From The CEO

Reason For Optimism

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As David says in his President’s Column on page 4, our industry has a wide range of issues to manage in 2024. The following is an update on several of those.

TAX

We are currently in talks with the State Treasurer to resolve a significant problem with payroll tax grouping and its negative impact on some accommodation hotels and family pubs.

This issue originally arose during Covid under the previous state government. Following a review the then Treasurer reversed the decision. Essentially, Revenue SA had made a new interpretation that accommodation hotel groups that operate quite separately – but come together as a co-branding exercise – would be grouped for payroll tax purposes.

The same issue has now resurfaced with Revenue SA reinstating the previous interpretation. The individual hotels captured by this are separately owner operated and have their own staff and independent operations.

Each should benefit from the taxfree threshold.

Initially this only affected accommodation hotels but we are now seeing some family pubs inappropriately grouped.

There is no argument that the provisions - as set out in the legislation - do apply to family groups that share staff and have common directors. However, there are families that run venues that are totally independent. It is time for commonsense to prevail.

CHRONIC PROBLEM IS NOW ACUTE

As an industry, we have talked about the beer excise for many, many years. Every six months, like clockwork, there is another hike. It has been a chronic problem.

That problem is now acute because it is directly linked to CPI, which of course has been soaring.

The impact on pubs and patrons is significant. Hotels can't pass on the full impost because the humble beer would be out of reach for the average patron.

This is effectively a backdoor tax on pubs. We are being asked to be the tax collection agency for government and it is our staff that bear the brunt of being the infamous tax collector.

Historically there has been a public outcry twice a year when the price rise occurs, followed by months of silence. Now we are seeing a large groundswell of public opinion over a longer period of time. Patrons and pubs alike are hurting.

Now is the time for a sustained push for change, working with brewers and distillers for whom it is a disincentive to growth.

LIQUOR LICENSING REVIEW

This year will see a review of the Liquor Licensing Act and we have asked that part of this focuses on the general hotel classification.

The hotel licence category should be special and standalone in its own right. It should only benefit premises that are hotels; for example, those with a combination of bar, dining room, bottle shop and – in many but not all cases - gaming.

Stay tuned.

TRAINING

So much of the hotel sector is covered by state legislation - but some of the significant issues extend across both local and federal jurisdictions.

Skills and training is one of those.

Our training is nationally accredited so we need to work federally to achieve change. Length and content of training needs to be reviewed as a matter of urgency. A commercial cookery course for example should be reduced to two years. We envisage it would have core subjects for baseline skills and then apprentices could undertake additional electives to pursue a specialty such as patisserie or butchery.

At the same time we are working with the State Government to make training more accessible, which is timely with the introduction of technical colleges for hospitality next year.

We are also advocating for government incentives to induce more people to enter training.

These include reintroducing tools of the trade benefits, and milestone payments throughout a course to assist with completion rates.

We also need barriers to leaving a course, because retention and completion rates are critical. For example, while in training our apprentices would receive concessions on items like vehicle registration - but they would lose these financial benefits if they drop out.

The AHA|SA is also seeking funding to raise the profile of the industry as an exciting and solid career option. We were damaged by government-imposed lockdowns during Covid and now we are asking government to be part of the solution.

GAMING RECOGNITION

SA has again been recognised as a leader in harm minimisation for gaming.

Recently we were invited to speak in Tasmania in light of that state’s proposals around carded play and mandatory precommitment with default limits.

We talked about a suite of measures, including Gaming Care, facial recognition and mandated training.

As an industry, we can be proud that in this state we lead the nation in harm minimisation practises and legislation.

TRADING ROUND REVIEW

The results of the trading round review for gaming machines are imminent.

We are hopeful that it will recommend changes that include being able to trade entitlements in real time instead of waiting for an announced trading round and the ability for groups to move entitlements within their own group.