Raise the Bar!

Yesterday NSW Planning Minister Kristina Keneally told councils across the state that they can no longer require development consent for small scale live entertainment in pubs, bars, cafes and restaurants.

Read the media release from NSW Planning Minister, Kristina Keneally - “Live entertainment coming to a bar near you”

Read the circular from the NSW Director General of Planning, Sam Haddad - “ Entertainment in pubs, bars, cafe’s and restaurants”

This is really fantastic news, and the minister should be well pleased knowing that amongst the many other issues that the portfolio has to deal with, that she will be making an amazing difference to the cultural life of the state by showing genuine leadership in a challenging area.

Anyone not aware of how culturally destructive to NSW the old laws were should read these article in todays herald:

Rhythm and booze as music returns to pubs
The PoPE is dead, long live the bands and comedians

If the council inspectors want to keep harassing bar owners for having live music and comedy, councils should instead be asked why they didn't  enforce the law fairly. Then, once all the large screens are regulated, they can get back to us.

Well done Planning Minister Kristina Keneally M.P.

Who said politicians aren't funky now!

New Gaming and Racing Minister Kevin Greene M.P. last week introduced the Liquor Amendment (Miscellaneous) Regulation 2008 that streamlines certain aspects of the Community Impact Statement process.

Changes include:

• removing the requirement for a CIS where applicants only wish to operate a restaurant ( as long as you eat whilst you drink)
• replacing the requirement for applicants to serve a notice on local residents for a category A CIS with a requirement to display the notice on the (proposed) premises
• category B CIS  notifications need only be given to the building or strata manager or by displaying notification in the building’s lobby or foyer in the case of high-rise buildings.
• A reduction in the number of occupiers of premises that must be notified as part of the advertising requirements for liquor applications. Where advertising is required, notice must now be provided to occupiers within 50m instead of 100m. (The 100m requirement still applies to applications that require a category B community impact statement.)

We Congratulate Minister Kevin Greene and the Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing for their ongoing consultation with the community and making these recent amendments.

We wish them all a well earned rest over Christmas after what must have been a most challenging year.

The Victorian Department of Consumer affairs have engaged KPMG to do an assessment of the Melbourne 2am lockout.

Read the report here

Subsequent to the findings of the report, the lockout has been scrapped

Findings include:

There has been an increase in alcohol-related violence during certain periods of the temporary Lockout. For example:

• there has been an increase in reported assaults between the hours of midnight and 2am when compared to the corresponding period in 2007, and a small increase compared to the lead-in period. This is also similar for the period between 2am and 3.59am; and
• an increase in assault related ambulance transports between 8pm and midnight when compared to the three-months prior to the temporary Lockout. 
 
Further, alcohol-related presentations as a proportion of total hospital emergency presentations on Friday and Saturday nights have increased as a proportion of total presentations during the comparison periods and this continued during the temporary Lockout period.

That was a bit of a disaster then, wasn't it.

Raise the Bar encourage everyone to keep their shit together when out on the tiles, if not, its time to take yerself home thanks.

We’re delighted to announce that last night the Raise The Bar campaign won the SMAC in Your Face award at the first Sydney Music, Art & Culture Awards presented by FBI Radio and Time Out magazine. The awards, presented at the Opera House, focus on Sydney’s creative community and are about celebrating the “interesting, the ingenious, the clever”.

Congratulations to all the winners on the night which represented some of Sydney’s most creative young talent (a special congrats to Fergus Linehan who pipped us at the post for SMAC of the Year!).

We should take this opportunity to thank all of those wonderful people who made the campaign such a huge success - and forgive me if I forget anyone .. our members who sent over 7,500 virtual drinks, gave money and made 500 calls to the Liberal leader Barry O’Farrels office the night before the vote in Parliament, Clover Moore, Graham West MP, John Thorpe (ex AHA President, aka the villain!), FBI Radio, Spanton Media,  Walter at Melt and Cedric at Cafe Lounge, Tom and the team at Mooball, Kate Bezar at Dumbofeather, Two Thousand, Kripy, Musicland, James Squire and Burrundulla Wines.

Hi! - I'm the Hon. Kristina Kerscher KENEALLY, MP.
I'm the Member for Heffron, The new Minister for Planning, and the Minister for Redfern Waterloo.

You can get to know a bit more about me by checking out  some of the issues i've been interested in, and see what I have to say. I made my first speech in Parliament on May 20, 2003.

Why is a Planning Minister on a website dedicated to liquor reform? Well, small bars also need a planning approval if they want to have any music, theatre or comedy that's not on a plasma screen.

We sometimes forget, don't we, that to live in NSW is to live in a society where a piano requires a development application and yet large TV screens are ignored and poker machines have a special exemption from our planning laws.

A great deal of work has been done over the years to give NSW cultural industries a better deal from planning regulations. From the Vanishing Acts report (2002/3), the NSW Premiers Dept. Issues paper (2004/5), the Transfer of Functions Act amendments (2006), A new Entertainment SEPP (2007), to more changes this year in the EP&A Amendment Bill 2008 that should finally enable genuine change.

There are good people in the Department doing their best at this time, and I must say that I'm amazed at the patience and diligence of those from the creative sector who have made countless detailed submissions in what is an extremely complex area, attended many meetings, and even in one case given up their career to focus on this appalling situation, and yet years later still haven't given up hope that our planners can actually deliver reform.

I imagine they must get very tired of the endless stream of emails, journalists, and industry friends and colleagues constantly asking them why nothing tangible has ever happened as the months turn into years and yet another Christmas comes around.

Its funny how we do things in NSW. This weekend we had the grand final footy, and the mums and dads sat in the concourse at the game with the family and enjoyed an alcoholic beverage. Take the family into a licensed music venue, and you can expect the police to close it down immediately.

Pokies have a special exemption from our planning laws, but read a David Williamson play or sing Waltzing Matilda in a pub or club without D.A. approval and the licensee is in big trouble under section 139(3)(r) of the Liquor Act 2007, as well as having the local council commence proceedings, issue fines, limit trading hours etc...

As usual, our liquor laws will be giving extended trading for hotels on Sunday nights when the cricket is on, not that broadcast sport, unlike music and drama, is "entertainment" for the purposes of NSW "planning" controls.

In the weeks ahead we will be doing our very best to ensure that new processes for the regulation of music, theatre and comedy can be ready by summer.  There are lots of students finishing their music degrees and diplomas as we speak, and lots of venues that would really love the laws to be a lot fairer. My equally glamorous colleague Virginia Judge MP, who is well respected by the entertainment industry for her fantastic work for the NSW Government in this area, agrees with me when i say that we think it would be great if they can have jobs here in NSW this summer playing music, or doing drama or comedy - rather than bailing to Melbourne or buying a plane ticket.

As a mum with two growing children, i hope that they, and their friends, are able to grow up in a society where their imagination and creativity can be nurtured, where they can be enchanted and captivated by music and drama, and have every chance to participate themselves in the cultural life of their society.

As our children progress through life in their search for meaning and identity, just imagine for a minute if they could have equal access to music and drama as we do now to sport and gambling in NSW?. Who knows, in the years ahead they may have an opposite aspect to the current laws Premier and Arts Minister Bob Carr introduced, and instead require a D.A. for a poker machine and large plasma (as global warming progresses) and give the exemption pokies and TV have now to those who wish read a play or play a piano.

Thanks for your interest in this important issue for not just the people of NSW but for the community, identity, and economy of all Australians, and we hope to have new processes in place for the regulation of entertainment in NSW as soon as possible - after all, what can possibly be delaying the commencement of this most important cultural reform?

Before we go, both the music industry and I would like to acknowledge the work my predecessor Frank Sartor did in this area, and please, don't hesitate to contact my staff if you have any questions.