From the President

Burning Issues

DAVID BASHEER – AHA|SA PRESIDENT

WATCH VIDEO UPDATE: https://youtu.be/b0eThdZCxGo

The following is my speech from this year’s AHA|SA President’s Lunch on Tuesday, December 7. It outlines key issues confronting our industry and it was presented to an audience that included the Premier Steven Marshall, the Leader of the Opposition Peter Malinauskus and many State and Federal ministers and MPs. Also in attendance were key decision makers from licensing, tourism, media and our sponsors.

It’s a very great pleasure to welcome the fellow vaccinated.

This year, the AHA|SA celebrates 150 years of advocating for the interests of our members.

Through World Wars, depressions and recessions, 6 o’clock closing, the Xenophon years and now COVID-19, the Association has and always will energise friends and engage critics to achieve positive outcomes for our members.

This means resisting the naysayers who compromise livelihoods and employment.

With that front of mind, today I wish to outline the issues we face and with 2022 an election year at both State and Federal level, the path available for Governments to assist our 560 members spread across every State and Federal electorate, and the 26250 South Australians we employ.

COVID-19 ROADMAP

Ahead of the State election, COVID-19 restrictions remain allencompassing for our membership.

Pent up demand and rescheduled events has me feeling very positive when the COVID-19 handbrake is released.

For most of this year, we were led to believe this would occur when the double vaccination mark reached 80% of the adult population.

We were banking on that because that is what we were told.

To have the goalposts moved to 90%, including over 12’s, right on the cusp of getting our business back to normal was demoralising.

For many, this spelt the death knell of their 2nd consecutive Xmas season as we are held hostage by the unvaccinated and an abundance of caution from SA Health.

By the end of next week (December 18), South Australia will be the only mainland state left still clinging onto hospitality restrictions for the vaccinated.

With important trading days lying ahead, we cannot be the outlier state. Now, it is time to drop all restrictions.

The transition committee model has largely served us well but with vaccination rates approaching required levels, the pathway out now requires different skill sets and critically, a wider view on risk and reward.

The March election is the logical time for both major parties to announce they will take back control and commit to accountability being returned to Cabinet.

Right now, we do require clear direction.

The confusion over the ability to trade if vaccinated staff are forced to isolate is shared by all businesses. We had one beachside hotel, notified they were a hotspot, unable to open over the weekend through a lack of staff.

We nervously await clarification on what is intended by the Chief Health Officer’s declaration some restrictions will need to remain for 300 days beyond the 90% milestone. That is pretty much all of 2022.

Confusion reigns if we are considered a higher risk sector for transmission of the virus. The COVID-19 Ready Plan published in late October identified stand up alcohol consumption and nightclubs as high risk even after the 90% vaccination threshold has been met.

Logic would suggest if this is the case, our industry should have a mandated double-vaccination policy for all staff equivalent to that of other high-risk sectors.

If the lack of a mandate means we are not high risk, the harsher restrictions that were imposed after the July lockdown should have been abandoned well before Omicron became a variant of concern.

The language around our border status has created its own confusion.

New testing requirements has put a hold on business travel, the 12 late interstate apologies for today’s lunch is a testament to that - but the decision on the weekend to keep our borders open was a mature one.

We do look forward to the day we are back living in a united Australia, rather than a federation resembling a loose affiliation of nervous tribes.

The South Australian economy is doing well, prompting some - blinded by the good fortune of not being hurt by the pandemic - to label the AHA|SA as “whingers”.

Let me assure you there are plenty out there still suffering, and the chorus of support publicly sharing our frustrations has grown to include:

• Business SA

• SA Tourism Industry Council

• The Hospo Owners Collective

• SA Wine Industry

• Independent Retailers, Restaurant & Caterers and the Live Music Alliance.

Throughout this period, we have become accustomed to bureaucrats governing our lives. As challenging as it has been to implement their requirements, we accepted we have been living in unparalleled times and have banded together to protect our communities.

Right now, we are concerned some regulators are forming an appetite to unreasonably remain in our businesses.

Ministers must consider our twoyear journey and take command to rein in any regulatory overreach.

Just one example of regulatory overreach. Surely someone could have whispered in the ear of the health bureaucracy that to saddle us with the release of their Tobacco Control Strategy discussion paper the week immediately following the difficult July lockdown may not be appropriate?

The timing of the release was breathtaking. Insulting! We were still in heavy restrictions and many of our 21,000 stood down staff had not been recalled.

There was no empathy that this has been the most difficult and uncertain period of our business lives. To seek to burden us with more costs and compliance at a time we are totally overwhelmed is beyond belief.

This time, the requirement is for us to yet again remodel our premises to provide even more smoke free spaces at licensed venues. The AHA|SA argues the current strategies in pubs are proving highly effective.

Smoking rates are currently 10.65% of the SA adult population. The understandable goal is to reduce that figure to 6.25% by 2025. What isn’t understandable is our members being turned into smoking cops and used as SA Health’s experimental playground to achieve it.

Adding another layer of regulations before we emerge from damaging and uncertain times smacks of an out of touch, unsympathetic approach with no grasp of the commercial complexities of our time.

Cabinet must ensure we are given regulatory peace to reset.

COVID-19 has produced a twospeed hotel economy.

Venues in the regions that service tourism have done well, whilst metropolitan pubs that have seen an increase in gaming revenue have recovered after the difficulties of 2020.

By heavy contrast, many of our CBD venues and metropolitan hotels with accommodation assets are in deep trouble, along with members who don’t enjoy the benefit of significant gaming or retail revenue.

Our pubs are the natural home of live music and it has been difficult to watch COVID-19 directions decimate this Industry.

CBD, accommodation and live music businesses will require Government assistance long after the masks come off and everyone else’s lives return to normal.

LIVE MUSIC VOUCHER SCHEME

The AHA|SA is calling for a live music voucher scheme, modelled around the Great State Voucher programme as a welcome concession for musicians and live music venues still waiting for their business model to be able to return.

Musicians can hold these vouchers allowing bricks and mortar venues throughout the state to engage them on nights other than Friday and Saturday, when otherwise it may not be commercially viable.

CITY REVIVAL FUND

The CBD and North Adelaide remain the most heavily affected COVID-19 region. The State Government’s Great State vouchers and Adelaide City Council’s Come Dine With Us programme were successful as a short term lifeline.

As we transition to a sense of normality, hospitality businesses in the most brutally affected areas will need on-going consideration. We would like to see the establishment of a City Revival Fund to provide CBD licensed bricks and mortar operators grants to improve live music infrastructure, outdoor dining amenities and signage.

MENTAL HEALTH AND WELL BEING

Mental Health has emerged as a worrying industry issue. This 21- month, white knuckle ride has seen operators and staff become vulnerable as lives are lived from press conference to press conference.

COVID-19 has destroyed financial certainty and led to an unprecedented level of abuse to those who had the unfortunate task of imposing complex health orders. The wearing of masks for eight hours a day every day has done little to lift spirits. Just ask those looking after us today.

This year we partnered with Employers Mutual to contribute $120,000 towards tailored industry specific mental health programmes. Mental Health issues are not overcome overnight and we are continuing discussions with the Breakthrough Foundation on further initiatives.

We are urging the next State Government to provide $600,000 over two years to work with us, as the peak body, on a mental health and wellbeing support package to assist operators and workers in our sector. This funding will also support preventive initiatives leading to a healthy workforce.

Assistance must remain for those left behind in the cause of keeping all South Australians safe.

SKILLS SHORTAGE CRISIS

Without doubt the greatest operational issue confronting our members is the skills shortage crisis. According to the National Skills Commission’s Recruitment report, two thirds of hospitality employers surveyed this year reported difficulties in recruiting. This compares to 41% of employers across all industries.

Now is the time to pursue landmark reforms.

Last month, hospitality vacancies across the country peaked at 97,375 positions. Responsibility lies with both levels of Government to remedy this issue and ensure the crippling labour shortage does not limit our recovery.

The closing of international borders has exposed our industry’s reliance on skilled and in some cases unskilled migration. Our hotels are keen to train. Many of our larger operators have employed full time trainers and developed academy programmes, but it is clear our immediate issue is a numbers game.

We applaud the Federal Government’s announcement to ramp up its skilled migration intake.

Now, we urgently require the further loosening of migration criteria to fill the needs of the contemporary labour market. It is imperative that chefs, cooks and hotel & restaurant managers are able to secure a pathway to permanent residency.

The misconception about migrants taking our locals jobs has been laid bare by the pandemic. We crave that global talent.

It is acknowledged Governments are investing into training and incentivising employers to hire apprentices and trainees.

But as vacancy rates skyrocket, much of the funding has missed the target.

The training programs of today are a relic of a bygone era.

A four-year cooking apprenticeship no longer meet the expectations of the fast moving highly digitized world of the Gen Z’ers.

This leads to high dropout rates and qualified chef shortages.

As an industry, we need to be invited to sit at the table with Government to deliver shorter training modules that will appeal directly to today’s plugged in young adults, whilst not compromising this State’s fabulous food culture.

Industry bodies with an appetite to drive training should be financially supported to do so. In 2015, recurrent Government funding was diverted from the highly successful Industry group training models. The deteriorating chef shortage stands as a monument to that policy failure.

South Australians deserve a nimble training system that aligns with today’s expectations of both employer and trainee and offers lifelong opportunities for our people

Due to COVID-19 uncertainties our brand has been trashed for current and prospective employees. We need assistance to get enthusiastic and skilled staff, stolen from us due to COVID-19 directions, back in our venues.

The AHA|SA would like Government to mount a serious campaign reassuring school leavers and mature employees hospitality is a noble and fulfilling pursuit. A campaign that can celebrate the renowned food, wine and tourism opportunities our State can offer.

Government policies must reflect we need help now.

LIQUOR LICENSING

There is an obligation the granting of liquor licenses reflects the wishes of the Parliament. The ongoing deregulation of the liquor Licensing act - largely through interpretation rather than law - has seen a devaluing of a hotel license. What’s worse, there is no level playing field. Hotels seemingly carry regulatory burdens spared to some newer entries.

Since February, 35 applications for a Liquor Production and Sales Licence – cellar door licenses if you likehave been approved. Rather than be granted in traditional locations, these have been issued for locations predominantly in suburbia – even private homes. Essentially, small bars in the suburbs circumventing Parliamentary approval.

There are mounting concerns these licenses are trading beyond their conditions. A cursory scan of their social media sites reveals many are not simply sampling their own produce, but carry full beer and spirit offers.

To appreciate how far liquor licensing laws have moved in a short period, now your local snack bar or Bean Bar café can sell liquor free of many of the obligations imposed on traditional venues. This includes the cornerstone of responsible service of alcohol - the requirement for a trained Responsible Person on duty.

The Bean Bar now proudly displays signage promoting a bucket of four beers for $20 or an expresso martini for $14. It is difficult to envisage this was ever the intention of the recent Anderson review into licensing endorsed by both sides of politics.

To add salt to the wound, there is proposed legislation to permanently enshrine a temporary COVID-19 provision allowing that very same Bean Bar or snack bar to sell take away liquor.

The AHA|SA opposes such a move. Not only because there is poor governance over these venues, but there are too many precedents where these seemingly innocuous licenses morph into larger scale operations well beyond the scope of their original intention. And history says when the spread of liquor availability occurs, /tighter regulations always seem to target established hotels and bars.

TOURISM

South Australia’s pre COVID-19 $8.4 billion visitor economy requires impressive funding and a strong strategic vision to be grown in an environment where competing markets aggressively share similar ambitions.

Before the COVID-19 wrecking ball, Adelaide had 3000 new hotel rooms committed and now must be filled. Similarly South Australians have rediscovered their own backyard, and new regional opportunities await.

We require an increased conference bid fund combined with targeted cultural and sporting events, a Bledisloe Cup would be the holy grail - enticing interstate and overseas visitors to deliver taxpayer benefits.

Only last week, the WA Government announced a $24-million increase in funding for that exact purpose.

The once in a generation Riverbank Arena looms as an essential piece of tourism infrastructure. We understand there are competing interests on the public purse, but this investment will allow South Australia to better position itself to

compete successfully for national and international events and conferences, whilst strengthening the Riverbank’s positioning as a world-leading tourism precinct.

The Arena, as part of an expanded Adelaide Convention Centre, is the state’s best long-term opportunity to grow tourism, directly benefiting accommodation hotels and food and beverage outlets, along with regional tourism when conference delegates extend their visits.

Beyond tourism dollars, this development can ignite our state, leading to significant private investment, just like the redeveloped Adelaide Oval has done.

Similar to the announcement of the redevelopment plans for the Adelaide Oval, there has been a mixed response to the Arena. But remember back in 2014, it simply took a Rolling Stones concert and another Port Adelaide victory in a sold-out Showdown to deliver the Oval instant public support.

Kicking the proposal down the road to future generations will see an inevitable leakage of tourism dollars to the new conference facilities in Melbourne and Sydney and the proposed 18,000-seat facility.

Photo by Olivia Dowling

FRINGE BENEFIT TAX

The AHA|SA endorses two important stimulus measures ahead of the Federal election.

The next Federal Government needs to scrap the Fringe Benefit Tax and allow a deduction on accommodation, meals and drinks.

It is a curious inconsistency that FBT does not exist for private board room catering,/thus diverting business away from our venues. A law firm or accountancy practice can entertain staff in their own boardroom tax haven, with a generous supply of food and liquor, but a plumber cannot buy his two apprentices a thank you parmy and pint in the pub and enjoy the same tax benefit.

This proposal is no Government handout with EY forecasting the elimination of FBT on hospitality would have a strong 3.25 economic multiplier benefit boosting revenue and jobs.

ALCOHOL EXCISE

Australia is the third highest liquor taxed country in the world, 17 times greater than Germany. Norway is the highest, but that gap is narrowing after they recently reduced their beer tax by 10%. Last month, Great Britain offered the biggest tax cut for beer in 50 years in what the Chancellor described as ‘a long -term investment in British pubs’.

Australia needs to be brought in line with the rest of the world and cut the tax levied on keg beer by 50%.

That represents only a 2% reduction in the annual alcohol excise receipts.

Most pub jobs are on-premise and with 85% of our beer consumed still brewed here in Australia, this policy will also help protect the 100,000 Australian brewing industry jobs.

And any such announcement would go down very well with the punters on the eve of a Federal election.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND THANK YOUS

Last month we learnt of the sad passing of our life member Doug Elefsen.

Born in Minnipa, Doug bought the local pub there in 1965 and it remains in the family today.

Doug represented the Eyre Peninsula on the AHA|SA Council for 31 years, making the 784 km round trip to Adelaide on a monthly basis.

To Doug’s wife of 71 years, Beryl, and the family, our deepest sympathies from all in the AHA|SA community.

The AHA|SA would like to acknowledge the efforts of SAPOL over this difficult time. Thank you to Commissioner Grant Stevens for your leadership and the manner in which you have balanced sometimes seemingly impossible situations. Also an acknowledgement to Assistant Commissioner Noel Bamford, Chief Superintendent Stuart McLean and Chief Inspector Daniel Way for their preparedness to consult and the consideration given to our concerns.

The March election will see Rob Lucas retire after 40 years’ service to the South Australian Parliament. The AHA|SA thanks Rob for his friendship and accessibility during that time. We didn’t always get what we wanted with the Treasurer; in fact, the scoreboard lent heavily the other direction.

However, Rob always addressed our concerns in a respectful and considered manner. Thank you, Rob, for all you have done for South Australia and particularly our members.

Also retiring from politics is the Federal Member for Boothby, Nicole Flint. Nicole has been a fierce advocate for our industry in Canberra, and we have no doubt someone of Nicole’s talent has an important future role still to play in public life.

After 18 years as Lion’s SA Regional Director, Jason Bailey this year moved on.

Jason remains a much-loved figure amongst our hoteliers and many a deal was done in Lion’s favour off the back of the goodwill created by Bails.

Jason embedded himself in all our lives, and whenever things got a bit tough, suddenly he would bob up on our doorstep with that impish grin and an arm around the shoulder.

Jason, I am just one of the many here who thank you for your friendship and your service.

You and Sarah will always be part of the AHA|SA family.

And following Jason’s departure, we welcome Jarrod Shattok to the role and look forward to building on our long standing partnership

After our Awards for Excellence was COVID-19 cancelled last year, we held our 2020 Awards in February and our 2021 gala night in October.

Congratulations to the Hurley family for winning Hotel of the Year 2020 with the Marion Hotel and again being joint winners in 2021 with the Bridgeport Hotel - the inspiration of Ian Tregoning and Graham Hobbs.

Thank you to our corporate partners. Despite experiencing your own COVID-19 challenges, your commitment to us is most valued.

I am so proud to lead the current AHA|SA State Council – a team of industry leaders who advance the cause of our membership with passion, care and intellect.

Particular thanks to Senior Vice president Matt Binns, Vice President Andrew Bullock, Secretary / Treasurer Sam McInnes and our Executive Council members Matt Brien, Luke Donaldson and Matt Rogers for your support and wise council.

The AHA|SA is truly blessed to have an outstanding management and office team effectively led by Ian Horne. Ian works his way around the corridors of power in this town like few others. With Anna Moeller, he spearheads our COVID-19 response team drawing valuable concessions to our members.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Ladies and gentlemen, Merry Christmas, and thank you for the honour of your attendance today. Your invitation confirms your value to our Association. If during the holiday season you are looking for a beer a bite or a bed locally or in one of our fabulous regions, I would encourage you to consider the hospitality of our member venues who are major contributors to our state’s economy and community.

As is the custom at our pre-election lunch, we invite the leaders of both major parties to address us. COVID-19 has turned the political landscape on its head and I don’t think any of us can truly appreciate the pressure it has placed on our leaders.

Firstly, I would like to welcome our Premier Steven Marshall to the stage.

Thank you.