Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

The organisation of these amendments and the way they have been taken together has managed to totally bamboozle me. So, if I am on the wrong subject matter, someone can draw my attention to it. But I think we are trying to deal with the alcohol protected area issues in one go. I think that is right.

I indicate to the Senate that, under the old architecture, we had prescribed communities where there were restrictions on alcohol. We are moving to a new regime where we are describing these areas as 'alcohol protected areas'. It is a new concept. It provides for blanket restrictions, but it also provides for management plans which will allow people within the architecture to start to develop local and tailored plans for alcohol management given minimum standards in their areas. So we are moving to a new regime which seeks to empower people to have more control over that and over what occurs in their communities. As I say, the concept has been called 'alcohol protected areas'.

I am informed that the Greens amendments would effectively dismantle the definition and the operation of alcohol protected areas, so we cannot support them. We know that many Indigenous communities want to keep these restrictions in place. But we do want to empower them through the management plans to move on from the blanket restrictions to a methodology that allows communities to tailor responses under this new architecture of alcohol protected areas. I am advised that the Greens amendments cannot be supported because of impacts on the definition.

We do not think that the Greens amendment, which requires a minister to approve alcohol management plans within 30 days of receiving a plan of approval, can be supported. With a partnership approach, we think it can be expected that most alcohol management plans will be able to be signed off by the minister in a reasonably short time. However, there needs to be scope for the minister to consider AMPs closely and to resolve issues when they arise. So we do not think that a fixed 30-day time frame is appropriate.

As I say, we have concerns about how the Greens amendments would impact on the operation of the architecture of the alcohol protected areas and, therefore, we will not be supporting the amendments. We think that this will allow us to move to a new system which will provide protection for communities from the influence of alcohol but also empower them, through the management plans, to take control of the process in their communities given the provision of minimum standards.

Question negatived.