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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-05-15 Daily Xml
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Shop Trading Hours

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (14:54): My question is to the Premier in his role as the minister representing the Treasurer in this house. How will any further deregulation of shop trading hours assist Choice survey winner, South Australia's own Foodland, maintain any sort of advantage against the supermarket duopoly giants? With your leave and that of the house, sir, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Ms BEDFORD: Foodland operators are large employers in this state and we congratulate them on being voted the best place to shop in Australia for satisfaction, product range and customer service. The survey also found that Woolworths and Coles, which already enjoy 62 per cent of the market share, have a high rating for opening hours and have been put on notice about offering fresh and good-quality local produce.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:55): I thank the member for Florey for her question. I thought she might have been asking me about whether or not we could approach Hollywood about a feature-length film on Muriel Matters, a topic which is very dear to her heart, but today she asks about deregulation and choice. I think it is a very important question and one that this parliament should consider very carefully.

In the lead-up to the last election we took a very clear position to the people of South Australia, advocating for further deregulation of shop trading hours in South Australia, and we did this for a very good reason. The Productivity Commission report showed that there would be a substantial uplift in the South Australian economy and of course in employment, and one of the key things that we promised in our strong plan for real change in South Australia was more jobs. That is exactly what we have been working on ever since.

The point that I would like to raise to the parliament today is this issue of city versus country with regard to deregulation. Some people are violently opposed to further deregulation. Some people in this parliament want to disregard what the people of South Australia want. Some people in this parliament are so under the thumb of the union movement, which they once led in South Australia, that they are not prepared to listen to the people who actually elected them into this parliament.

All published polls have actually shown that 70 per cent of people in this state would like to see further deregulation of shop trading hours, and that is why I go back to this issue of regional versus metropolitan Adelaide. In regional South Australia, sir, as you would be aware, there has been deregulation of shop trading hours for decades and decades and decades. Now those opposite, some of whom finished year 9 maths at school, are arguing that somehow deregulation is a bad thing and that it would lead to businesses going out of South Australia.

Some people advocate that Foodland would be on its knees if there was further deregulation of shop trading hours in South Australia. As I point out, there are deregulated shop trading hours in regional South Australia. Do we have any situation in which Foodland is operating in the country in South Australia? Yes, we do. They operate right across regional South Australia. They operate very successfully, and they have in a fully deregulated environment for a long period of time.

Only earlier today I was speaking to my good friend the member for Hammond, and he was telling me about a new Foodland that has opened up in a deregulated environment in Murray Bridge. In fact, he was telling me what a fine store it was in Murray Bridge, a fine city in regional South Australia. So it really does, I think, put to bed this argument that somehow deregulated shop trading hours would destroy private sector businesses like Foodland in South Australia.

I won't go into a lot of detail, but I would just say that we have had many requests from Foodlands in South Australia to have further relaxation of the arrangements that are now in place where we are administering the law as it is written in South Australia. The reality is that the people of South Australia want it: Labor in South Australia are blocking it.

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