Community Store Licensing Regime: Potential of the New Penalty Regime for the Promotion of Greater Compliance?

Abstract

The community store licensing regime was first introduced as part of the Northern Territory National Emergency Response Act 2007 (Cth) and subsequently expanded under the Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory Act 2012 (Cth). The legislation introduced a new penalty regime with a range of sanctions that may be imposed if community stores have not complied with their licence conditions.

It is the penalty regime that is the focus of this paper, as a credible sanctioning strategy to deal with breaches of the licensing regime is not currently in place. Such a strategy is essential to ensure that the penalty regime leads to greater compliance with the spirit of the law — ensuring food security — and not just the letter of the law — ensuring that the terms of community store licence conditions are met. Consequently, the article considers the strengths and weaknesses of the new penalty regime and proposes a regulatory approach that may be used by the Secretary to deal with breaches of licence conditions.