Page 5667 - Week 13 - Thursday, 18 November 2010
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When the principal bill was debated in August or September, whenever it was, we moved that we not debate this until the regulations and the fee schedule were available. There was a lot of negotiation behind it but no, Mr Rattenbury said we had to bring this on. “We have to bring this on now.” He wants all this to start by 1 December.
This is the other thing that is wrong with his argument. There is nothing in the disallowance of the fee schedule that impacts on the new offences, the new powers for police, the new requirements for people to behave well, the new requirements in relation to responsible service of alcohol. There is nothing in the disallowance of the fee schedule that will stop that operating on 1 December. The only thing the disallowance of the fee schedule will do is set back the current fee schedule. If the minister thinks that there is any doubt as to whether the current fee schedule will exist on 1 December, he can make it perfectly clear by remaking that fee schedule to come into effect on 1 December.
It is a nonsense to say that we will be left without a fee schedule. And it is a nonsense to say that we will be left without an effective liquor licensing law. The things that matter—police powers, powers for licensees to eject people from premises, all of those things—will come into effect, irrespective, on 1 December. That is the main thing. That is the flaw in Mr Rattenbury’s argument when he says: “It is too late to do anything about it. We should have done it earlier.”
I would have loved to have done it earlier but Simon Corbell was not prepared to share. Simon Corbell was not prepared to bring in an entire package of legislation and say: “Here is the legislation. Here are the regulations that underpin it and here is the fee schedule.” He was not prepared to do it because he knew how unpopular his fee schedule would be. He left it to the last minute and then scared the horses and said to Mr Rattenbury: “Shane, you cannot do that now because all hell will break loose. It is too late to do anything about it.” Shane Rattenbury and the Greens signed up to this.
I am putting the message out there, loudly and clearly, to the hundreds of people I have spoken to about this that the Canberra Liberals are standing up for liquor licensees across the town, whether they run a restaurant, a bar, a nightclub, whether they are in the club industry or not, whether they are a large off-licence or a small off-licence, whether they are a not-for-profit organisation which is being swamped by red tape and increased fees, whether they are a mail-order organisation or an organisation that runs tastings in shopping centres and they are being unfairly taxed by Simon Corbell and ACT Labor. Simon has his hands in their pockets and he is being aided and abetted by the Greens today, who will not disallow, even though they admit that there are substantial problems with the fee schedule.
That is the message from today. Labor and the Greens have sold out the people of the ACT, not only the licensees but all those hundreds of people that they employ and, on top of that, the thousands of patrons. They are all being sold out today and that is the clear message. They do not care. They are not prepared to consult. They are not prepared to look at the evidence.
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