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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-10-15 Daily Xml
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HYDROPONICS INDUSTRY CONTROL BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 13 October 2009. Page 3477.)

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (12:50): I rise on behalf of the opposition to speak to the bill. The hydroponics industry is particularly vulnerable to infiltration by serious and organised crime. Over the past few years South Australia has moved from having around 90 hydroponics retail shops to around 50 when the industry become regulated. SAPOL purports that many have been owned or linked to serious and organised crime groups. It is interesting to note that the Premier in 2002 had a drug summit, at which one of the outcomes he wanted was to reduce the incidence of drug abuse and the production and cultivation of drugs in our community. However, nearly eight years on, it is sad to say that South Australia is still known as the drug capital of the nation. In particular, with the clandestine drug laboratories operating, there is a ratio in South Australia of one for every 22,000 residents, whereas elsewhere in the nation there is one for every 60,000. So clearly the government's commitment has failed over the past eight years.

The opposition has always been very happy to have had a strong position on drugs, their cultivation and production, and sees this bill as a way of helping crack down on the cultivation of cannabis. I have come into contact with some individuals over the 48 years of my life who, sadly, have been affected in some way, shape or form by the abuse of drugs and have some personal experience of seeing what certain forms of drug abuse can do to members of our community. I have a personal view that a range of these substances can be particularly harmful to some individuals.

The main facets of the bill involve the licensing requirements and online transaction monitoring systems. Businesses required to be licensed will be retail sellers who sell the prescribed equipment with a prescribed total wholesale value. The prescribed items of equipment are the seven items already regulated: the metal halide lights, high pressure sodium lights, mercury vapour lights of 400 watts or greater; ballast boxes, used to run the lights; devices, including control gear, lamp mounts and reflectors designed to amplify the light and heat from these lights; carbon filters (if growing cannabis in an enclosed room quite a strong smell comes from the plants, so the carbon filter is used to filter out the smell so that it is not exhausted outside by a fan and therefore alerting neighbours, residents or police in the community); cannabis bud or head strippers, designed to strip the heads and buds off the stalks; and the rotisserie device for cultivating seedlings. I have not seen the latter device but have had it described to me as being a device that rotates the plants around in a warm environment and exposes them to light and dark so that it has the effect of being a more rapid-growing environment.

To come back to the carbon filters, the opposition has always wondered where the extra 400 police in our community have gone. Recently I spoke to police officers who had regularly gone to a coffee shop as part of their normal routine when out on patrol. The coffee shop owner said, 'I think you should have a look at the house a few doors down, because there are a lot of people going in and out of there at strange times, and there is a very funny smell coming out of that house.' The police looked at the premises and found a large cannabis crop being grown hydroponically in that house. That demonstrates that some of this increased activity is occurring through our not having a greater police presence in the community. With most of these activities that take place in domestic homes, the neighbours and community members are aware of places where certain behaviour is occurring in the middle of the night.

I recall in my own home town of Bordertown somebody noticed something odd about a house. It was a relatively old house but, clearly, something was happening in the roof because light was shining out of the nail holes in the middle of the night and you could tell that a light was on in the roof cavity. Of course, on further investigation, and this is some years ago, the local police discovered some hydroponic cannabis in the roof.

Getting back to this bill, we are talking about being licensed to sell prescribed items. The most pertinent issue is not so much the licensing regime but the way it will be administered. The licensing process is normal. We have a host of industries where products cannot afford to fall into the management of people who are not fit and proper to deal with these things without endangering the community. However, here in South Australia we have an entity that has a large role in the licensing of industries, and I refer mainly to the Office of Consumer and Business and Affairs. This bill combines the responsibilities of the legislature and the judiciary and effectively makes the police commissioner the judge and executioner. That is one of the areas where the opposition has some concern.

I know that the Hon. Mr David Winderlich, an Independent member, has some amendments on file, and I look forward to taking those amendments to our shadow portfolio committee before we move to the committee stage of this bill. Certainly, as I said, the bill allows the police commissioner to be the judge and executioner. Although it is reasonable for a commissioner in a particular jurisdiction to have responsibility for licensing, we still need to ask whether the role of licensing should be with the police commissioner or some other independent body. As I said, the Hon. David Winderlich has tabled amendments which limit the grounds on which the commissioner can refuse a licence application and, given my argument, I can see his reasoning for filing the amendments. That is why I will be taking these amendments through the Liberal Party process to make sure we give them full examination.

The South Australian Retailers Association has identified over 2,000 sources of prescribed equipment, using hardware stores and electrical suppliers as examples. There is also the capacity for an electronic medium, such as eBay, to be used, and that has also been raised. I raised these issues with assistant commissioner Tony Harrison at a meeting on 27 August. While he conceded that eBay may well be a source of trading in this sort of equipment and that there are other electronic forms of trading—and he also conceded that there could well be some shops that will decide not to stock these items—he said that SAPOL is trying to target the one stop shops, where you can go in and get the whole set of equipment to grow the product.

He even went as far as to say that he thinks that some of the shops are providing individuals with the complete range of equipment, a bit like what happens in the chicken industry. You have the shed with the lights in it, the company provides you with day-old chickens and the food stock, and at the end of the growing cycle of the chickens they take back the chickens, deduct the cost of the chickens, the food, etc., and give you a payment. I have been told by assistant commissioner Harrison that there is some evidence that suggests that the hydroponics industry operates in that way, where a shop is providing all the equipment and you do not have to pay for it until you have a crop, and he purported to say that the product may be even marketed through that shop.

So the intent is to lessen the ease of gaining the full hydroponics setup. Mr Harrison raised the point that most garden centres and hardware stores do not stock all the prescribed equipment and, really, this bill only targets those that provide the whole range. In relation to specialised lighting stores, some of the lights used on domestic tennis courts are the same types of lights, and Mr Harrison could see a situation where some exemptions could be granted for those people who have a legitimate use for one or two pieces of that sort of equipment.

For the few non-hydroponic stores that stock complete kits, it will be at their discretion to continue stocking them, not to stock them or to go under the licensing regime. Mr Harrison (and I think the rest of SAPOL) believes that there would be very few stores—if they were not particularly hydroponics stores but perhaps a garden centre—which stocked that type of equipment and which would not go out of business if they chose not to stock it. That was the view that SAPOL put to us.

Mr Harrison asserted that, in his career as a police officer of close to 30 years—it is a significant length of time—he had not witnessed the prescribed equipment being used to grow anything of a legitimate substance: for example, tomatoes, lettuces or cucumbers. This equipment is quite expensive and is really used to grow only high-value crops such as cannabis. I was concerned, having previously been a horticulturist, that this equipment is being used in the horticultural industry and—

The Hon. R.L. Brokenshire: You were a flower grower.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: The Hon. Robert Brokenshire interjects that I was a flower grower. If I had not been elected to parliament, I expect that I would have had a range of glasshouses on my property in the South-East now growing a whole range of crops, including looking at the hydroponic production of cut flowers. I was concerned that this bill might capture the hydroponic vegetable and flower growing industry, but Mr Harrison assured me that these products, which are the regulated ones, are not used—

The Hon. P. Holloway: Must be very funny-smelling flowers.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: That may be. I used to be very happy and enjoy what I did but I do not think I was intoxicated by growing the product I used to grow! However, I was concerned that we would be introducing a piece of legislation that would impact on legitimate primary production. Mr Harrison assures me that this will not be the case.

It is the commissioner who will decide the granting of licences, based on criminal intelligence. Clause 5 of the bill states that he will be subject to ministerial control. I was interested to read that, and I would like an explanation from the minister, because this seems to be one of the few pieces of legislation where I see the commissioner being able to be directed by the minister.

We have always talked about separation of powers, especially where they involve the police and the prospect of the minister directing the commissioner. Often the Minister for Police, even under questions, would say, 'Well, that's an operational matter. I cannot comment.' Certainly, minister Wright often uses that defence these days when he is questioned. I am intrigued as to why this piece of legislation has a clause in it which says the commissioner will be subject to direction by the minister. At this point I seek leave to conclude my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.


[Sitting suspended from 13:03 to 14:15]


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