Shop Trading Hours

The Hon. J.A. DARLEY (15:56): A supplementary: if the current legislation is not clear, why not amend the legislation to make it clear?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (15:56): That is a very good idea; indeed, that is what we sought to do. One of the reasons I indicated—and the parliament, as is its prerogative, chose not to support that—was that I think virtually every other jurisdiction, for similar reasons to what we just outlined, has moved away from this measurement of square meterage or floor space area. For the reasons we are exploring now and they have obviously explored in their jurisdictions, they moved to a completely different approach to shop trading regulations in terms of numbers of employees.

During the debate I think I indicated that it is still not perfect, and in my view the reason we included it within our proposed legislation was because it is potentially a much easier measurement in terms of sizes of shops for the purposes of any regulation that might remain in shop trading regulations. The honourable member's suggestion is an excellent one, and we sought to do so.