SENATOR WATT: I do, and it relates to infrastructure. The report, and there are copies here, says: "Backbenchers were frustrated with her (Senator Bridget McKenzie) leadership style and have not ruled out a challenge to her position."
One MP said it was a "waste of time" contacting Senator McKenzie because she "never gets back to you", while another said she "couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery".
- Senator Murray Watt, in Hansard
There's just something uniquely... Australian about Australian English. Maybe it's because the colony of New South Wales which kicked off the English language's adventures on this wide brown land, wasn't a colony of pilgrims and dreamers in search of a better life but a penal colony, made up of the refuse that Mother England didn't want any more and dumped sufficiently far away enough that they could ignore them.
We weren't good enough to send actual real money out to and so the colony of criminals and ne'er-do-wells used what they had, and since the government of the colony was martial law with what was an outpost of the Royal Navy in charge, the totally official unofficial currency of the colony of New South Wales for the first three decades was rum. I think that that says a lot.
We're a less than noble nation with a far from noble language and the fact that this kind of turn of phrase is to be found in Hansard (the official record of what is said in parliament) is inevitable. Is there a more Australian phrase than saying such-and-such and or so-and-so "couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery"? Not only does this play on the stereotype that Australians are boorish drunkards but it also makes use of that very Australian trope of language which turns simile and metaphor into hyperbole.
The premise that someone "couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery" assumes that a brewery, being a place with lots of beer, should be an easy place to organise a mass drinking event. However, as with quite a lot of turns of phrase and idioms, if you even scratch the surface just a tiny little bit, you find that the thing asserted is actually quite difficult.
1.
The easy part is getting hold of the alcohol. By virtue of you already being in a brewery, beer is plentiful. However, merely bringing lots of alcohol to a venue is by far and a way the easiest single item on a whole slew of items that you need to mark off a checklist, in order to properly organise this event. This is just the first of many.
2.
The second thing, which is already done for you, is the licensing of the event. Presumably unless the brewery is extremely generous, which I very much doubt that they are as they are a commercial operation, then the selling of alcohol needs to be covered by a licence to do so under the Liquor Act 2007.
https://legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/act-2007-090#sec.32
32 Wholesale suppliers of liquor
A producer/wholesaler licence authorises the licensee, if the licensee carries on business as a wholesale supplier of liquor—
(a) to sell liquor by wholesale, at any time on the licensed premises, to persons authorised to sell liquor (whether by wholesale or by retail), and
(b) to sell or supply liquor, at any time on the licensed premises—
(i) to the employees of the licensee or of a related corporation of the licensee, and
(ii) to customers and intending customers for consumption while on the licensed premises, but only for the purposes of tasting.
- Section 32, Liquor Act 2007
A brewery will by virtue of if being a production facility of alcoholic produce, already have a production licence under the Liquor Act 2007; which they will have had to organise before they even produced a single drop of their product. A production licence already entitles the producer to sell product to either wholesalers, retail sellers such as pubs, clubs, and other licenced venues, as well as the general public. That makes sense and should be obvious as it would simply not do if you have a licence to produce a product but be unable to sell it.
3.
Immediately we run into the problem that if you intend to sell alcohol to the general public, then the Liquor Act 2007 directs the licensee to define the areas in which alcohol is to be sold.
In order to sell alcohol to the general public, the licencee needs to have supplied a floor plan that clearly shows the boundaries proposed for the licensed area. Again, this is almost always covered when setting up the conditions for the licence in the first place but as a production facility which sells to wholesalers and retailers, then that might not have been the case. Similar provisions apply to bottle shops and big liquor merchants, who have what is known as an "off-licence" where the consumption of alcohol is done privately and off the premises of the business.
My assumption is that a brewery will more than likely have defined the terms of the production licence as an off-licence because they wouldn't normally expect to sell to the general public on the premises. You can of course apply for a temporary on-licence and this requires not only a floor plan but extra details of the proposed licensee, premises and business owner and the usual contact details for an authorised person.
Normally a venue will have to defind its requested liquor trading hours as part of the licence process but as we are talking about a brewery, the production licence already entitles them to 24-Hour trading, with the proviso that there be a 6 hour break somewhere in the day. Most big venues have multiple liquor licences which define different areas; which they will open and close throughout the day, which not only allows them to be compliant under the act but also allows the venue to employer cleaners to make the place presentable.
On the detail of defining the size of the venue, in this case it will be the entire brewery. Again, this will have already been defined when applying for the production licence in the first place. On that note though, for a very very big venue such as the Sydney Cricket Ground, the Sydney Football Stadium, or perhaps Olympic Park, the whole facility; perhaps including spillways, throughfares, gardens, etc. will have been defined as the venue, including if the venue holds more than a hundred thousand people. If you are watching a football match and nip off to the bar at half time and bring back some beer, then you haven't actually left the premises which is covered by the stadium's liquor licence.
4.
It should be obvious that you are inside a brewery. I have no idea exactly how big said brewery is but it might range from a micro-brewery which exists in a single room to a massive industrial facility. Immediately there will be Occupational Health & Safety issues which need to be addressed.
Apart from the usual OH&S plan that needs to be in place in every workplace, the admittance of the general public presents and extra series of complications. Presumably there will need to be areas which are roped off or demarcated, where your soon to be intoxicated patrons will not be allowed to go. Ropes may not be enough. You may need to hire more substantial barriers and/or even security staff to enforce the restriction of movement.
My suggesting at this point would be to hold the event in an area which would normally be used for transporting finished product; which will usually be where trucks and/or forklifts would normally be operating. Those areas in very big facilities should already be marked off anyway.
5.
It is probably sensible, though not compulsory, to consider setting up an incident register. An incident register is a record of certain types of incidents that occur at a licensed venue and they are mandatory if venue is authorised to sell or supply liquor after midnight at least once a week on a regular basis.
Given that a production licence already entitles the brewery to 24-Hour trading, then although the Liquor Act 2007 is unclear if it needs to keep an incident register, it surely can not hurt to do so.
6.
I am going to assume that the brewery will have some kind of toilet facilities. What I am unsure of is how many people that will be at this event. That second thing will determine whether or not the existing toilet facilities are adequate or not.
In general, the minimum required number of sanitary facilities is:
- 1 toilet pan per up to 100 male users,
- 1 toilet pan per no more than 25 female users,
- 1 urinal and 1 washbasin per 50 men, and
- 1 washbasin per 50 women.
As an aside, this is the reason why in general that male toilets are on the whole, stinkier that female toilets. It isn't necessarily because males are more or less disgusting but rather, there are less facilities for them to use because the law assumes a higher throughput. A client of ours who operates a nightclub, has a venue with 2 toilet pans and 1 urinal and 2 washbasins in the male toilets, and 8 toilet pans and 2 washbasins in the female toilets.
If this event is really small however, then the Occupational Health & Safety Act stipulates that there’s no need to provide extra sanitary facilities if the total number of people is not more than 20. You may in fact be able to get away with using the existing toilets in the brewery.
7.
Assuming that you have ticked off every single item above and before you have begun to set up your temporary bar, then you will need find or hire some people who can serve your attendees. Pulling a pint is a skill that can be learnt relatively quickly but there are legal obstacles which your bar staff and in fact the licensee will need to have climbed over.
Each of the bar staff will need evidence of having completed Responsible Service of Alcohol (RSA) qualifications, a current National Police Certificate issued within the last 3 months, and evidence that each of the three identity documents used when applying for the National Police Certificate have been sighted by the licencee.
End.
Having said all of this, depending on the brewery in question it might be possible that they already have everything in place. A brewery might see this as an extra avenue for revenue. For instance, the Bunderberg Rum factory in Bundaberg, runs tours of the factory; which after you have been through the facility, lets you taste their wares. I expect that the factory actually holds both a production and retail licence under the relevant liquor act of Queensland. The Carlton & United Brewery which used to be on Broadway in Sydney, owned and operated the pub which was on the corner of Broadway and Harris Streets but I have no idea if they ever conducted tours and or events in the brewery.
What I am certain of is that if the checklist needed to organise a piss-up in a brewery is longer than your arm, then saying someone "couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery" isn't as scathing as initially thought. It turns out that the request involves setting up something which I assume isn't normally done and that unless you have had previous experience, or are just really good at organsing something and navigating the legal minefield then organising a piss-up in a brewery is probably beyond most people and certainly beyond my inclination and want to do so.
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