Red Tape... We’re Strangled By It! From the President DAVID BASHEER
Every incoming Government - State or Federal - comes in with a mantra of reducing red tape for business. And then they all proceed to increase it. The growth of regulation and compliance in our industry remains a constant and exhausting battle. Hotel operators are frustrated and overwhelmed by the uncoordinated approach taken by too many local, state and federal agencies, none of whom seem capable of even speaking to each other. Many new obligations have left us not only bewildered but result in us having to pay the cost of mopping up unintended consequences. So often, our smallest family operators have been asked to have a back office rivalling the size of BHP or Santos. The realities of running a small business mean you are knee deep in operations all day. Once the kids have been put to bed, and tomorrow’s school lunches made, you do your payroll, pay your accounts, and familiarise yourself with the latest round of regulations. In isolation, the Federal Government’s new Food safety standards (3.3.2A for those who enjoy bureaucratic speak) seems a reasonable impost. But we already have heavy compliance obligations 4 | Hotel SA | www.ahasa.asn.au
with local and state governments. With this new layer of obligation, what is being removed? Were these new training obligations crafted in full knowledge of what hotels already are required to do? Last month, Fair Work officials from Victoria came to Adelaide for three days and raided (and I use that term accurately) a series of western suburbs hotels and restaurants. Bemused owners, managers and staff were left wondering what they had done wrong, not realising the raids were merely random. Really? That is the most effective manner for all to go about running our businesses?
“The growth of regulation and compliance in our industry remains a constant and exhausting battle.” For example, the onerous obligations recently added around loyalty customers does very little to support the mantra of a businessfriendly Government.
The Malinauskas State Labor Government came to office with a mantra of being business-friendly. Their two budgets to date have supported that mantra, with no new taxes, a focus on the labour shortage and a strong appetite for events.
During Covid, we become accustomed to Government’s controlling our businesses. As challenging as it was back then , we accepted we were living in unparalleled times and banded together to protect our communities.
But what is very business unfriendly is the ever-changing landscape around our compliance obligations in liquor and gaming. These are two heavily regulated products, and we totally accept a need for strong compliance. However, the goalposts keep moving and our members - especially our smaller members are struggling to keep up.
Rather than have a peaceful reset after Covid, Governments are now forming an appetite to unreasonably remain in our businesses. That appetite does nothing for productivity or business confidence. It simply sends a message that doing business is getting harder and harder. Back to Contents
