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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 8 Hansard (27 June) . . Page.. 2245 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

an alternative vision and work out how to get there. As legislators, it is our responsibility to drive that debate. Do we want a diversified retail market that is not dominated by a few large retailers? Do we want fair competition between large and small retailers, between and within shopping centres? Do we want the maintenance of local shopping centres as a neighbourhood focus, and sufficient retail services for those people who cannot or choose not to regularly travel to major shopping centres? Do we want to take into consideration social concerns such as access and mobility, and do we want to consider environmental costs such as transport, including transporting goods all around the country, because large chains do not purchase from local suppliers? We had a story yesterday about Woolworths no longer choosing to buy from a local abattoir. Or do we want a town with no choice in shopping, apart from supermarket A, B or C?

Everyone in this Assembly seems to think some diversity is important, but very few are prepared to do anything about it. I want to congratulate the Liberals for at least doing something in the right direction and recognising this problem. We hear Labor opposing on principle so much of what the Liberals propose. "Let them fall on their own swords" seems to be the philosophy, for there are high costs for that highly political approach. They acknowledge the problems, but they come up with no solutions. They apparently seem to think, "Well, we will get back in office at the next election and then we will fix it all up", but there are problems happening now, all the time, that that political approach is not addressing.

It is very interesting, particularly for a Liberal Government, to be bringing in regulation of business, and I am sure it has taken a lot of courage, despite the claims yesterday that they were trying to help big business as well as small business. It sure does not feel like it is a particularly popular thing that they have chosen to do, because we are working with them on this particular issue, and the whole debate about competition in this country is ignoring social and environmental realities. This local Liberal Government has chosen to say, "Yes, we can see here; we know that real people are hurting here"; so they are choosing to stand up and say, "Maybe competition is not the total answer. Maybe we need some regulation". I congratulate them for having the courage to take that stand.

Competition for both the public and private sectors is not about level playing fields at all; it is about lower costs, greater efficiency and maximum profit. It is about the big getting bigger, and Labor has taken no stand on that issue. The Government has put forward a number of measures in their retail policy Striking a Balance. We do not think they go far enough in some areas, and we think there are a number of longer-term measures that must be addressed, but this policy should be looked at along with a range of other measures. We recognise that if many shopping centres are to survive they will need to do a lot of work, and local area plans for all shopping centres would be a good starting point to drive this process.

The Government has also raised the issue of diversifying development options of local shops through redevelopment. We certainly do not want this policy to be used in a way that will eliminate local grocery shopping. It is probably very sensible to expand the range of land uses in local shops, but I think this has to be in the context of an overall strategy for the local shops in question to make sure that local amenity remains. There may be some very innovative things we could do to redevelop local shopping centres,

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