Shop Trading Hours

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE (15:00): Yes. How will the Treasurer enforce, ensure or find out that people aren't being forced to work on Boxing Day if there are no SafeWork SA workers out?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (15:00): I am very sure that my comrades and very good friends and colleagues in the shoppies union will very happily give me a phone call or send me an email if they become aware of any particular issues. I might note that I received another email from my very good friends and comrades in the shoppies union, and this time it didn't go into the junk mail. They actually sent it to my Parliament House email inbox rather than the Treasury one—I am not sure why. Anyway, it didn't go into the junk mail. Ms Romeo asked to meet with me, and I am only too delighted, as always, to meet with union bosses in relation to any particular issue. I think that my office has either already organised a meeting or, indeed, is in the process of organising a particular meeting.

The advice I have had from SafeWork SA, with great respect to my very good friends across the chamber on this particular issue, is that over many years the shop trading laws have allowed trading on Boxing Day in the CBD. I am advised that there has been not one single complaint from the shoppies union, so I am told, or indeed individual workers or others, indicating that they had been forced to work against their wishes in the CBD, or indeed in the rest of South Australia, in regional South Australia from Mount Barker to Mount Gambier, where they are entitled to shop on Boxing Day.

So the proof of the pudding, I suspect, is in the eating, if I can use a colloquial Christmas-related expression; that is, stores have been open, they have been trading. On all these claims in recent years that people are being forced to work against their wishes, the advice I have received from SafeWork SA is that they haven't received complaints in relation to workers or employees being forced to work against their wishes over recent years, so that would certainly be my expectation.

Again, I know that my very good friends and colleagues, the union bosses in the shoppies union, have been highlighting to their members by way of emails, which I have copies of, indicating that they don't have to work if they don't want to. The shoppies union have been quite appropriately advising their members that they are not required to work if they don't want to. So they have appropriately been advising their members that they don't have to work. SafeWork SA has made it quite clear, in relation to their website, that employees can't be forced work. A number of shopping centre proprietors have also been advising their landlords and tenants that not only aren't they forced to open but they are not entitled to or allowed to force employees to work as well.

There is a full-court press at the moment with everyone quite intent, from union bosses, to shopping centre proprietors, to SafeWork SA and to me as the minister to highlight the legal position to employees that they can't be forced to work. If someone is or if someone believes that they have been forced to work, they are entitled to lodge a complaint through the normal processes. SafeWork SA will be required to investigate that particular claim and decide whether or not there is sufficient grounds for prosecution.