Shop Trading Hours Referendum

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (15:34): I rise to speak on Cold War crusades in the Legislative Council. In the years following the Second World War, American popular culture mirrored the anxieties that developed between the United States and the USSR. In many cases that popular culture served to subvert Cold War anxieties by questioning those reigning assumptions of both the government and the public. Indeed, those Cold War anxieties persist here in this parliament.

This week, we had the surreal announcement that a 2022 state election poll may well be accompanied, for the first time in 30 years, by a referendum. A referendum on what, the public might ask. Perhaps on the voluntary assisted dying bill that this parliament has failed to deal with in the past 26 years. But no, the answer to that question comes from the Cold War warrior himself, the Hon. Rob Lucas, in the form of a question of, 'Do you want 24/7 shop trading hours in this state—total deregulation?' We have yet to see the actual question.

I look forward to seeing this bill. I am sure it will be no different from previous bills the Hon. Rob Lucas has put before this place and had rejected, but the referendum should, I believe, be on a matter of state, such as electoral reform, as it was that 30 years ago, or on matters that this parliament should put its mind to, such as voluntary assisted dying. But this is truly a referendum with a silent 'b' at the end—a 'referendumb'.

These are desperate tactics, designed to keep archaic Cold War arguments going, arguments from the 1980s, and that is no surprise because the 1980s is when the Hon. Rob Lucas entered this place. Indeed, in his inaugural speech, some four months after he took his seat in this council, in 1983, he noted that he had already worked with a party organisation, that being of course the Liberal Party organisation, for some nine years prior. At the time of taking his seat he was 29. That means that the Hon. Rob Lucas has been institutionalised in parliamentary and political processes for the duration of almost his entire adult life—not quite the '100 years ago' that he often claims in this place, but nearing close to 40 years.

Of course, 1982 was a very different time. Ronald Reagan had not just done it for the Gipper, he had done it for the Republican Party and he was the President of the United States. Mr Reagan in his previous career had been an actor and had been that dreaded thing that the Hon. Rob Lucas hates so much, hates so much that he used the term 88 times this parliamentary session alone: Ronald Reagan had been a union boss from the years 1946 to 1960, being president and also on the board of the Screen Actors Guild.

If there is anything the Hon. Rob Lucas detests it is a union boss who earns money, as we found out in the media recently, which stated that the salaries of the union bosses had stunned the Hon. Rob Lucas—those salaries of Max Adlam, of just over $100,000, who works so hard for the Firefighters Union, or Phil Palmer, on $107,200 a year, representing the Ambulance Employees Association—a man who has accrued some $6 million or so, according to my staff's calculations, simply in salary and entitlements alone.

The $6 million man, the Cold War warrior of this parliament, wants to take this state to a referendum on shop trading hours, yet he is a leader of a faction which is holding out on debating voluntary assisted dying in that other place—a vote that passed this house last week 14 to seven and that has overwhelming community support. He and his Cold War warrior allies are holding up that debate in the other place, something that I know will not surprise you, but it should surprise the public, and the public deserve to know.

I call on the Hon. Rob Lucas to recognise that the Cold War ended in 1991, that we pulled down those walls and that we can get on and vote on voluntary assisted dying in this parliament, or he will see a referendum on that at the state poll, as he will see a referendum on his Marshall Liberal government failing the people of South Australia.