still paying their council rates, still employing and paying the wages of their employees, still paying their bills for the other services and supplies they use. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

The Hon. T.R. KENYON: Deputy Speaker, I draw your attention to the state of the house.

A quorum having been formed: