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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
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Bills

Liquor Licensing (Liquor Review) Amendment Bill

Committee Stage

In committee (resumed on motion).

Schedule 1.

The CHAIR: Does the member for Schubert have another question in relation to schedule 1?

Mr KNOLL: Yes. Attorney, for the sake of clarity, we are talking in this provision about the supply of alcohol to minors, as opposed to the consumption of alcohol by minors. Essentially, it is okay for a kid to go to the party and drink a couple of lemon Ruskis, as long as it is a responsible adult or the authorised adult who gave him the lemon Ruskis. The offence that is being created here is not one of a minor consuming alcohol. The offence being created is an adult giving alcohol to a minor in circumstances where they are not what we would call the responsible or the authorised adult.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I am going to attempt to answer that, and I will be corrected by people if I stray off the path. The primary function here is directed towards people who supply minors with alcohol in circumstances where the parent or guardian of that minor is either unaware or not consenting to it. In particular, we are concerned about the unauthorised third party, the non-relative, the slightly older brother or sister who is doing it without mum or dad's permission. It is the school afterparty where persons unknown, possibly older students, bring alcohol into the place and provide a bunch of younger people with alcohol. That is the circumstance we are talking about.

Mr KNOLL: How does a responsible adult authorise an authorised adult? Can it be oral, or does it have to be written?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: It can be either. I make the point that members of the police force have a prosecutorial discretion, which they do exercise, because these are summary offences really, so we are talking primarily about the police and not the DPP. They also have an adult cautioning model, which is now available to members of SAPOL as part of the police orders the commissioner has set in place. In answer to your question, either oral or verbal authorisation would be okay, but the very nature of this sort of thing is that you would expect, first of all, that it is going to be complaint driven. I do not think you are going to find police officers posing as high school students so that they can get invited to afterparties so that they can pinch people.

Mr KNOLL:21 Jump Street.

The Hon. J.R. RAU:21 Jump Street, exactly. You took the words right out of my mouth. That is where I was heading. We are not looking at the 21 Jump Street situation here. We are looking at a legitimate complaint. First of all, I would not expect the police to be receiving complaints unless a parent or someone were genuinely agitated by one of these things. That is point No. 1. Point No. 2 is that the police have an inherent jurisdiction, which is now being reinforced if you like by police standing orders from the commissioner, that they do have a prosecutorial discretion and can exercise an adult caution, which is noted, to one of these people.

Let's assume that it is not a grotesque offence. There is a complaint, but it is not really large scale or anything else. The police bob up and say, 'There's been a complaint about this. You don't have permission to provide these minors with alcohol.' They assess the scene. It is not terribly unruly, or whatever the case might be, and they say, 'Look, we are exercising a caution here. This will be noted.' The effect of that caution being noted is that, if that person reoffends later, the original caution is re-enlivened and obviously the subsequent event is not a caution anymore: it is a prosecution.

We have to work on the basis that SAPOL will be intelligently using its discretion and will not be out there trying to unnecessarily intrude into circumstances. They certainly will not be turning up at people's birthday parties and saying, 'Show me your consent form,' and that sort of thing. The problem, member for Schubert, as you would appreciate, is that there are many shades of grey in this. We are not trying to capture everything. What we are trying to capture is the clear public menace of somebody deliberately providing alcohol to a bunch of unsupervised kids. That is the point.

Mr Knoll: Yes, so if a kid has flogged the alcohol—

The CHAIR: No, if that is a question you stand up. It is not a question, so there are no further questions on schedule 1.

Schedule passed.

Schedule 2.

The CHAIR: This is amendment No. 4 in the name of the deputy leader; in her absence, I understand that the member for Schubert is going to move the amendment. Somebody has to move it for the deputy leader.

Mr KNOLL: I will move the amendment in the deputy leader's name.

The CHAIR: It is consequential.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I think you will find that this one, if I am not mistaken, is consequential upon one of the earlier amendments which was an amendment to remove the three-hour break in trade. This one and that one sit together more or less. The conversation is no different; it is the same issue.

The CHAIR: In that case, rather than move it, you can withdraw it. If it is consequential, we are not going to worry about it; is that right?

Mr KNOLL: I will move the amendment and they will vote against it.

The CHAIR: It is either consequential or it is not. You can still move it.

Mr KNOLL: On behalf of the member for Bragg, I move:

Amendment No 4 [Chapman–1]—

Page 69, lines 2 to 4 [Schedule 2, clause 4(2)(a)]—Delete paragraph (a)

The CHAIR: Do you wish to speak to it?

Mr KNOLL: No, ma'am.

Amendment negatived; schedule passed.

Title passed.

Bill reported with amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—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) (15:51): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Some people wish to speak to it, I understand, and they are going to address the actual amendments since we have been in committee. It is not a general meander, it is—

Mr KNOLL: No, I understand. I did not know that there was a time limit, but I will be brief regardless. Obviously we have had some back and forth during the committee stage regarding the three-hour restraint of trade, and the Attorney has made the government's position very clear.

The Attorney has also made what I think are some pretty patronising comments where he has gone on to insult basically every single person under the age of 30 by suggesting that they do not have their own self-control or free will to make decent decisions for themselves. In fact, he has tried to suggest that the only way that anybody can go out and have fun after 5am is where a venue seeks to exploit a young person. I think that type of comment is exactly why young people do not engage with politics in this state. I have met young people and, technically, I still am a young person. The member for Hartley still looks quite young regardless of his hairline.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The definition is 45, is it not?

Mr KNOLL: The young people I see today are better educated and they make better decisions. In fact, all the evidence we have suggests that they are smarter in their decision-making than people of previous generations—dare I say it, people of the Attorney-General's generation.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is not a meandering, is it?

Mr KNOLL: Not at all.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is the beginning of a meander by the sound of it to me.

Mr KNOLL: We have seen pre and post the late night code of practice coming into play that violence both in the metropolitan area and in the CBD has dropped . There was a drop in violence prior to the late night code of practice coming in and the drop is slightly less but there is still a drop post the late night code coming in. That is in both the CBD and in the metropolitan area.

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Household National Drug and Alcohol Survey, we have seen that risky drinking is falling for minors as well as for everybody and that the overall rate of alcohol consumption, according to the ABS statistics, is falling. We also see that cannabis use is falling. We see that the rate of tobacco smoking in young people is falling. We see that the rate of responsible driving amongst young people is improving and that the drink-driving rate for young people is dropping.

The reason I put all this together is that this same group of people that the Attorney thinks cannot make decent decisions for themselves past 5 o'clock in the morning—apart from the fact that most of these people under 30 are hospitality workers who are seeking to avail themselves of the few venues that are open and who have probably not had a drink all night anyway—somehow needs the Attorney's fun police to come in and send everyone home.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a meander. I am sorry, but we need to get back to the third reading. We have other work to do this afternoon. Can we just address the third reading on the committee stage changes to the bill.

Mr KNOLL: Sure—in relation to the most contentious amendment that was put and the one that attracted the most debate. Young people can stay awake, young people have a vitality in them that means they do not need a cup of tea and to go to bed at 10pm. We on this side of the house appreciate and understand that, and we will be sticking up for their rights to go out and responsibly enjoy themselves. I think every young person in South Australia should take note of the insult the Attorney has foisted upon them in seeking to suggest they cannot in any way make decisions for themselves.

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—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) (15:55): I have a couple of brief points. First, I am not having a go at young people or their capacity to make decisions. What I am trying to draw to the attention of the parliament is that if you build a great big honey pot designed to attract certain types of people, surprise, surprise, you will attract them. The honey pots we are talking about, these venues that run all night and put alcohol into people, are unequivocally designed to attract young people. There is no question about that.

My second comment is on this bogus point about all these late-night workers needing to go somewhere to have a drink. Well, of all the people who are out at night consuming alcohol on any Thursday, Friday or Saturday night, I make a wager with members of the opposition that it would be lucky if one in 100 of them, or maybe two on a good night, is actually just knocking off their late-night shift and going out to have a little drink before they go to bed at 7 o'clock in the morning.

These people are not being denied the opportunity of having a drink; they can retire to their own home or the home of their friend and have a little drink if they wish to. We are not preventing them having a drink. The notion that we should keep all these venues open 24 hours a day because a few late-night workers are knocking off and want to have a drink after work is, I think, having the tail wag the dog to an enormous degree.

The other point is that if you look—and I am sure members will have seen this, but maybe not necessarily consciously digested it—at some of the footage that is routinely shown on television about incidents of people in the city in the early hours of the morning or late at night, some of these images are quite disturbing from the point of view of a parent, I have to say. You see young people, young women and young men, clearly in a state of advanced inebriation, sometimes in situations where they are literally prostrate on the footpath or in various undignified postures, sometimes a combination of both those things—

Mr Knoll interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Schubert.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Sometimes it is a combination of both those things, plus actually being physically ill. You have to ask yourself what public good is being achieved by that. Frankly, I cannot see what it is.

Yes, I accept that overwhelmingly young people are sensible, I agree that overwhelmingly young people do make good decisions, but we all know that these venues are designed to attract a certain group of people, and that is young people, and they are designed to keep young people there drinking because that is what they make their money out of.

It is pretty simple. There is nothing controversial in what I just said. That is basically what is going on. Maybe one evening—for the member for Schubert, one evening; for me, one morning—we can go to one of these venues. At 5 o'clock in the morning, I will be getting up. I will be bright and chirpy. He will be just finishing a usual evening where, because of his increased stamina, he is able to sit through hours and hours of Danoz Direct and still be bright and perky.

We will go to one of these venues, and we will use a rough rule of thumb to try to count those people in the room, within our field of vision, because we will not have to interview them all, who fit into these marvellous categories I read about. How many baby boomers are we going to find in there? I forget what the other categories are because there are so many of them now.

Mr Knoll: Gen Y, Gen X.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Gen Y, Gen X and then there is a new one.

Mr Knoll: Millenials.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Milleniums. How many Milleniums, how many Ys—

Mr Knoll interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Millenials, I am sorry. I got them confused with that movie with Robin Williams. I would like us to go through that because I am pretty confident that these places are not jam-packed full of baby boomers listening to Kenny Rogers.

Mr Knoll interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I think we are having a complementary meander and a lot of noise from the member for Schubert. Shall we cut to the chase maybe and do the third reading?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I think we agree to disagree. I just wanted to debunk the proposition that I am attempting to insult young people—quite to the contrary.

Mr Knoll: You still did.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Member for Schubert, it is constant and I cannot stand it.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I am interested in creating a safe environment where the parents and friends of young people can be reasonably confident that those young people will not be lured into places where it is very easy to slip in another drink, another drink and another drink and, the next thing you know, there they are, disporting themselves in a way that is inconsistent with their general demeanour and inconsistent with their personalities. So, that is what we are trying to achieve.

Bill read a third time and passed.

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