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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2022-02-10 Daily Xml
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Independent Retail Sector

The Hon. H.M. GIROLAMO (14:44): Can the Treasurer please outline to the house, after four years of providing greater freedom of choice for trading on public holidays, what evidence is there on the impact on the independent retail sector?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (14:44): An excellent question, and one that lets me respond in question time. As members will know in this chamber and elsewhere, the Australian Labor Party and various other crossbench members and the independent retailers have railed, screaming in the breeze to anyone who will listen, that the government's decision over four years to provide greater freedom of choice for public holiday trading would kill off the independent retail sector in South Australia—shops would be closing, supermarkets would be closing left, right and centre, and the sky would literally fall in.

After four years of actually doing it, I am delighted to report on the health of the independent retail sector in South Australia. Drakes Supermarkets officially opened its $125 million state-of-the-art distribution centre in Edinburgh North, employing a further 140 full-time staff in September 2019. Drakes have just announced a new supermarket to be part of the new $30 million Lightsview shopping centre development (a joint venture between Peet and Renewal SA, with the Lofty Property Group), which is expected to be completed in 2023.

Romeo's have opened Rundle Mall's first independent supermarket, with in-house cafe, sushi bar, dumpling bar, salad bar, florist, deli and expansive walk-in cheese room, and employing close to 120 full-time and casual retail jobs in 2019. Drakes Supermarkets have just announced a 2,000 square metre flagship store in the new $20 million retail precinct to be built in the Springwood Place housing development in Gawler East. That announcement was made last year, with construction commencing late last year.

Adelaide's finest supermarkets' Nick Chapley and Spero Chapley (Pasadena and Frewville Foodlands) unveiled publicly in July last year their vision for the development of a new gourmet supermarket integrated with an onsite urban farm. They announced that publicly in the middle of last year. Renewal SA have advised me that independent retailers are expressing interest and competing to open stores in new developments that Renewal SA is responsible for at Forestville, which is the former Le Cornu site, and the massive and exciting Villawood development at Oakden.

Contrary to the claims that the sky was going to fall in, independent retailers would go broke, they would be closing left, right and centre because there was greater freedom of choice, to the contrary we see them thriving. Let me conclude by quoting directly from Drakes' representative in September last year, looking at their 2020-21 year. This was a statement from Drakes CFO Scott Lintern in a LinkedIn video with director John-Paul Drake. He said, and I quote:

Our growth has been really, really great as well. So we've been growing around seven to eight per cent since last year, so really, all up, it's been an amazing year for Drakes.

He went on to say there had been high teen percentage growth for the company since 2019.

As we have said all along, it would not be the end of the independent retailers. They would thrive because people in South Australia continue to support independent retailers, together with some of us who still like to go to Coles and get our $10 chickens as well, but there are more than enough South Australians to encourage the Drakes and the Romeo's and the Chapleys of this world, contrary to the alarmist claims that have been made.

Sooner or later the troglodytes within the Australian Labor Party and other political parties, and amongst the independent retailers, will get with the program and realise the future is—as we are seeing—a thriving independent sector with greater freedom of choice for traders, shoppers and workers.

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