Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 8 Hansard (27 June) . . Page.. 2423 ..

Mrs Carnell: The petition says "close the supermarket". It does not say which one.

MR MOORE: Indeed. People are interested about not having any of their supermarkets closed. That is the general thinking. Because of the intense media interest in this issue, everybody in Canberra is aware that we are talking about shopping hours. Nobody believes that the supermarket as such is going to close. We are talking about closing hours. Mr Speaker, 40,000 is an extraordinary number of signatures on a petition, even if you think a large proportion really did not understand what the issue was about.

Ms Horodny: The wording is hopeless. What does it mean? It does not even mention town centres.

MR MOORE: Ms Horodny and Mrs Carnell are now pinning their fortunes on their claims that this is hopeless. Why is it that every single person I speak to, bar the owners of a few supermarkets in small shopping centres, says that this is a ludicrous step and will not work. That is what they understand. They understand that it is a pretence. They understand that it will not work; that they are going to suffer pain for nothing. If there was a real reason for it, then we could understand it.

I notice that Price Waterhouse also make a series of other suggestions. The committee can consider these ideas when we look into additional issues. The report suggests:

upgrading the helpShop Program;

That is already under way, I understand. It further suggests:

coordinating existing programs and resources to improve the managerial, technical and commercial capabilities of smaller supermarkets;

facilitating the establishment of corner stores in new medium-high density housing projects;

Perhaps the one that is most important is:

rethinking and redesigning the function and facilities of local shopping centres.

Mr Humphries says, "What can you do?". I think that we are all aware of some of the local shopping centres that are actually working. Perhaps we could look at those and say, "Why is it that those shopping centres are working? Why is it they have become meeting places, gathering places? What is it about some of those shopping centres that have effectively gone through a renaissance? What is it about them that makes them work? What can we extrapolate from them and apply to other areas?". Those are the sorts of issues that we have to consider. We know what is wrong. Most of us actually agree about what is wrong. What we disagree on is the solutions. Even the Greens disagree with your solution. They are accepting this and saying, "Yes, we will do this because it is the first step. We have actually got the Government to take a first step". I think that is a fair interpretation of my discussion with the Greens.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .