HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Member Index
House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-10-18 Daily Xml
Contents
Xml

Bills

Shop Trading Hours (Extension of Hours) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed.

The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON (Ramsay—Minister for Tourism, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (16:55): I rise to support the Shop Trading Hours (Extension of Hours) Amendment Bill 2022. As my colleagues have noted, these reforms seek to find a reasonable balance between the interests of large and small business, corporate and independent businesses, and workers and consumers. Extending Sunday trading was an election commitment of the incoming Malinauskas Labor government. As a government and in opposition, we listened and consulted with stakeholders to find the right balance.

Under this legislation, shops can open from 9am instead of 11am on Sundays, and it will permanently allow Boxing Day trading in the city and the suburbs. As we saw in data released this weekend, the Adelaide CBD is seeing the strongest return of activity of any city in Australia. No doubt, these reforms will see this data improve even more as people get out and support small businesses at the extended hours of trade introduced here.

We have seen significant disruption and unpredictability in recent years and these reforms will finally provide certainty ahead of the upcoming Christmas season. We know because the business community have made it very clear that the most frustrating things for them and their employees are uncertainty and the inability to plan ahead. The Malinauskas Labor government is working hard to support the South Australian small business community, whether they be local producers, small family manufacturers or independent retailers.

The total deregulation of shop trading hours proposed by those opposite just prove the Liberals' total lack of understanding or support for our small and family businesses in South Australia. The Liberals' proposed deregulation would have supported corporate interests at the sacrifice of small and family business. In other states, the independent supermarket sector barely rates a mention. In South Australia, we are fortunate to have a strong independent supermarket sector representing 30 per cent of our total market share.

In my own electorate there are two significant independent retailers that in recent years have not only built new premises but one completely rebuilt what was a very tired shop and has done extremely well. They need this kind of certainty to know that they will not be squeezed out to have that kind of investment. It is always a delight for me to see people getting jobs there, particularly the one in Salisbury North which employed another 40 people when they rebuilt their supermarket. They renamed it a Drakes supermarket, and it has been a great asset to the community.

The Chapleys have invested heavily in Saints shopping centre; the member for King and I frequent a very good cafe there. That was a significant investment where there was a great gap in the market, and it has an extensive range of South Australian products. When you go in, there is a fantastic array of about 100 cheeses you can choose from. I went to CheeseFest on the weekend, but really I could have just gone to Saints Shopping and enjoyed the same diversity. This 30 per cent of our market share is something we should be proud of in South Australia. It gives that competition.

When many small family-owned brands would find it impossible to get on the shelves of a national corporate chain, smaller independent supermarkets are far more likely to support and stock these local alternatives. As a government we supported Brand SA. It was cut by the previous government, but we are bringing it back again. We know how much South Australians like to understand where their product is coming from. They really do want to support South Australian businesses. We remember the Spring Gully story: they were on their knees, we turned it around and made sure that we reached out for their product more and more.

When you are in a supermarket, that Brand SA label stands out. I was picking out some olives the other day and I had a look around and found some from Penfield, and that was in our local shopping centre. It was something I chose, and I could pick it out easily because it had the Brand SA label.

Another important difference between us and those opposite is the introduction of a limitation on the minister's power to grant exemptions for shop trading rules. This will prevent a repeat of blanket shop trading exemptions on public holidays by the previous Marshall Liberal government. That created enormous unpredictability over the past years. I think about when the former Treasurer would make these declarations about exemptions. He thought it was a sign of control, but what it lacked was leadership.

On coming into government, we made it very clear that we were going to solve this problem once and for all. We were very clear and very open, but the reality is this could have been done under the previous government. We put it to them time after time after time: 'Here's a reasonable way forward. This is the best of both worlds for everyone.' But the stubbornness, the control, the ridiculousness of wanting to have that power to talk about the exemptions took away from what we should have been focusing on: the people who have invested in shops.

As Minister for Multicultural Affairs, I often hear stories about people who have made the decision to open up a shop with food from their own culture. It is a wonderful place for people, whether they are here as an international student, a skilled migrant or a humanitarian migrant, to go to shop and buy those foods and products they miss so much from home. These are small shops and they trade as often as they can. We want to give them that opportunity, particularly on public holidays, to continue to trade with that certainty around the framework.

Of course, we are also proudly and strongly focused on supporting employees. The bill ensures that workers' rights to public holidays are protected and that only those who have voluntarily agreed to work on Sundays and public holidays will be required to. Like a few people in this house, I also worked for the shoppies union. I worked for them for seven years, both here in South Australia and in Northern Territory.

I spent a lot of time talking to people about their rights, advocating for occ health and safety conditions, talking to them about workers compensation and the negotiations through enterprise bargaining agreements. More than 10 years ago, I ran in a by-election and they said, 'We remember you. You used to work for the SDA and you came and organised at Coles at Hollywood Plaza.' They were still working there and they remembered the connection I had and knew what we had done to increase the income for shop workers.

When I think about this bill, I think about the people I see. I think about the delegate who is at Big W who calls me out every time I go into Parabanks and says, 'Zoe, how's it going?' She came along to one of my street-corner meetings just last week and said, 'I have been working there for more than 20 years.' I know that she relies on having choices when she works. She is incredibly committed to the job that she does as a delegate in the workplace and is committed to her colleagues she works with.

This bill will ensure the right that her public holidays be protected and that it will be a voluntary agreement for her to work on Sundays and public holidays. This bill gets it right and it shows our leadership and why we were so successful at the election. That is why I am proud to stand here to support the bill.

You have to ask yourself why it took so long. What was the ambition for constant exemptions? If we look at the last two years, we had incredible challenges. Let's be honest, our shop assistants took one hell of a beating—people demanding the bread on the shelves, the missing eggs, the flour, the pasta—with the abuse they took. Then we gave them a lack of certainty about whether they were trading on a public holiday or not. They had to wait until the former Treasurer decided whether he wanted to be political about the situation or not.

We have been in this house to pass other legislation to support workers in shopping centres and in pharmacies to make sure that those assault laws are strengthened because there is an incredible amount of abuse that people face in these situations. Whether it is that they did not like the bag they had, whether they were asked to wear a mask, whether they were asked to use hand sanitisers out the front, I saw with my own eyes people who said, 'I don't believe in the virus,' when the shop assistants were simply trying to protect themselves.

Over this very challenging period, our shop assistants have been dealing with some of the most challenging times. While the rest of us were at home, we were asking them to work, and that is why realising that they are essential workers is so important. Whether you work in a supermarket, whether you are working as a pharmacy assistant (they were also named as essential workers), we know that during that very challenging time they dealt some horrific language and physical abuse.

Often, we see people starting their careers—you can start work at 14 years and nine months. It might be someone's first job, working on the register or packing the shelves, yet they were experiencing this extraordinary abuse. We know that the majority of shop assistants are still female. That has been the tradition. My experience with people is that they often have had their kids, they have worked there casually and they come back part time. But that part-time work is incredibly important to pay the mortgage.

The commitment that people have working those jobs—we need them to be there, to be efficient to be supportive of people finding things. These are jobs that are necessary for our whole life to keep going. Actually, we saw that more and more when there were restrictions. We can all remember the toilet roll debacle of 2020-21 and how people were being blamed for something that was simply out of their control.

When I think about shop assistants, when I think about the lack of certainty, when the opportunity arises it is imperative for us to show leadership, to recognise the role they play and to recognise what it is that we need to give them certainty and predictability. When we think about this conversation about shopping centres, people often say, 'You've got one way and we've got the other.' What we are trying to do here is work out that compromise.

We went out very clearly to the people of South Australia in our election campaign in 2022 and said, 'If we are elected, this is what we are going to do.' It was one of many things that we said we were going to do. In fact, this week it was such an absolute honour to see that our former Prime Minister Julia Gillard is going to lead the royal commission looking into access to preschool for three year olds—something that is so important for our future and also one of our election commitments. So, bit by bit, those commitments we made to our electorate we are rolling out.

But this is probably one of the areas where people scratch their head time and time again and say, 'Can't you guys just work it out? What are you going to do here?' Every time we come up to a public holiday the former Treasurer said, 'Let me have a think about it. What can I gain from this? What can I do from this?' Then he would make an announcement, put out a media release and then somehow blame the shoppies union. Why are you blaming the workers? Why are you blaming the union that represents the workers? Why are you blaming a union, where the majority of members are female, part-time casual workers, for wanting stability?

You have to question yourself and ask: why did it take a change of government to take this leadership? We know it takes a change of government to do a lot of things—the commitments we put forward and what we think is right for this industry. Even the very exciting opportunity with hydrogen we put that forward to be bold, to be brave, to see that we already lead in renewables. We took a big decision back then when we looked at wind farms. We have the highest rate of solar on our homes. I think it is second highest rate, and overall I think we are second only to Denmark in renewable energy.

We were prepared to take bold moves, and we put that out as an election platform, whether it be hydrogen, whether it be the royal commission for three year olds, looking at how we can improve our rates in education—because we must lift our rates for our kids and our grandkids to get those jobs for the future. Along with that, we put in there about the stability to put this issue finally to bed, to say that this is what we are going to do. We take on board that what we have here is something that other states do not have, that is, 30 per cent of independent retailers.

As I have said already before, we know that those independent retailers are more likely to have South Australian product on their shelf, and that feeds in jobs and that feeds in opportunities. Not only do those retailers continue to develop here but the opportunity is when they build strength for them to export as well. They might start by sending their products to the Eastern States once they have gained a foothold here, and then confidence comes to potentially go overseas as well.

I am very proud to be a minister and to be a member of this government who said what we were going to do leading up to the election and we continue to do so as we roll it out. This might seem a small thing to some people, but to those workers, to those shop owners, this provides stability, predictability and a clear way forward. I support the bill.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer) (17:13): I always look forward to debates on these matters of shop trading hours and shop trading hours reform because we have seen a remarkable change in what side of politics stands up for who when it comes to pursuing changes here.

After the 2018 election, the then new Liberal government said that they wanted to completely deregulate shop trading hours. They thought that we should move to a system that we see in existence in particularly the Eastern States, where shopping hours are deregulated. Those businesses that have all the advantages of perhaps being part of or exclusively listed companies— with all the financial resources that come with it and the benefits of scale—can gradually take over greater and greater market share and squeeze out South Australian small businesses.

We went and spoke to South Australian small businesses and asked them what they wanted, and they sounded the alarm bells. They know that here in South Australia nearly 30 per cent of grocery spending is done in independent retailers—not Coles and Woolies, but those grocers who are predominantly South Australian-owned and operated: the Drakes, the Foodlands and the IGAs.

As a result, we have amongst the lowest grocery prices in the country—something that is front of mind for all Australians at the moment, including here in South Australia. We also have the greatest product diversity on grocery store shelves, which means that if you are a food producer or food manufacturer in South Australia and you want to get your product on the shelf in a supermarket, you have a much better chance of doing that with an independent retailer, getting your foothold in the market because a fellow South Australian small business will support you.

For those reasons, we rejected the idea of shop trading hours deregulation and instead proposed some minor reform in keeping with some of the feedback that we had received, both from those South Australian small businesses and also from consumers, from customers. We offered to work with the then Marshall Liberal government to increase trading hours, principally on Sunday mornings to 9 o'clock, but that was rejected outright by the previous government.

Their arguments, of course, are spurious and based on mistruths. They claim that if you want to go and get a carton of milk or a loaf of bread or a box of Weet-Bix you cannot do that in South Australia at times when you can do that in other places around the country. That is entirely false. If anybody in this chamber does not know where to go to get a loaf of bread or a litre of milk or some orange juice or some other everyday grocery item, I would be happy to help them. If it is not an independent retailer—a grocery store owned and operated by a South Australian—a small retailer that enjoys extended operating hours compared to Coles and Woolies, then it is likely to be a local service station. So these needs can always be met for consumers.

The position that is put out by my portfolio officer, the member for Colton, that you can buy a flat screen TV at times when you cannot even buy Weet-Bix, is blatantly untrue. It is blatantly and deliberately misleading and untrue. We had that debate on radio. So really this is a debate between those opposite who want to do the bidding of the large national and multinational retailers—Coles, Woolies, Aldi and, in the moments that they were here, Kaufland, and others—and the interests of South Australian small businesses. We do not support that.

I think it is a shame that we see the traditional party of small business, as they like to posit themselves, the Liberal Party, turning their back on South Australian small businesses in this way. We of course took into account the interests of South Australian small businesses not just on shop trading hours but on other important reforms, such as during the debate on land tax. Whether it is shop trading hours or whether it is land tax, we will always stand up for those small businesses that drive our economy.

I advised the house today that, according to the latest ABS statistics, there are more than 890,000 people in work in South Australia. The vast majority of them—approximately 790,000—are employed in the private sector, not by government. The vast majority of those people employed in the private sector are engaged by small business. That makes it clear who does the heavy lifting when it comes to employing South Australians. That makes it clear who is driving the economic output of our state: it is the small business community. That is why they deserve our support.

These reforms are balanced. They take into consideration the need to maintain a balanced set of shop trading hours to provide for some extra opportunities, particularly on Sunday mornings but also on Boxing Day, so that South Australians can shop. They also constrain the outrageous practice of what in some quarters was argued as an abuse of ministerial power by repeatedly issuing exemptions against the spirit of the shop trading laws and enabling large retailers to operate.

I of course support this bill. This is an important reform and we hope that those opposite turn their minds to the interests of small business in South Australia. I always think there is a good way of looking at this and that is if you step outside your front gate at home and look down the street, you might see nine or 10 houses, which are neighbours, of course. All but one of them will be employed by South Australian small business. The other is statistically likely to be employed by government. For those of us in here, it might be us, of course. It just goes to show that the vast majority of people across South Australia are engaged in small business, and it is important that we support them. I support the bill and I would urge others to do the same.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (17:21): I rise to discuss the Shop Trading Hours (Extension of Hours) Amendment Bill. Certainly, as country members, essentially we have been in the 21st century for all of it and have extended shop trading hours, but I will talk about that more shortly. We absolutely welcome the proposal to extend shop trading hours on Sunday mornings, opening them at 9am rather than the current 11am, and we also support the proposal to secure Black Friday trading and changes around additional public holidays.

However, we certainly believe that the proposed changes can go even further. As I indicated earlier, we do need to head into the 21st century, and we need shop trading laws that better represent the current expectations of the public to allow bricks-and-mortar shops to compete with the online marketplace while maintaining a balance that supports the sustainability of all businesses in South Australia.

As we understand it on this side, the Labor government have made it clear that they will not be providing exemptions to allow trading on public holidays, as was done by the previous Marshall Liberal government. We should be moving the state forward, not living in the past, which makes things harder for people.

We have also had a period of consultation from this side of the house to better understand what South Australians want and when they want to be able to shop. We are certainly not proposing that shops and supermarkets should be open 24/7 or at 2am, but we do believe that sensible and pragmatic changes can be made to better reflect what the community in South Australia wants.

There is support from the South Australian public in regard to what I will call the urban shop trading hours for shops to close at 6pm rather than 5pm on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. We are also proposing to allow shops to trade on select public holidays should they wish, but our public consultation process also made it perfectly clear that people do want to see shops closed on Good Friday, Easter Sunday, ANZAC Day and Christmas Day, and that is absolutely sensible.

I hear the commentary here today about small business competing with the bigger national supermarket chains. I can certainly speak for the electorate of Hammond and for Murray Bridge and Tailem Bend because we have one supermarket in Tailem Bend, a Foodland, and they have quite extensive opening hours. In fact, Roger Drake brought one of the Woolworths stores to Murray Bridge—Woolworths were running two for a while in Murray Bridge—and they are open from 7.30am to 8pm, seven days a week.

I remember the former member for Florey asking former Premier Marshall a question in this house one day about Drakes and what he thought of extended hours. I was the Government Whip, and I whispered to the Premier, 'They've just bought one in Murray Bridge two weeks ago and opened it up, and that means that you're operating extended hours.'

Foodland at Tailem Bend is a lovely little shop. You can get pretty well everything you need from 7am to 7pm, seven days a week. Woolworths in Murray Bridge: 7am to 9pm, seven days a week. Coles in Murray Bridge: 6am to 10pm. Aldi in Murray Bridge: 8.30am to 7pm. IGA Fresh Westside: 6.30am until 8.30pm on weekdays, 7am on weekends closing at 8.30pm. IGA at Swanport Road: 7am to 9pm on weekdays and on weekends, 7am to 8.30pm. As I indicated, there are seven supermarkets there, with two IGAs and a Foodland competing alongside a Drakes, a Woolworths, a Coles and an Aldi. So for all the doomsday soothsayers who say it cannot be done—it can be done, and it has been done in country areas for over 20 years.

When we as country members come to Adelaide on a weekend for events, or when we need to be here for something else, we have to work out, 'Hang on, I can't just shoot down to the shop. I don't have that freedom to shoot down to a grocery store.' You have to check whether things are open, and sometimes you have to go in search of whether they are open or not.

In this day and age, a lot of workplaces have been deregulated. Shiftwork has been going on for many years in this state—decades. A lot more people are working irregular hours. We have seen a lot of changes with people working from home. People have worked out that they can operate with a level of flexibility. Some of those jobs are more known for people working shiftwork, whether they are firemen, nurses, people in the health sector or a lot of factory sites. They might work two shifts or they might work three shifts. You can get a loaf of bread any time.

You can go to what might be an X Convenience, an AMPM or an On the Run. You could probably live out of one of these service stations, although some people might question the value of the lifestyle. If you needed to you could certainly buy what you needed to get by, because they have quite a range. It is not like the old service station anymore. At Tailem Bend Motorsport Park—I call it Las Vegas because the BP On the Run is out there on its own a bit—I pick up occasional items on the way home to Coomandook if I have been really late and have not been able to get to one of my local stores in Murray Bridge or Tailem Bend.

So it is certainly proven, and these shop trading hours are right across the state in the country. I notice that it is not the same in Millicent, but that is the only place I can recall in the country with a different set-up. I do struggle with why we do not see more reform for better shop trading hours in the urban areas, in the city, so that people have more access. You do have to think about it when you are in the city, when can you pick up these goods and when you cannot. It is such a convenience at home when you are in either Murray Bridge or Tailem Bend.

Other country members mentioned the convenience of being able to shop, and we are not talking about shopping at midnight or 2am or anything like that. You can already do that at tens and tens of service stations, probably hundreds across the state, where you can buy goods 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We are certainly not saying that is the reform we are looking for in the broader spectrum, but I think we need to bring some reality and bring the whole state forward.

We have the smaller supermarkets, IGAs. Bruce Maczkowiack has been in Murray Bridge for decades running his shop on Swanport Road, with his son Josh running the one on Westside, and obviously we have Coles and Woolworths. Both Coles and Woolworths had two stores there together for a while, and then Drakes came into one of the Woolworths stores and Coles tightened up their infrastructure and went to one location. It does show that all these people can cohabit with at least five or six 24-hour service stations within the same area of Tailem Bend and Murray Bridge.

We certainly support this reform, we think it should go further and I think we need to bring people into the 21st century.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (17:32): I would like to make a contribution to this debate, and I think what I would like to explore a bit further is some valuable insights that were provided on this topic by the member for Lee and the minister. The member for Lee was getting back to some really fundamental principles, which I think this debate about shop trading hours tends to cover.

Certainly, there are two key issues that this debate clearly highlights. One is the issue of small business versus large businesses or those businesses that are publicly listed and have large corporate structures and funding, and the second issue is about whether you see your philosophy as the economy serving society or society actually serving the economy. They are two fundamentally different things.

Firstly, on the issue of small business versus large corporations, the first matter in relation to that is to look at competition. If we look at those states that literally have deregulated hours on the eastern coast, the proportion of the retail sector that the big retailers hold is enormous. It is no accident that in a state like South Australia, where we cover the middle ground—and also I think to some extent Western Australia does—we have more independent retailers. The scope of the market maintained by independent retailers is larger.

I think that is really important because we need that diversity in the marketplace that actually generates competition, and whether you are on the left of politics or the right of politics the reality is that the more competition you have the better the outcomes for the economy and society. The reality is that the fewer players you have in the marketplace, the less competition you have.

Deregulated shop trading hours or a deregulated market—and this is what I learnt in economics when I was at university—basically tend to monopoly. It tends to, if you like, give business power in the economy, and that is certainly true. It is not only true in Australia but it is true worldwide. Anything we can do as a government to influence diversity in the economy and diversity in the retail sector is good not only for small business but also for consumers in terms of price and choice.

The freedom the member for Hammond talked about is a false freedom because you have that for a short time. The reality is that you pay for that freedom, and that freedom comes at the expense of other people. Other people pay that cost. If you have a small family business run by a couple and their family members and a small number of employees, they are the ones who front up to the store day in, day out, all hours. So, when they are forced in an economic sense to stay open to meet the competition from the big players, they have no freedom: they stay open and they work the hours. Their lives are changed dramatically by the lack of competition in the marketplace.

In my own town, I hear from small traders who say, 'At some point, we just have to close if we are going to have a break from the business.' But when they close, they worry about which customers they will lose to the big traders who are open more hours, and it is not the owners of those companies who do the work: it is the employees. It is the retail workers who fit in, and they are the ones who have less choice and less freedom, and they are the ones who pick up the cost of these shop trading hours.

It does come at a cost because the reality is that, as the influence of the larger retailers grows, the number of small retailers declines, and we see that happening every day in our society. It is interesting that a whole group of us now have to work longer because shop trading hours are longer, and those people who work longer hours then require other shops to stay open longer because they cannot shop during normal hours, so it is a race to the bottom in terms of the impact on society that long shop trading hours have.

I hate to sound like an old person, but I can recall that when I was a child shop trading hours were nine to five Monday to Friday, nine to 12 on a Saturday and that was it and we had one late-night trading, which was Thursday night at one stage and then became Friday night. As a family, we seemed to cope with being able to shop within those hours. The reality is that most people can do that. Then we went on this laissez faire, free enterprise juggernaut that we have had for the last 20 or 30 years, where we let the market fix everything, and what has the market delivered to us?

If you look at the Eastern States as an example, there is a reduction in competition and higher prices. What we have done in South Australia is to try to prevent that from happening by supporting our small businesses, not through subsidies but by ensuring that the competitive playing field is fair. In other words, the big players can use longer shop trading hours to their advantage because it is not the owners or the executives who work those hours: it is the employees who work those hours, whereas small businesses do not have that. They are the ones who have to work those hours and there is the impact that has.

I think it is quite reasonable for us to say: what sort of economy do we want and what sort of impact on society do we want that economy to have It is not a case of saying, 'I want to be able to purchase some milk or bread at midnight.' The question we need to ask ourselves is: why is that person purchasing bread and milk at midnight? Is it because they already work long hours as well? We need to be careful that we do not get on this treadmill to a point where we become a 24/7 society.

This comes to my second point, which is that it impacts on the very fundamental basis of our society, that is, the family unit, and I will come to that point in a moment. I think it is appropriate for us as a government, as a parliament, to say that we want to make sure we have policies in place that support diversity in our economy because of the benefits it brings us in prices, etc. Secondly, there is the impact on family life. Ultimately, the people who work in the retail sector are either young people, who would ordinarily play sport on a weekend, or their parents who work, etc.

One of the greatest laments I hear from people who work in retail is that they find it very difficult now to find a time when the family unit is at home at one time to do things or to go out to sport on a weekend, or to church, or to whatever they used to do as a family. We look at all these things and talk about the reduction in volunteering in our society. We talk about low attendances in people participating in sport. We do a whole range of things, yet we do not ask ourselves: why is that? The reason is that we are working longer hours, and we are working longer hours because there is a push to make sure we have longer trading hours.

I think it is important to explain what view you hold. I am certainly a person who belongs to the school that the economy is there to serve society's needs. People on my political right obviously believe that society is there to support the economy, and we heard a bit of that today. We heard it today in this chamber in response to some comments made by Josh Peak, the secretary of the SDA in South Australia, drawing attention to the parking issue at Tea Tree Plaza. My understanding of the point he was making was that Westfield have the financial capacity to do certain things that they want to.

The response from people on the right here was that companies should be entitled to make huge profits because the more profits they make the more money they give to shareholders and the more money there is for self-funded retirees. Not only is that a very simplistic view of the world but I think it is one that says that basically there are two types of people in our society now: those who have wealth, and deserve to be rewarded additionally on the wealth they own, and those people who do not own any wealth and should pay the price to make sure the wealthy get the return they deserve.

I completely reject that philosophy because, if you are saying that the more money and profits companies make the better off we all are, it generally comes at a price. It is either the price of low wages—people have low wages, which makes profits—or consumers pay more than they should. That is where these super profits come from. They do not come from fair trading. They do not come as a result of competition.

Certainly, I am concerned that it now appears to be the norm to say that everybody should make a sacrifice except those who own the capital wealth in our society. That really does mean that we are going to entrench inequality in society and that we are going to entrench poverty in our society. I would have thought that inequality and poverty were the two greatest threats to our democracy and the way we live, yet people on the right seem to be supporting policies that do that even further.

To get into some of the specifics of what has been proposed before us now that I think I have covered the more fundamental issues, first of all, Labor governments have had a consistent approach to this issue of shop trading hours. Our position has been quite clear, in the sense that we want to maintain some sort of balance—firstly, in the economy in terms of maintaining a viable small business sector and, secondly, in that those people who have to work those hours should only be required to work reasonable hours.

On the other hand, the Liberal Party have had for many years a very strong view that shop trading hours should be completely deregulated. Let the market determine them. We are told that the Liberal Party has had a rebirth in this, born again, perhaps, in the sense that they now believe that we do not need to have deregulated shop trading hours.

However, when you actually listen to some of the speeches and commentary in the media made by their spokespeople, there is a lot of code language in that. Deep down, they still believe in deregulated shopping hours but they are trying to dress it up in a way that does not look so extreme because they went to the election on that policy and they fundamentally lost that election.

What does this bill do? This bill does make some reasonable reforms in trying to maintain that balance, which I have talked about, by:

extending Sunday trading to 9am instead of 11am;

allowing Boxing Day trading across the CBD and suburbs (other than for large supermarkets—small supermarkets can still trade). I think it is an important distinction that we do actually support those small supermarkets because small supermarkets are often owned by families and they are family-run businesses;

allowing midnight trading on Black Friday and on three weekdays chosen by the minister in the lead-up to Christmas. Those additional hours will be subject to some consultation with the sector;

ensuring that shops can only open on Sundays and public holidays if workers have voluntarily agreed to work on those days; and

importantly, tightening up the minister's powers to grant exemptions.

This is a really important point because the previous minister responsible for this area basically granted exemptions willy-nilly. If there is one thing that the whole sector needs, whether you are a big business or a small one, it is some certainty in the marketplace. In particular, if you are a small retail trade business, it is harder for you to attract labour and to plan your own days when you need to work. So it is reasonable that the minister now has reduced powers in that area.

One of the benefits of the bill, as I see it, is that by maintaining the current rules it supports South Australia's thriving independently owned supermarkets in competing against the bigger players like Coles and Woolworths and probably in time Aldi and the like. In South Australia, independently owned supermarkets have about 30 per cent of the market share, whereas in other states it is now in single digits and therefore we have the diversity that they do not have. We also have better prices as a result, which they do not have despite their bigger populations and bigger markets.

The government's policy is that public holidays are an important time for workers to spend with their family and friends. I think people sometimes only pay glib attention to that important factor. We are social beings and we operate well in communities when we have time for that social interaction, and we need to have that. Again, the new exemption process means that the minister must consult before making any exemptions.

The government will also consider shop trading hours exemptions to support special one-off events. Again, those are to be done after consultation. The government has also consulted quite heavily in reaching this position that forms the basis of this bill, which is contrary to what the last government did. When it granted exemptions, the biggest critics—apart from the workers, and rightly so—were the people who owned small shop trading businesses, the small supermarkets, etc. They were the biggest critics. In fact, they formed an alliance to take on the then Liberal government to oppose those changes because they could see what they would do to them.

Importantly, the bill also fulfills the government's election commitment to reform shop trading hours. We have done it in a way consistent with our pre-election position. We said one thing and we are doing the same thing; we did not say something before the election and do something different after the election. Therefore, this position has been supported by people at the ballot box.

When you contrast what we are doing with what the Liberal Party did when in government, the differences are quite huge. First, as I mentioned earlier, they granted exemptions on a regular basis, undermining the purpose of that provision in the act that we are now tidying up. Small business did not have the chance to respond to that, in other words, prepare their businesses for those ongoing changes. Interestingly enough, a big section of the business sector did not support those changes.

The then opposition leader, Peter Malinauskas, now the Premier, offered a compromise early in his time as leader of the Labor Party when the Liberals were proposing changes in the upper house and they failed. Every non-Liberal member of the upper house, representing a diverse range of opinions in our state, voted down those proposed reforms, which essentially were to deregulate the shop trading hours.

With those comments, I ask this chamber and those in the other place to support this proposal because this is a reasonable position to take, as it balances the competing needs in this space, and makes sure we retain a diverse range of businesses in our economy. It also helps provide some protection to small business and enables workers to have some rights as human beings and individuals, rather than the people who are, according to the people on our right, just there to make profits for the big companies. I certainly support the bill.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Odenwalder.

PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS
MEMBERS
GET INVOLVED
ABOUT PARLIAMENT
VISIT
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
CONTACT