Restaurant Compliance with Australian Laws

This assignment examines the various legal requirements restaurants in Australia must adhere to. It covers areas like obtaining licenses, fulfilling taxation obligations, complying with workplace health and safety regulations, maintaining food safety standards, and implementing anti-harassment policies. The document outlines how restaurants can ensure operational compliance through regular inspections, reporting mechanisms, staff training, and staying updated on regulatory changes.

Research and comply with
regulatory requirements

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
PART A...........................................................................................................................................1
PART B...........................................................................................................................................5
PART C...........................................................................................................................................7
System for evaluation of non-compliance...................................................................................7
Implementing modifications........................................................................................................7
Keeping up-to-date with regulatory requirements.......................................................................7
Keeping up-to-date staff members...............................................................................................8
Documentation.............................................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Futura Group Hotel has planned to fully utilize its potential of the Beach Café at
Seashores as currently, the property with 60 indoors and a terrace is underutilized which can
potentially provide seating facilities for 150 guests. Thus, the report laid emphasizes upon the
key legal, regulatory and compliance requirement for the prospective restaurant operations i.e.
license, permits and others with which hotel needs to comply to conduct their operations.
PART A
Hotelier has planned to refurbish the place for the liquor license once completed the
restaurant will operate for 7 days per week and serve breakfast, lunch, dinner and catering
services to the people. As per Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) which provides necessary
details regarding the key legislation and regulatory framework that business needs to comply
with.
License requirement
 As per the legislation, restaurant, cafes and other food businesses have to give a
notification to the council regarding their food deliveries.
 Food Standard Code and Practice make it legally necessary for the business to satisfy
food safety requirement so as to deliver healthier and qualitative food products to the
consumers.
 NSW State Environmental Policy emphasizes on proper food storage, safety, washing
facilities, service pipes and other requirement for meeting all environmental
responsibilities (Zeng and Gerritsen, 2013).
 Food safety control comprises cleaning & sanitizing, health & hygiene, food handling
and others.
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License and legal requirement for the restaurant operations:
 Competition and consumer Act 2010
 Australian Consumer law
 State Liquor licensing:
 State Restricted Trading days
 Workplace health and safety
 According to Austraian Business Licence and Information Services (ABLIS), before
starting their restaurant operations, Futura Hotel Group license needs to be acquired
license from the Food Authority regarding distribution of services, alcohol consumption,
display signage, waste disposal and other business activities.
 License for Liquor and alcohol products
 Premises and transport vehicles for food handling & transportation
 Water & sewerage facilities
 Waste management
 Use of CDs and other music system in the restaurant
 License for registering business name
 Hiring staff
Code and standards:
Food Standards Code (FSC): This comprises legal standards of FSANZ regarding use
of ingredients, labeling, contaminants, pre-market clearance, processing and residues as well.
Food Act: It covers inspection and licensing of all the food items that are consumed by
the restaurant unit.
Procedure to obtain liquor license
 Submitting an application form to the authority either by post or online
 Payment of license fees
 Meeting out Food standards
 Audit and inspection by the authority
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 Within 10 working days, authority reply for information
 Within 4 weeks after the inspection or audit, license form is finalized
 After satisfying all the requirements, authority will issue license
Types of insurance
 Property insurance
 Liquor insurance
 Fire insurance
 Food Contamination
 Employees’ compensation insurance
 Vehicle insurance
Legal tax obligations
Goods and service Tax (GST): As per Australian Taxation Officwe (ATO)’s tax rules,
restaurant needs to pay GST on all the food & beverages that has been consumed at premises and
supplied to the consumers as take-ways. Restaurant must register for the GST if its total turnover
goes beyond $75,000.
Tax concession: For a small-sized restaurant whose aggregate turnover is under the limit
of $10 million can take benefits of following tax concessions:
 Income tax offset at threshold point of $5 million
 Capital Gain Tax deduction which have $2 million threshold
Corporate Tax: For small sized restaurant whose aggregate turnover is below $10
million, for the assessment year 2016-17, the tax rate has been reduced to 27.5%, thus, planned
restaurant will be charged at a tax rate of 27.5% whilst all the other restaurants will be charged at
a corporate tax rate of 30%.
Fairwork legislation
 Fair Work Act and Regulations 2009
 Independent contractor Act
 Freedom of Information Act
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 Privacy Act
 Anti-discrimination policy
 Equal Opportunity Act 1984
 Harassment policy
WHS requirement:
 Work Health & safety Act 2011
 NSW Code of business practices covers first aid box, construction work, risk
management of hazardous chemicals, managing workplace risk, safe infrastructure,
excavation work, managing noise to prevent loss of hearing and many others (WHO Acts,
regulations and code of practices, 2017).
 Work Health & Safety regulations
Areas of risk management
 Safety equipments and Protective clothing
 Preventive measures for possible harm i.e. burning, robbery, violence, bullying and
others
 Occupational safety
 Infrastructure development
 Demoition & excavation
 Conflict management and others
Advice and guidance
 Liquor licensing
 Food safety and security
 Financing
 Intellectual Property
 Regulatory compliance
 others
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PART B
Food handling & Hygiene:
Type of Policy: Food Safety standards
Purpose: The primary objective of the policy is to maintain proper food safety &
hygienic requirement of the users so as to serve them high-quality goods and services (Reeve and
Magnusson, 2015).
Procedure:
 All the employees will be provided with the initial formal training program to instruct
them regarding the working practices.
 Workers need to comply with the cleanliness and safety requirement to prevent food
contamination.
 All the staff members will be well-dressed and maintain proper hygienic conditions
through clean hair, clean body & clean clothing. Uniform, gloves, aprons and other outer
garments will be necessary to worn to reduce contamination.
 Safe source: The best quality ingredients will be used in food making so as to deliver
healthy food to the consumers (Govindan and et.al., 2016).
 Food vendor supplies will be properly inspected and documented in the inspection reports
before its use.
 Proper handling: Food handling policy will be followed to combat cross-contamination
issues from the environment i.e. common utensils, common working areas and others.
 Food handlers must keep their hand clean to ensure food safety.
Responsible Person:
 Food & Beverage Manager
 Certified food production manager
 Food Handler
 Staff members
Relevant forms and documents:
 Inspection reports
 Food Safety Standards & rules
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 Guidelines for food safety
 Reporting form
Version/Date to be reviewed:
It will be followed on daily basis and F&B manager have to regularly monitor and
supervise its compliance in the restaurant’s daily activities. He also takes corrective actions
immediately in the case of any misconduct and review the policy consistently (Accommodation
and food service industry, 2017).
Harassment
Type of policy: Anti-Harassment Policy
Purpose: The key objective of the restaurant’s anti-harassment policy is to provide
adequate protection to the all the workers against possible discrimination and harassment act.
Procedure:
 All the workers who are working in the restaurant will treat other employees
professionally and respectfully.
 Offensive, illegal and inappropriate actions of any of the member will be punished.
 None of the worker in the hotel can be discriminated on the ground of sex, religion,
belief, disability, marital status, nationality, ethnicity, nationality and other
 Give support to the harassed worker and compliant of any employee will be investigated
instantly.
 Conducting open discussion regarding harassment with the entire workforce so as to
provide clear guidance upon what are appropriate and inappropriate acts.
Responsible person
Top managers owes responsibility to report the illegal act to the HR manager who will be
accountable to investigate the issue to find out the facts and take preventing measures to mitigate
its reoccurrence.
Relevant forms & documents:
 Compliant form
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 Disciplinary policy
 Policy will be communicated properly to all the workers through either publishing it in
the employee handbook or standard policy document.
Version/Date to be reviewed:
Restaurant managers will regularly discuss the policy with the new employees to make it
better and highly effective so as to ensure safe workplace.
PART C
System for evaluation of non-compliance
Regular supervision, monitoring and administrating of daily functions and activities by
the Food Production Manager & F&B manager will look after the non-compliance under food
safety policy (Muraro, and et.al., 2014). However, HR manager and line manager will overlook
the compliance with harassment policy by the staff members. All the departmental heads will
report the inspection details to the top authority that will assist them to determine operational
non-compliance with the legal and regulatory framework.
Implementing modifications
Reporting to the managers through various reports such as Food Vendor inspection
report, complaint forms and others will enable manager to determine the reasons for non-adhere
with the legislative framework. As a result, managers can make corrective actions on time to
adhere with the food safety standards, harassment policy and other legislations.
Keeping up-to-date with regulatory requirements
Restaurant’s Board managers will keep update themselves with the change in
governmental legislation and regulations that restaurant needs to comply with. According to the
change, policies will be amending appropriately so as to ensure proper compliance with the legal
framework.
Keeping up-to-date staff members
Board members will communicate all the departmental managers of the restaurant with
the identified change in the legal framework and accordingly, necessary changes will be
implemented in the operational policy. In this respect, restaurant’s staff members will be convey
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along with the reason behind change in policy so as to keep them update with the new coming
legislations.
Documentation
 Inspection reports
 Reporting operational reports to the manager
 Complaint records
 Daily business records
CONCLUSION
From the report, it can be concluded that restaurant need to obtain license, fulfill taxation
requirement, workplace health and safety regulations, food safety standards and others so as to
adhere with the Australian legislations. Moreover, anti-harassment policy and food safety
standards can be implemented by the restaurant to ensure safety against harassment and food
handling & hygiene compliance.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Govindan, K. and et.al., 2016. Investigation of the influential strength of factors on adoption of
green supply chain management practices: An Indian mining scenario. Resources,
Conservation and Recycling. 107. pp.185-194.
Muraro, and et.al., 2014. EAACI Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Guidelines. Protecting
consumers with food allergies: understanding food consumption, meeting regulations and
identifying unmet needs. Allergy. 69(11). pp.1464-1472.
Reeve, B. and Magnusson, R., 2015. Reprint of: Food reformulation and the (neo)-liberal state:
new strategies for strengthening voluntary salt reduction programs in the UK and
USA. Public health. 129(8). pp.1061-1073.
Zeng, B. and Gerritsen, R., 2013. Inadequate contribution of commercial harvest to the
management of feral camels in Australia. Journal of Environmental Planning and
Management. 56(8). pp.1212-1224.
Online
Accommodation and food service industry. 2017. [Online]. Available through: <
https://www.business.gov.au/info/plan-and-start/develop-your-business-plans/industry-
research/accommodation-and-food-services-industry-fact-sheet>. [Accessed on 17th July
2017].
WHO Acts, regulations and code of practices. 2017. [Online]. Available through: <
https://www.business.gov.au/Info/Run/Workplace-health-and-safety/WHS-OH-and-S-
Acts-Regulations-and-Codes-of-Practice>. [Accessed on 17th July 2017].
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