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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-05-16 Daily Xml
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Shop Trading Hours

Mr BASHAM (Finniss) (15:25): I would like to discuss the open trading hours that have operated in the Victor Harbor/Goolwa region for many years, all my adult life. We have seen wonderful access to shopping hours in the tourist region of Victor Harbor and Goolwa for many years. We have seen all shop traders have the ability to effectively trade whenever they want.

In my electorate, I have seen businesses thrive under that scenario. We have seen small stores, small supermarkets, actually go from strength to strength. In the last five years, we have seen two new IGA stores built and opened in the electorate. One of them, the Mount Compass IGA, was recently lucky enough to win an award for being one of the best IGAs in South Australia. They have done a fantastic job there, and they continue to increase their market share because they can trade as they wish.

Likewise, we are seeing the big retailers also having the ability to trade openly. The Woolworths centre in Victor Harbor is open from 7am until 9pm, seven days a week. We see people shopping there throughout those times. People are able to make adjustments to their lifestyle not based on shopping but on what they would like to actually do. I commend the fact that we have been able to have this, but I do not understand why that is not out there for everyone.

When my sister lived in Adelaide and went to university, I used to visit her, and I wondered why on weekends some parts of supermarkets were shut. There were little sections that were fenced off that you could not go to. That was just so they could meet the rules and have their doors open. To me, it makes no sense.

Why not let people shop when they want to shop? Why not let businesses operate as they wish so that the community can benefit from them being able to trade? Let the assets here, the bricks and mortar that people have invested in, be operational as much as the business requires them to be. I think it is a real shame that we have not had that in South Australia. When you go interstate, you see the shops open everywhere. People are out enjoying their weekend shopping. The counter argument is: what about the workers? Well, many people have to work.

In my former role as a dairy farmer, guess who milked the cows on a Sunday morning? Guess who worked on Christmas Day? The cows do not stop. There are people out there who need to work, and there are people out there who want to work. For example, even on my farm, I had my staff volunteering to work on Christmas Day just so they could share it around. It was not that they felt obliged to work, or even wanted the extra money that might be there because it was a public holiday, it was about sharing it around and making it fair for everyone. To me, it is something that we really need to address here in Adelaide, in particular in the metropolitan areas. Give that same opportunity to the businesses here in the city that we have enjoyed in my electorate of Finniss and many other tourist electorates around the state as well.

Let's give the opportunity to those businesses to thrive and enjoy and grow their businesses, allowing the customer to make the choice. If I want to go and buy a television on the weekend, why can I not go and buy a television on the weekend? To me, it makes no sense that I can go and buy a couch but I cannot go and buy a television. All those sorts of bizarre little rules around the place make no sense. I really encourage this this place to address those changes and bring us back to some sense of reality.

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