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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 6 Hansard (22 May) . . Page.. 1578 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

Canberra is a planned city, and for decades it has been planned on the basis of three levels of shopping centres - your town centres, your group centres and your small suburban shopping centres. Over the years I have seen a lot of the shops in the smaller centres close. Why do they close? They close because people's shopping habits change. We initially bought the greengroceries from the guy that knocked on the door; we then went to the little local corner shop; later we went to the small, for Canberra, local suburban shopping centres; but now people tend not to do that. There is a matter of personal preference.

Ms Horodny talks about fair competition. How do you define fair competition? Does she say that fair competition is the Government somehow propping up small suburban businesses when people have already indicated by their shopping habits that they do not want to use them? Is that fair competition? I do not know. It seems rather strange to me that the Government ought to get involved in that kind of decision-making in the first place. This is democracy working; it is not the USSR of the 1950s, where government dictated to everybody what they could do and where they could do it. In any case, we know what the result of that kind of economy is. We have seen it disintegrate before our very eyes.

Having said all that, I must say that it is clear that people's shopping habits have changed. I think it is the responsibility of government to see whether or not this basic philosophy of three tiers of shopping is really what this community wants today. They are voting with their feet, in my view, and that is why smaller shops in smaller shopping centres are going out of existence. They go out of existence because the business is not there to sustain them. That indicates to me that the Government ought properly to be doing a review of shopping facilities which the community demands in the 1990s and ought to change its planning to accommodate that.

I happen to believe that we should not allow the town centres to grow too big, because there are a lot of people who still do not like to do their shopping there; they have a preference to shop in a smaller centre. I am not sure, mind you, in a democratic society, how government legislates to determine where shops will be and where they will not be. We have tried that, and it does not seem to work too well; otherwise we would not have this motion from Ms Horodny on the table today. It is not working well; there is dissatisfaction; and I think it is the responsibility of government to see why that is so and to devise ways and means of accommodating the genuine and legitimate needs of the community.

I think the town centres are there because people use them. If anybody doubts it, go down to any one of the big shopping centres on a Friday night or a Saturday; they are full of people. Why are they there if they choose to shop in the local shopping centre? Perhaps Ms Horodny can answer that question for me. Why are they there if it is not their choice to be there? On the other hand, there is still a need for suburban shopping centres. Some people still prefer to use them. If you do not believe that, I suggest that you go to places like Chisholm and Erindale in Tuggeranong. You will find lots of people there, too. There is a demand for those two types of shopping facility.

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