Page 991 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 21 March 2012
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MR CORBELL: Well, no, that is not true. I hear Mrs Dunne’s interjection. The reporting date imposed by the Assembly on the government in relation to the review of liquor licensing fees actually fell within the three-month period proposed by Mr Rattenbury. I think all members should reflect on that.
Now that the liquor reforms and the new liquor fees are behind us, government can return to its previous standard practice of including fees in the annual fees instrument, as this was always the government’s intention. Liquor fees for the coming year will be announced soon after the May budget this year and will be placed back in the Attorney-General fees determination which will commence on 1 July. This will give licensees up to five months notice of their fees, which will become due and payable by 30 November this year. So whilst the government believe this bill is largely superfluous, we cannot fault the sentiment behind it, and therefore we will be supporting the bill.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (11.24): It is fitting that this issue should come up immediately after Mr Smyth’s motion on the importance of family businesses, because people in the hospitality industry are often family businesses, and the impacts of government decisions are often very troublesome.
The Canberra Liberals will be supporting this amendment to the Liquor Act proposed by Mr Rattenbury. We do not do so with any great alacrity, because in many ways this sort of approach should be unnecessary. It is the case that members of the community who have to pay government fees and charges should be given reasonable notice, and that that should be just a matter of doing business with government in a sensible way.
Mr Corbell referred to the fact that prior to the 2010 reforms the fee determination came out at the beginning of each financial year and that gave people notice. It may have given liquor licensees notice, but since I have been the shadow attorney-general and the shadow minister for the Office of Regulatory Services, every year I have had complaints from businesses about the late notice that this attorney gives to a whole range of increases in fees. I recall that two or maybe three years in a row I have written to the attorney passing on the complaints of the business and legal communities about the increases in fees and asking him to be more timely next year—and it never happens. This is the main reason the Canberra Liberals are supporting this provision today, because we cannot get the Labor government to treat businesses appropriately and give them appropriate warning.
We need to keep in mind that the Greens have not covered themselves with glory in this place on this issue. We have to remember that back in 2010 I moved the disallowance of the fee schedule, and Mr Rattenbury had the opportunity then to put a stop to the draconian increases in fees that were experienced in 2010. He had that opportunity and he let it pass. He let it pass because he said, “It’s all too late and it’s all too difficult.” Well, it was not too late and it was not too difficult. We would have reverted to the fees that we had before. There would have been fees payable. People would have had some certainty and they would have been able to participate with the government and the rest of the Assembly in setting a reasonable fee schedule.
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