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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-06-22 Daily Xml
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LIQUOR LICENSING (MISCELLANEOUS) AMENDMENT BILL

Committee Stage

In committee.

(Continued from 21 June 2011.)

The CHAIR: Mr Brokenshire, I understand you missed the second reading and you wish to make some sort of contribution to clause 1.

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: Your observations are correct, sir.

The CHAIR: Keep it short; I will be tolerant for a little while.

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: I will take your wise advice as I always do, sir. I thank my colleagues for allowing me to indulge on clause 1. I just want to put a few points on the public record. After a great amount of consideration and consultation with a cross-section of stakeholders, Family First will be supporting the government's primary position with respect to this bill, that is, the closing of licensed premises at 4am. I want to put on the public record just a few points that I think are pertinent. First, I would have preferred a bipartisan select committee that actually had—

The Hon. S.G. Wade: Multipartisan.

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: Multipartisan, thank you, shadow attorney. I would like to have seen a multipartisan select committee, because this is an issue that will affect whoever is in government. It is an issue that will affect all crossbench members, the minor parties as well as the major parties.

Had we had a chance to look thoroughly at all of the issues—and I just raise a few: street workers; youth workers; issues around education when it comes to sensible alcohol consumption; behavioural issues and lack of support issues with social services, particularly in the CBD; issues around why some young people come to Adelaide already heavily intoxicated and whether they have support back in their own areas; entertainment in the regions; entertainment in the metropolitan area; and public transport issues; the list goes on—I think we actually could have come up with something that would have made a real difference to the wellbeing, safety, security and the enjoyment of what should be, and needs to be, a vibrant city for those of us who reside in this state, as well as for tourists. However, that did not happen.

I actually did a bit of work behind the scenes to try to get the message across that Family First would have supported a select committee if the major parties were interested. I think what we have now to a large extent is a knee-jerk reaction to a problem, and we have no comprehensive holistic approach to the problem. I am not sure whether any of my colleagues have been privy to any of the detail that I believe the Commissioner for Liquor and Gambling, Mr Paul White, put forward to the government. I am also not sure whether any of my colleagues have actually seen all of the recommendations that SAPOL put to the government. I certainly have not. I would have liked to see all of the detailed reports made available. Having said that, as the bill is proceeding after deliberation, we will be supporting it.

The minister will be able to give us more advice on this and I also received some advice from the office of the police minister, Hon. Mr Foley, when I had a meeting with the Deputy Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner on this matter this morning, but I still want some clarification on the public record from the minister during the committee stage as to the issues around additional policing which I raised with the minister at the beginning. One of the things I am sure of is you have to have additional police if you are effectively going to have everybody out on the streets at 4 o'clock in the morning. As a former police minister, I am well aware that there would be absolute mayhem in the streets at that time if you do not have sufficient police numbers.

The second issue is public transport. There is often a shortage of taxis, but also bus and train services at that time of the day are limited, if not non-existent. I think the government needs to put some money forward to address some of those issues. I have also talked about the issues around social workers and youth workers.

I received a letter from a solicitor for whom I have a lot of time, Peter Hoban, from Wallman's Lawyers. Over the years he has done a lot of work with members of parliament in lobbying for sensible outcomes with respect to liquor, and licensing issues around it. I note that some of the concerns he raised are also concerns that have been raised by a lot of responsible hoteliers.

The fact that young people make up their minds that they are going to come into Adelaide already incredibly intoxicated is an issue that is very difficult for publicans to address. Whilst I have from time to time seen some behaviour at licensed premises that I do not call responsible management when it comes to serving alcohol, by and large, when I have been to different functions, I have seen very responsible management procedures by hoteliers, but it is difficult when people come in at 11, 12 or 1 o'clock in the morning already totally intoxicated.

I trust and hope that the minister's amendment will allow the Liquor and Gambling Commissioner the right to consider, with caveats, an argument by a particular hotel for an exemption. I have noticed the number of emails from people in the hospitality industry who have raised the issue that they work all night and would like just a little bit of social time when they finish work at 3 or 4 o'clock but they will have nowhere to have any social time because they are shift workers.

A hotel that I think is running a model facility when it comes to management is the Strathmore Hotel opposite the Casino. If a hotel such as that was to put forward an argument for exemption and had a club membership, or something like that, in a responsible and managed way, the Liquor and Gambling Commissioner could read the debate in this house leading up to whatever laws are passed and he would see that members of parliament—certainly me, at least, and others have the right to say whatever they want, of course—would like to see the commissioner using proper discretion so that, if there is a good case put up by a particular hotel, there is at least an opportunity for an exemption rather than making it so tight that, because it is at his absolute discretion, no-one ever gets an exemption.

As I said earlier, this is just one component of a complex problem. It is not unique to Adelaide and South Australia. Wherever I have travelled around the world they are trying to address issues of intoxicated people, behaviour and safety issues. I think we could have been far more comprehensive in the way we went about the debate and the lead-up to any legislation. I still think that this is just one element pulled out by the government; you can see that by virtue of all the amendments that have come in since the initial announcement and when the bill was tabled.

I am not convinced that this is going to fix the problem in its entirety; in fact, I am sure that it will not. The police have told me that they believe that it is an important step forward, and certainly some of the traders who run businesses in the CBD and have to deal with the problems next morning are supporting this closure. I will be supporting most of the government's bill but, before the end of debate on the amendments, I would like the minister to confirm to the committee what the government intends to do with police resourcing, public transport and also youth and support workers.

Clause passed.

Progress reported; committee to sit again.

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