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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-11-29 Daily Xml
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Shop Trading Hours

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (14:29): My question is to the Minister for Industrial Relations. Will the minister update the council on the Malinauskas government's achievements in relation to shop trading hours and public holidays?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (14:29): I thank the honourable member for his question. It will be my pleasure to update the chamber about the achievements of this government in relation to shop trading hours and public holidays. To understand the achievements of this government, we must first look at the recent past, for those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

The record of the previous Liberal government on these issues is driven by out-of-touch ideological dogma and incapability of listening. It was a Liberal government so blinded by their ideological focus on a complete and utter deregulation of our shop trading system, regardless of the devastation it would have on local jobs, that they failed to pass any legislation at all in this parliament; a Liberal government so far out of touch that, rather than make sensible compromises, get the balance right and actually get something done, they would rather deliver nothing.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: That became a feature of the former Speirs-Marshall government, to deliver nothing. They were very good at this form of delivery, delivering nothing over and over again.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: This was a former Liberal government so bereft of common sense and moral fortitude that they proudly voted against Christmas Day itself being a public holiday a mere two years ago, showing absolute contempt for hardworking retail workers, healthcare workers and emergency services workers who are serving and protecting us while we spend time with our family. The achievements of the Malinauskas Labor government stand in very stark contrast indeed. Since the last election—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: —this government has achieved significant shop trading hours and public holiday reforms. We delivered more for the South Australian community in under two short years than the previous Liberal government did over those four long, wasted years. We took a clear shop trading hour policy to the ballot box, with overwhelming support.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: We extended shop trading hours so shops can now open at 9am on Sundays, something that over four years a Liberal government failed to do. We now have the legislated protection of Black Friday and other shopping days in the lead-up to Christmas—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order, both sides!

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: —and we have the legislated protection of allowing Boxing Day shopping hours. During the debate on the shop trading laws—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: —we saw the Liberal opposition once again not learning from history, repeating the mistakes of the past and pushing amendments towards total deregulation, this ideological obsession with doing things that would destroy jobs in this state, and do you know what? We have a similar story on public holidays, a very similar tune. We received, as a government, hundreds of submissions about what South Australian people, organisations and associations thought about public holidays.

Just this week, we have seen new laws with the support of this council to make sure Christmas Day is treated as a public holiday—to make sure, no matter what day it falls on, Christmas Day is a public holiday—to bring us into line with every single other mainland state to include Easter Sunday as a public holiday and, critically importantly, something that the former Liberal government could not do and failed to even try to do, to deliver legal certainty for businesses by removing the designation of every Sunday as a public holiday.

We are now aligning our addition and substitution public holiday rules much closer to the rest of the country, particularly those Eastern States, sensible changes bringing us into line with much of the rest of the country, yet we saw something that did not even resemble sensible thought or debate from those opposite. We saw the Liberal Party move an increasingly confused set of amendments—

The PRESIDENT: I am watching the clock. You are running out of time.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: —wanting to insert historical names of public holidays while seemingly having no understanding whatsoever about what those public holidays meant—

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: Point of order, Mr President.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: —or what they represented.

The PRESIDENT: A point of order has been called.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: How is this a good use of question time?

The PRESIDENT: It is not a point of order but, leader, I am watching the clock. You are nearly approaching five minutes for a Dorothy Dixer. Conclude your answer, please.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: Remarkably, we saw the opposition doubling down today—if it was confused before, it's completely nonsensical now—by putting out a media release. Yesterday, we saw the opposition spokesperson, the Hon. Heidi Girolamo, not even knowing what Australia Day references. In remarkable scenes in this chamber, she talked about Captain Cook or Tony van Eck. 'Someone landed somewhere' is what the honourable member thought. She had no clue what it was actually about.

The PRESIDENT: Conclude. Come on, finish.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: We have passed legislation to make sure Christmas Day is protected. We are making sure that we are preserving these public holidays, and we are making sure that we, like all the Eastern States, have those four days over Easter as public holidays. I have one final point to make, then I will be finished.

The PRESIDENT: You will want to be quick.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: The final point to make is the bizarre scenes we saw yesterday when the opposition spokesperson on this issue couldn't do basic arithmetic into the double figures—she could not do basic arithmetic into the double figures. She claimed, and I will quote, because this is actually important: 'If this goes through, we are leading the nation with the highest number of public holidays.'

The PRESIDENT: You've got ten seconds.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: The opposition's treasurer—

The PRESIDENT: Eight, seven, six, five—

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: —this morning showed what that was—not to be true.

The PRESIDENT: —four, three, two—

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: I would encourage, if the opposition spokesperson here didn't know before, she's now on notice and—

The PRESIDENT: Sit down.

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