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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 8 Hansard (27 June) . . Page.. 2410 ..

MS HORODNY (continuing):

42,000 people have signed this petition. The petition is an absolute sham. It is a sham. I, too, would sign that petition if I thought this Government was closing all shops at 4 o'clock. I would sign that petition. Show me a petition and I will sign it if that is what the Government plans to do. Individual businesses do not have the time or resources to mount a campaign like this one.

Mr Speaker, we have nothing against Woolworths or Coles, or any other supermarket for that matter. They certainly have a place in the market - even the Small Business Council agrees with that - but not the only place. They do not deserve to have a monopoly in the ACT, and that is exactly where this city is heading. We will soon be the Woolworths and Coles capital of Australia. The big three already control 75 per cent of the market. Does anyone really believe that these companies are the benevolent organisations that they make themselves out to be? When it comes to profit margins, the corporate giants, with the help of the ALP and Mr Moore and Mr Osborne, have no concern for the human cost. Mr corporate giant Osborne will remember that.

Mr Moore: I take a point of order. Mr Speaker, in her speech Ms Horodny is suggesting that there is no concern for human suffering. I think that is just going over the top in terms of her imputations. She has not explained one iota, Mr Speaker, of how this is going to help the human suffering or the small shops at all. I think that is a personal reflection, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

MS HORODNY: Thank you, Mr Speaker. As members of the Liberal Party have already stated, the ACT at the moment is the only State or Territory that has a completely deregulated trading hours environment. Many States have quite strict regulatory environments, although some States have some tourist areas with looser regulations. Four councils in New South Wales have recently passed motions expressing concern about, or calling for a halt to, proposed expansion of trading hours, and consumers have been involved in these decisions because the bigger and longer-term issues have been taken into account.

On Tuesday, in the Financial Review, a senior lecturer at the University of New England was reported as saying this:

... the government policy which allows the free market to determine trading hours is handing market share to large retailers at the expense of small business.

He also said:

Small business has suffered in this competitive equation, but the strategy -

the strategy of deregulation -

in no way disadvantages the other major players in the market.

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