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

There are a couple of responses to that. First of all, as I understand it, the existing legislation providing for lower penalties than the Northern Territory penalties actually had the effect of overriding the Northern Territory penalties; it undermined their regime by providing an overriding provision which had a lower penalty. So that is clearly not administratively very good and sends the wrong signal. So the idea was to bring those in line with the Northern Territory penalty regime. I understand it was specifically requested by the Northern Territory Police as part of their measures to deal with grog running.

Question negatived.

by leave—I move government amendments (1) to (3) on sheet BW232:

(1)   Clause 8, page 13 (line 31), before "alcohol", insert "ethyl".

(2)   Clause 8, page 14 (line 3), omit "alcohol", substitute "liquor".

(3)   Clause 8, page 14 (line 5), omit "alcohol", substitute "liquor".

These amendments will clarify the meaning of 'alcohol' and allow infringement notices to be issued for possession and supply liquor offences involving small amounts of alcohol. They make it clear that infringement notices can be issued for possession and supply liquor offences involving the aforementioned 1,350 millilitres of alcohol or less. These amendments address a recommendation of the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee majority report. I hope that, unlike Senator Ludlam, I am not verballing them, but I am told that this was one of their recommendations. They recommended also that the bill be amended to allow infringement notices to be issued in relation to minor offences and to make clear that the infringement notices may be issued relating to possession and supply liquor offences. There was some support for these measures from the community affairs committee to provide greater clarity, and it really ties in with the debate that we have just had. We think that these amendments will benefit the legislation and benefit the management of those offences.