Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-11-06 Daily Xml

Contents

Shop Trading Hours

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE (14:58): Supplementary: do you think it's appropriate to not provide any advice to those businesses that are going to be impacted by you extending the trading hours? So small businesses in South Australia, don't you think they had a right to know that you were going to extend the trading hours into the suburbs?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (14:58): What I think everyone in the community, including the small business traders, had the right to know was for me, consistently with broadly the past practice, to give plenty of notice in relation to the decision the government had taken.

The advice I had received was that, in and around about early November or sometimes the very last week of October, former ministers—Labor ministers generally—had advised what the Christmas trading hours provisions were because, not unreasonably, traders need to know what particular extended trading hours were going to be permitted or not. They need to organise rosters, people who are working need to organise their family arrangements and those sorts of things, so, not unreasonably, you should give as much time as possible. That's why we made the decision as quickly as we could.

So, yes, we do believe that people should get as much notice as they can. That is why we took the decision as early as we could in terms of considering the submissions we had received, clearly, from my viewpoint, in terms of sensibly using the powers that I have, seeking legal advice in terms of what the extent of those particular powers might be and then ultimately making a decision.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Ms Bourke, a further supplementary?