I have always had concerns with the 9 litre sale from the so?called wholesale premises that are off-licence premises, and I must say that as a police officer I really had little concern or interest in those sales because I could never really understand the real basis or the reason for off?licence premises having to sell 9 litres at a time because I always believed that that was forcing people to buy greater quantities of liquor than they really needed. So I had some difficulties with that. It is not to say that I condoned it but I certainly did not go out of my way to enforce those laws.

Mr Parkinson - The commissioner must have known about that.

Mr DEAN - Well maybe he did, but what I was saying is that most of our people out there are very lawful types of people and nobody was contravening those laws. That was the position I took, anyway.

My experience was one that simply having an exemplary background was not sufficient to hold a licence to be a hotelier. I think the words in the old act or a part of it were 'a fit and proper person to carry on the functions of a licensee'. The new sections requiring an applicant to demonstrate the capacity to exercise effective control over serving and consumption of liquor on premises will, in my view, clean up the business in many respects. There were and there are licensees out there of course who were in the habit of selling liquor to anybody and everybody, and there was a lot of evidence to show that licensees would in fact feed or provide liquor to consumers until such stage that they were absolutely stoned out of their minds, and knowing also that when they got out into the streets they would then probably create mayhem, commit vandalism and be involved in the antisocial behaviour that we know is common to those people. I think Launceston was a very classic example of taking that to the extreme where we had all those vicious assaults occurring, and so on. A lot of those assaults were alcohol?related at the end of the day. This law in regard to those licensees having to show effective control over sale and consumption is and will go a long way to cleaning that up, in my view. That legislation is absolutely welcomed.

Changes designed to ensure responsible serving of alcohol I am convinced are long overdue. There is evidence to show that some bar staff were not familiar with the responsible serving of alcohol guidelines and that this was contributing to the many antisocial problems of those drunken louts who persist in creating mayhem in public places, and particularly in the streets. I have concerns with the amendment referred to at clause 46A(2) and I referred to that this morning. On first reading it I thought in fact it might be a misprint, but after that briefing this morning I am satisfied now that it was not. Why would we require a new employee to undergo a responsible serving of alcohol course in three months, but with an existing employee - and that might be one who has been there simply for one to five days - allow 24 months to undergo that course? To me it does not make sense; perhaps it can be explained. Some explanation was given this morning, but I do not really accept that explanation because I understand that the course occupies something in the region of about three to six hours. With the online learning capacity and opportunities that we now have, it does not necessarily mean that that learning would have to be done in a classroom?type venue. It could be done in many other ways. I suspect that perhaps TAFE could take on developing a course in that regard as well, so there are many other opportunities there.

The reason I am fairly strong on this point is the fact that I know from experience that a lot of the street problems that we currently have out there are caused through the irresponsible sale of liquor in licensed premises. Bar staff in many instances do not know and do not understand the requirements that they have to fulfil in selling liquor to people, to clients who are entitled to have liquor. In other words, some are fairly careless in the way they receive identification of age from people, some of them will feed, as I said, liquor to drunken people, and we know that is contrary to the act. So I am convinced that the responsible serving of alcohol clause is extremely important and that we ought to be placing a greater emphasis on that clause. I would like to have seen an amendment to that part to ensure that those people who are currently employed in licensed premises at the time that these amendments are enacted should also have to complete this course within a reasonable period of time and I would have thought that a reasonable period of time would have probably been six months, probably 12 months at the absolute outside.

I do not think there is any doubt at all that if you go around some of these licensed premises and so on you will find that a big percentage of their staff have already gone through this responsible serving of alcohol course. In fact you will see most of them wearing a badge which indicates that they have completed that course. So we are not looking at all staff in licensed premises having to go through and obtain that licence.

I think that sort of thing would also satisfy those issues that are highlighted in the social harm research document where there should be responsible serving of alcohol, so I think it would go a long way to satisfying that as well.

Whether it is admitted or not, we know the harm that has been caused to small business by open-slather shop trading and I think that the same could have occurred here had we not controlled the sale of liquor through supermarkets, so I am very pleased that in fact the Government played a very responsible part in prohibiting the sale to supermarkets in that regard.

The number of complaints that I have had from the public and businesses with regard to this legislation were predominantly about the probable sales of alcohol through supermarkets. The current legislation as it is now written should and will satisfy those people who had those concerns. I think that we need to be very careful with regard the placement of premises for the purposes of selling alcohol and if what is mentioned in the second reading speech in regard to this is adhered to then I think that will satisfy those concerns as well because I would not like to see a liquor outlet within a very close proximity of a supermarket with probably a common lean?to or veranda or roofing across onto that other building. I think myself that would not be in the best interests of the people and the community. I think that we need to be very much concerned with that.

Ms Thorp - What about in shopping centres?

Mr DEAN - It depends how far detached they are from a supermarket, I would suspect. What you have to do, in my view, is restrict people from purchasing their groceries and going next door and purchasing alcohol. That is fraught with danger in my opinion and I think that there needs to be some distance between the supermarket and some shopping areas to a liquor outlet. I think it leaves itself open to abuse if there is not that distance position there somewhere.

Mr Finch - It's too convenient.

Mr DEAN - You are absolutely right, it is far too convenient; thanks for helping me out there, that is wonderful, thank you.

I am impressed with the fact that the Government have taken what I believe to be a very responsible approach and attitude towards the non-licensing of supermarkets. To me it would have been an absolute tragedy and would have opened up liquor to a lot of young people and to people who at the end of the day may not in fact have wanted to buy that liquor but because it is nice and close they would simply move in and get it so I think it is a wonderful piece of legislation.

I totally and absolutely support the bill as it currently stands.