Bills

Local Government (Mobile Food Vendors) Amendment Bill

Committee Stage

Debate resumed.

Mr KNOLL: You say that Adelaide City Council is currently able to manage these issues and that you can see that this is probably the area where you can have the highest amount of attraction. The truth is that currently the Adelaide City Council limits the number of permits to be able to deal with this issue.

They also try to spread the types of food vans that operate in certain areas in order to have a diversity of offers for the customer. You have essentially taken out of this bill the ability for them to manage that using those methods. You have actually tied the hands of the Adelaide City Council in terms of how they have been able to manage these situations, yet you still expect them to be able to come up with the same solution.

Mr PICTON: The Adelaide City Council still have applications open for permits. Not all their permits have been issued. The idea that somehow the only reason that there is not bedlam in Victoria Square every Thursday afternoon is that they have limited the number of licences is not true. It is because they work with the people on the local level—the people who have the permits with their local council—to manage this issue. I am not convinced that we should be adding in here a whole other regulatory scheme to manage what I think will be quite easily worked out on a local level.

Mr PISONI: Can you clarify what conditions, if any, there would be, or what requirements there would be, for a vehicle that does not fall under the description of a vehicle in the Road Traffic Act? How will you register or allow a permit for a vehicle that does not fall under the Road Traffic Act definition of a vehicle, such as a three-wheeler bike with a large ice chest on it, from which fruit salad or drinks are sold in Victoria Square?

Mr PICTON: I am advised that a bike, as suggested—and I think a number of these operate in the Adelaide City Council at the moment—would be able to apply for a licence under the draft regulations we have proposed.

Mr PISONI: Would they be compelled to apply? Would they be able to operate without a permit under this act?

Mr PICTON: No, they would not.

Mr GRIFFITHS: I just need to clarify that. Clause 4 of the legislation provides:

…[a] mobile food vending business means a business involving the sale of food or beverages from a vehicle (within the meaning of the Road Traffic Act 1961);

Therefore, parliamentary secretary, your response that the regulations will allow it, even though the Road Traffic Act does not require it, confuses me.

Mr PICTON: Thank you to my advisers, and I should have acknowledged in my summing-up speech people who have worked on this issue, such as Chris Powell. The definition of a vehicle under the act referred to includes a motor vehicle, a bicycle, an animal-drawn vehicle, an animal that is being ridden or is drawing a vehicle or a combination, or a motorised wheelchair that can travel at over 10 kilometres an hour on level ground.

Mr KNOLL: To clarify that point further, what about, for instance, some sort of structure that is actually not a vehicle at all? What about an immovable box or cart that is not a vehicle in its own right, but a vehicle is used to drop it off? It sits there stationary in that position and, in and of itself, it is not a vehicle under the Road Traffic Act.

Mr PICTON: My advice is that a movable cart or other such item as described would not be able to be covered under this scheme.

Mr KNOLL: To clarify that point further, parliamentary secretary, people could design their carts in such a way as to be able to get around having to use permits for the purposes of this act.

Mr PICTON: I am advised that there are restrictions on dropping things that are not vehicles on a public road. Those restrictions would apply whether or not they are food trucks. That is why we have limited the bill to relate to the definition of a vehicle within the meaning of the Road Traffic Act 1961.

Mr KNOLL: Further to that, parliamentary secretary, I assume that some of these places will not necessarily be on roads. For instance, permits can be given for vehicles or carts to be placed on ovals or parks, as you described, and also in paved areas. I can see a whole host of situations where mobile food vendors could potentially put structures to sell food from that are not necessarily on something that would be considered a road under the Motor Vehicles Act.

Mr PICTON: This is only covering roads, so anything in terms of a park, as mentioned by the member, would be covered by the local council and the same permit regulations as they currently do at the moment. As I mentioned before in my summing up, things like festivals and Mad March and so on are not covered by this legislation. All those sorts of off-road events would be covered by separate applications to councils.

Mr KNOLL: You talked before about Victoria Square being quite a popular venue. Are you then suggesting that the mobile food vendors who park in that area are parking on the road at Victoria Square?

Mr PICTON: Adelaide City Council have extended what they do in terms of 'on the road' to include squares. They could do that in very much the same way in the future, but the regulations that we are putting in specifically just cover the roads and not other areas that would still be under the domain and the sole decision-making of the local council to consider.

The CHAIR: Before the next question, you are dealing with clause 4, so I want to put clauses 1 to 3 as printed.

Mr Knoll interjecting:

The CHAIR: No, you are talking about clause 4.

Mr Knoll interjecting:

The CHAIR: We are going to have to be very careful listening to what is going on because, if we are going to ask a million questions without getting onto a specific clause, that would be pushing the Chair.

Mr GRIFFITHS: I can accept it if we pass clauses 1 to 3 and go to 4.

Clause passed.

Clauses 2 and 3 passed.

Clause 4.

The CHAIR: Thanks for your cooperation, member for Goyder. We are now winding up our questions on clause 4.

An honourable member interjecting:

The CHAIR: If you are going to be that pernickety, we are starting to count. The member for Unley is asking his first question on clause 4.

Mr PISONI: Under this bill, will councils be required to grant permits to vehicles that are operating on trade plates?

Mr PICTON: Trade plates?

Mr PISONI: Yes, vehicles that are not registered, but their plates are registered and mobile. That means they could actually have four or five food trucks and one set of trade plates. How is that monitored? Is it the actual food truck that has to be registered, or the registration number?

Mr PICTON: The registration of the vehicle still happens in exactly the same way as would happen for any vehicle that is on the road.

Mr PISONI: Yes, but a vehicle is not registered on a trade plate. It is the plate that is registered.

Mr PICTON: I understand. The trader, and therefore the vehicle, is registered in the same way. This act is not necessarily about registering the vehicles because, as we have said, the definition of a vehicle under clause 4 is in reference to the Road Traffic Act.

That can include vehicles, but also bicycles and other things that people could operate. We are being very careful that it is broad within that definition as to the types of things that can operate on the road. Presuming that those people met the other conditions and are operating in accordance with the law and the location rules for that council, they would be able to operate.

Mr PISONI: Just to clarify, what you are saying is that a used car dealer or someone running a panel shop or a paint shop who has an LMVD or similar could simply register a set of trade plates for family members, and they could then operate up to a dozen different food trucks? Is that what you are saying is the intent of this legislation?

Mr PICTON: We are getting into the realm of hypotheticals, but what we are saying is that—

Mr Knoll interjecting:

The CHAIR: Order!

Mr PICTON: —there is a definition of vehicles—

The CHAIR: The member for Schubert is on two warnings, and at this late stage of the day I hope he will refrain from interjecting. The parliamentary secretary has the call.

Mr PICTON: There is a definition of a 'vehicle' under the Road Traffic Act that we have referred to in this bill and, if you are operating a vehicle, you can apply for a licence to operate as a mobile food vendor under this legislation.

For instance, the discussion before was about bicycles. Obviously, they would not have any registration at all, which is a whole other controversial subject of course, but someone could operate a bicycle as a food truck if they complied with the rules under this policy and the policy of the local council and all the regulations attached to that.

Mr PISONI: What you are saying then is that councils can be forced to give permits for food trucks that are not registered.

Mr PICTON: If you have an unregistered vehicle, you cannot drive it on the road, so that would be the limiting factor in that.

Mr Pisoni interjecting:

Mr PICTON: That would be the limiting factor in regard to that.

Mr Pisoni interjecting:

The CHAIR: The member for Unley!

Mr PICTON: In terms of an unregistered vehicle, and as per the definition of a 'vehicle' in the Road Traffic Act, it could include a bicycle which would not be registered, and that would be okay to operate on the road because it is okay to operate that on the road under the Road Traffic Act. This does not change the types of vehicles that can operate on the road under the Road Traffic Act.

If there is an issue about particular definitions of those vehicles and what should be able to be operated on the road, then that is really a matter to discuss separately in an amendment to the Road Traffic Act. We are really just using the existing registrations available under that act to apply to this.

Mr PISONI: Just to clarify, can a council say to a food vendor, 'I am not giving you a permit because your vehicle is not registered'?

Mr PICTON: As I mentioned, there is a definition under the act of vehicles, and vehicles include things such as bicycles which are not able to be registered and do not have to be registered. People are able to use a bicycle in the way that has been identified in the Adelaide City Council area where there are those bicycles that already operate as a food truck, and they are able to be operated on the road. If you had an unregistered motor vehicle and you wanted to operate as a food truck, then you would be, from my understanding of the Road Traffic Act, in breach of the law by moving that vehicle around the city or anywhere else.

Mr PISONI: That is not my question.

The CHAIR: This is your last question.

Mr PISONI: My question is: will councils be forced to provide a permit to vehicles that must be registered to be on the road that are not registered? That is my question. What they do with them afterwards is their business.

The CHAIR: I think that has been answered.

Mr PISONI: This is an innovative new world.

The CHAIR: Member for Unley!

Mr PICTON: I am advised that councils can ask for the registration details when they are looking at the application and making sure that it complies with the act. Of course, even if there were to be a vehicle that was registered at that time and perhaps was not registered at a later period, you would not be able to use it on the road anyway because it would not be registered under the Road Traffic Act.

Mr GRIFFITHS: On that, I think there was a report recently that stated that 1,400 people per month were apprehended for driving offences without having a valid licence. I am concerned about an opportunity for people to be either not appropriately licensed or appropriately registered and insured for vehicles that they drive.

As an add-on to the questions from the member for Unley, if verification of registration being provided is required as part of the permit application, in three months' time if they want the monthly permit, or the next year if they want the yearly permit, does that also have to be provided? At the time of the initial application, do they have to confirm when registration expires and then, when the registration is renewed, do they have to provide a copy of it?

Mr PICTON: After seven questions on this, I am happy to go away and deal with this between houses or, if we do not finish with this now, to come back later and provide clarity on that. Of course, if we had been able to work with the opposition on the detail of this, we could have gone into much more detail. Bearing in mind that we have not been able to do that, I am happy to come back and look at whether some regulation needs to be altered in regard to that.

Mr GRIFFITHS: Can I report that, while the member provided me with a briefing about the legislation after initially tabling it and providing me with a copy of the draft regulations, I have been here for a bit longer than he has and that is not the way that it works.

Bipartisanship should exist, yes, but there is normally a briefing opportunity when the questions asked are not always given fulsome answers, so the fulsome debate occurs in this chamber, not necessarily in rooms outside this place.

Progress reported; committee to sit again.

At 18:00 the house adjourned until Wednesday 2 November 2016 at 11:00.