YRCC TAVERN LICENCE

ORIGINAL OBJECTIONS TO THE DECISION OF THE DIRECTOR GENERAL OF RACING, GAMING AND  LIQUOR LICENCING,BARRY SARGEANT, TO GRANT A ‘TAVERN LICENCE’ TO THE SHIRE OF YORK.

(It should be duly noted that Barry Sargeant, as Director General of Racing, Gaming and Liquor accepted a fully paid trip to Macau from James Packer’s Crown Perth Casino. As a senior government bureaucrat, Sargeant was in breach of the rules regarding acceptance of gifts and hospitality from third-parties with known or perceived commercial interest in racing, gaming and liquor. His trip was approved by the then Minister for Racing, Gaming and Liquor, Terry Waldron, who’s response regarding the question of conflict-of-interest was unintelligible. The actuality was that Sargeant went to Macau to assist in protecting the commercial interests of Crown Perth.
This is just part of the continuing absence of accountability and excess of moral turpitude that the WA public has to put up with from government agencies.)           David Taylor.



DECEPTIVE CONDUCT by the Shire of York

First- It was the use of a misleading non- definitive title, Liquor Licence, by the Shire of York to garner additional local community support to be granted a highly definitive Tavern Licence. This- being an act of deliberate omission and deceit.
(The term Liquor Licence includes but is not limited to Tavern Licence. It is a generalization only encompassing all types of liquor licences, from the most restrictive to the least restrictive options.

This occurred nine (9) months after the cut-off date for any objections to a Tavern Licence being granted to the Shire of York, through a letter from the Shire of York, signed by its Chief-Executive Officer, requesting additional local community support for gaining a liquor licence for the YRCC. This was because it had not met its obligations to provide appropriate community responses to its original request for a Tavern Licence.

At this time the Shire chose to use the innocuous, generalized term Liquor Licence, rather than the massively all- encompassing Tavern Licence to define its prior, incompetent application which would have been rejected had it been submitted by a prospective private enterprise licensee. (The intent was to dramatically reduce any objections to the licence application as it believed most of the community was in favour of a form of liquor licence being granted. This should have been an adequate form of Club Licence to the satisfaction of all sporting bodies, the public in general and in the best interest of competitive neutrality with local businesses.

The Director General concluded that as a  (and I quote)‘balance of probabilities’ all objections and interventions were with regard to a Tavern Licence only and such a licence would be and was granted. It was highly likely that, Barry Sargeant, was advised by his Minister, Terry Waldron to grant the Tavern Licence just prior to the 2013 State Election to fulfill an overt election promise no matter what.

SHIRE OF YORK’S UNACCEPTABLE LEVEL OF DEBT

The Shire of York already had a substantial, arguably unsustainable, debt on the YRCC development and the Director General was advised of this. Barry Sargeant had no information at his disposal of a commercial/financial nature suggesting that the Shire of York could service the debt through local ratepayer funding or by any other method. In fact all available advice was to the contrary.

In 2008, the official budget estimate was put at $4,386,000 contradicting an industry estimate of in excess of $5 million. The current estimate is between $8 and $12 million, an overly excessive debt. 

The fact the Director General found it to be (in his words) inconsequential that a Tavern Licence applicant’s proposed premises was in financial difficulty and this should not preclude the granting of such a licence was appalling economic nonsense and non-accountability at its bureaucratic worst.

It is likely that Barry Sargeant, was advised by his Minister, Terry Waldron to grant the Tavern Licence in a futile attempt to ensure the future financial viability of a project funded by Royalties for Regions

COMPETITIVE NEUTRALITY BETWEEN THE SHIRE OF YORK AND LOCAL BUSINESSES

No government agency should be allowed, under any circumstances, to grant any form of public- commercial licence to another government agency to provide goods and services already available from private enterprise, or that can be provided by private enterprise- other than the supply of public utilities and associated servicing.

No government or its agencies should interfere in a free-market economy unless clearly franchised by electors to do so. This had not occurred!

Barry Sargeant, chose to intervene in contravention of the concept of Competitive Neutrality because according to him, there was no legislation preventing him from doing so. Moral and ethical issues were of no importance, nor was the financial welfare of other local liquor licencees.

SHIRE OF YORK’S ADMINISTRATIVE INCOMPETENCE

From 2008 the Shire of York had $161,000 worth of its municipal funds stolen and /or fraudulently misappropriated with associated financial liabilities by a Miss Kate Watts through her actions at the York Tourist Information Centre.

The Shire of York had suffered a ‘Defective Administration’ finding by the State Ombudsman because of a lack of required knowledge of some of the important statutes it was mandated to administer, causing financial damage to local businesses.

In late 2012 a Disciplinary Panel of the Department of Local Government was reviewing actions taken by the President and Deputy President of the Shire of York to decide an appropriate penalty for bringing their office into disrepute and bringing into question the Shire’s knowledge and competence in local government statutory rules and regulations regarding Council Meetings. (Subsequently, the Shire President was found guilty.)
Even more to the point:-
a) The Director General’s own staff clearly stated in official correspondence that for a period of nearly twelve (12) months the Shire of York failed to provide sufficiently compelling evidence that it should be granted a Tavern Licence.

b) His staff had to supply the Shire a number of his previous decisions for it, in all probability, to copy.

c) In late October, 2012, the Director General’s staff supplied the Shire a pamphlet, authored by him, on how to apply for the Tavern Licence it had applied for on November 11, 2011.

d) At the same time the Shire was supplied his policy guideline regarding the Public Interest Assessment (PIA) component of its application.

 f) The Shire had been warned in November/ December 20, 2012, that it did not meet the standard required regarding the (PIA) in its application of November 11, 2011.

g) The Director General’s staff advised the Shire that it now had the opportunity to lodge further and better particulars, that is, new, improved evidence that the application should be granted in the public interest.


SUMMATION

Despite the fact the Shire of York was responsible for the administration the Tavern Licence, the Director General’s statement was that the matters of incompetence  would be more appropriately dealt with by the Department of Local Government, suggesting that Shire Councils administrative deficiencies would not have any detrimental effect on the proper administration of a Tavern Licence.

The Director General claimed his decision was based on his interpretation that ‘the Shire of York is well suited to hold a liquor (Tavern) licence for the proposed licensed premises as it operates under the principles of openness and accountability, acts on behalf of the community as a whole and as a structured financial system in place'.

At one stage the Shire of York claimed that the Department of Racing, Gaming and Liquor had advised it to apply for a Tavern Licence and then told it to request local support for the unspecified liquor licence.

The Shire then claimed it was the objections of several local residents that caused the substantial delay in the granting of the Tavern Licence, not its own incompetent application being on the point of rejection between November 2011 and December 2012.

The Shire, in defending its incompetent actions to the Minister for Local Government, John Castrilli, said that an administrative error occurred while it was following the Liquor Commission of Western Australia’s procedures for handling community objections- which contributed to the delay in the process. (This was a lie. The Shire had failed miserably in providing credible Public Interest Assessments.)

According to records there were only six community objections, the other two were from the WA Police and the WA Health Department (standard procedure) and all but one had been lodged when the supposed community consultative process first began.

Another likely objection was that given the Shire of York requested Tavern Licence trading hours of 94 hours per week and with four other outlets trading in a small community, there was a potential for a combined total of 376 trading hours of serving alcohol or 15.6 days per week. (This is assuming that, to remain competitive, the privately owned licencees had to remain open and provide similar services when they could ill afford to do so.)

The general consensus of the local population at that time was that the YRCC should be granted the type
of liquor licence that best suited the requirements of all the local sporting associations and could accommodate the requirement for alcohol supply to conventions. This would not have been a Tavern Licence.

Given the many administrative malfunctions prevalent within the Shire of York at that time it is hard to imagine that the community was comfortable with the Shire being granted a commercially sensitive licence for any purpose, let alone a Tavern Licence.

Basically, at no time since the YRCC Tavern was opened has this facility complied with the general terms and conditions of its Tavern Licence- being appropriate opening hours that integrate with mandatory food and beverage services.

An overall assessment of the documented evidence is, that at the time of granting of the Tavern Licence, the Shire of York was not a fit and proper government agency to be granted such a licence and that the Director General of Racing, Gaming and Liquor did not undertake a  proper assessment of the Shire’s ability to function as a Tavern Licence holder. The ultimate blame rests with Barry Sargeant.

It is now time for the current Shire of York to rectify the situation in the best interest of the York community. That is to have the Tavern Licence revoked and replaced with appropriate licences.