House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-06-06 Daily Xml

Contents

Shop Trading Hours

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:33): My question is to the Attorney-General. Can the Attorney outline examples where strengthening the market share of private duopolies works in the interests of consumers?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:33): I'm not sure why the opposition thinks that the Attorney-General is responsible to the house for this matter. Clearly—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, members on my left!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —they have been struggling. I think this is symptomatic of the fact that they are really struggling to work out who is writing their questions here for question time.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: We saw some incredible situations with questions so far this year. The reality is—

Mr Brown interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Playford is called to order.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —the Australian Productivity Commission, not the SDA, not the Leader of the Opposition, not his caucus—

Dr Close interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The deputy leader is on two warnings.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —took evidence from people from every single angle on this issue and they arrived at the position that the deregulation of shop trading hours was, in fact, good and an important reform. As I said in one of my previous answers, we are for reform. For too long the government in South Australia was sitting on its hands. They were not focused on critical reforms to the economy, and not the just the economy but a range of government policies.

They were content to just kick that can down the road, sweep their problems under the carpet. We are not like that. There is a new government in place. Reform will be our agenda, and every day that we are in this place we will be making decisions and advancing legislation, making sure that we put policies in place that advantage our state.