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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-02-27 Daily Xml
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Shop Trading Hours

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (15:22): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Treasurer regarding shopping hours.

Leave granted.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: On Boxing Day last year, both the Premier and the Treasurer declared their decision to allow shops in the suburbs to open on Boxing Day a success. Myself and a staff member spent most of the day travelling to various shopping precincts in the north, south, west and east of Adelaide. Apart from the mega complexes—Marion, Tea Tree Plaza, Gepps Cross and Harbour Town—other centres, like Elizabeth and West Lakes, weren't brimming with people. Reports are that trade in Rundle Mall was down about 15 per cent, compared to last year.

Smaller shopping centres were dead quiet. Some, like Mitcham and Unley's Metro, saw shops closed. I am informed that trade on Jetty Road at Glenelg was down 56 per cent. The smaller IGAs reported turnover being down 46 to 76 per cent, collectively losing half a million dollars they won't recover. The Henley Beach IGA was down 60 per cent. IGA and Foodland in Mount Barker also lost money. The Wattle Park IGA lost 70 per cent and only had 15 customers. One Foodland at Salisbury East had three customers for the entire day. I didn't see anyone in the Sefton Park Foodland when I turned up at around 2pm.

My question to the Treasurer is: does he still maintain that Boxing Day trading was a success when the majority of businesses, many of them small operators, either didn't open or closed early and lost money? Does he have figures to justify the government's claim that it was a widespread success? Was the Treasurer warned that smaller operators faced losses if they opened on Boxing Day? Does the Treasurer intend to provide permits for shops to open on Easter Monday?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (15:24): Absolutely, the government and my view is that Boxing Day trading was an enormous success, widely applauded by many people in the community. The government's position is, and has been, a relatively simple one, that is, it's a question of choice. That is, if a trader wants to trade, if customers want to shop and if the workers are prepared to work, why should our silly, antiquated, outdated, bizarre shop trading laws prevent them? They don't do so in every part of regional South Australia, from Mount Barker to Whyalla to Mount Gambier, with the exception of the proclaimed district in Millicent. They don't do it in the Adelaide CBD; however, they purport to regulate in the suburbs of Adelaide.

So it is a question of choice and clearly there will be some traders who will make a commercial judgement that it is not in their best interest to trade, and they should be entitled to do so. They can make a decision, as they do for many other hours during the week when they are lawfully entitled to trade if they want to. They can trade from midnight through until 9pm through the week. They don't choose to do so because there is not enough customer demand for them to do so. They choose the trading hours that suit themselves, their customers and their workers.

The government's position is absolutely clear; that is, we do believe it was an enormous success. We accept the fact that there will be parts of Adelaide, or the suburbs of Adelaide I should say, a bit like there will be parts of regional South Australia where traders will choose to trade and where other traders might choose not to trade, or to restrict the hours for which they happen to want to trade and to be open, but that should be a question of choice for them in terms of what they seek to do.

There have been lots of claims in relation to the impact of Boxing Day trading on sales. The government is seeking to gather as much information as it can. It is difficult because, clearly, you can't require traders to give you what might be commercially confidential information to them but there is some endeavour to try to gather information—not just by the government, I might say, but clearly some stakeholder groups, as I understand it, are seeking to gather as much information as they can in relation to those particular issues.

I am unsurprised if the Hon. Mr Pangallo was prepared to drive far enough and further enough and look for various shopping centres. He may well have found traders who either chose not to trade or, having opened, decided that it was not worth their while to do so. But let me assure you, he obviously didn't spend much time, so I am advised, at places like Marion and Tea Tree Plaza and the various other suburban shopping centres where there was a raging success.

There were tens of thousands of South Australian families delighted that the government in South Australia had at last said no to the union bosses and the shoppies union, had said no to the Labor Party bosses and had basically said to the traders of the suburbs of Adelaide, 'You can have the same freedom of choice that the traders in the Adelaide CBD have and that the traders in Mount Barker have, and the traders in Mount Gambier have, and the traders in Whyalla have.'

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Pangallo, a supplementary.

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