The NSW government has announced major liquor law reforms, with an exposure draft due to be released shortly. If the recent outcomes of the Sydney lockout law inquiry and previous changes to alcohol industry controls are a form guide, I fear the powerful NSW alcohol industry may again be the major winners, if not, authors of the new laws. The biggest losers will again be the most vulnerable, impressionable and powerless in our community subjected to the highest risks of alcohol-related harms including domestic and street violence and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD).
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The biggest losers will again be the most vulnerable, impressionable and powerless in our community subjected to the highest risks of alcohol-related harms including domestic and street violence and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD).
The NSW ICAC's Eclipse inquiry into the impact of political lobbying on the political process has coincided with key alcohol law changes. The ICAC's interim report and discussion paper have provided a useful blueprint to establish honesty, integrity and confidence in the way we are governed. It also provides insight to prevent the continuing erosion of our democratic process and rule of law.
The standout principles identified by the ICAC to prevent the modern forms of corruption relating to the undue influence of powerful industries include fairness/impartiality, transparency, objectivity and merit - based decision making.
The federal government's sports rorts provide a classic case study of the failure of probity and integrity where political leaders have betrayed Australians for their own political and selected interests' advancement.
In my view the impending NSW alcohol law reform process and outcomes risk a similar categorisation.
One legislated outcome of the Sydney lockout inquiry is a NSW-wide increase in bottle shop closing times. This risks an increase in intractable rates of domestic violence, especially in regional and remote parts of the state. No evidence-based input was invited from our public health experts and domestic violence groups in this concealed decision-making process that is understood to have been led in Cabinet by National Party politicians.
In a manifest conflict of interest Justin Hemmes, the billionaire owner of NSW's largest and consistently most violent pub The Ivy in Sydney CBD, argued before the lockout law inquiry that the NSW Violent Venues Scheme be abolished. He submitted that the Ivy's size and patronage deserved special dispensation from the high and common legal duty of preventing violence on premises; that, on a per-capita basis, the Ivy had a low level of assaults.
This was an earlier common call by Newcastle's biggest pub owners.
Imagine the same request to weaken legal duty of care to prevent harms applying to schools, hospitals, amusement parks and food outlets; that size should reduce the owners' legal obligations.
This excuse was once tried by a steelworks for the death of a worker. It failed in the NSW Courts. but the same excuse that size does matter was later incorporated into the NSW three strikes liquor laws reflecting the power and influence of the NSW alcohol industry lobby. The same three strikes law was further weakened in 2017 when the licensee, not the large corporate owner, could potentially be issued a strike on conviction of a serious licensing offence.
The NSW Minister for Tourism described any death or serious injury arising after the government's relaxation of the Sydney lockout and other laws as 'brutal', but said he would be prepared to 'weather the storm' of public criticism.
From an overall view, I believe it does appear that the NSW alcohol industry has exerted a disproportionate influence over the regulations determining their standards of compliance with the law. In contrast, the NSW government is yet to adopt the NSW Coroner's recommendations in the 2018 report on domestic homicides, to make it harder to approve bottle shops in locations of high domestic violence.
The future of our originating package of life saving licensing conditions is bleak when a powerful industry can seemingly exert so much political influence with so little independent evidence and facts.
We dream that the favourite horse Self Interest is scratched in this latest deadly race to weaken NSW alcohol harm prevention laws. Perhaps the process and results should be scrutinised by the independent stewards.
