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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 10 Hansard (5 September) . . Page.. 3202 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

Mr Speaker, that is what this legislation is about. It is about restriction of choice. It is not about helping small business. It is not helping, and it will not. Mr Speaker, I have talked to many small business people who sell food in group centres in Canberra and they say this will not help. It will not make any difference. Mr Speaker, that is the reality.

The Government had a perfectly good program to help small business through initiatives such as the helpShop program. They should have had the strength of their convictions. They should have had confidence in their policy and allowed that policy to work. They did not even give the helpShop program a chance to work. They did not even give it a chance to work before they went in with their sledge-hammer and their heavy-handed tactics and started closing down town centre supermarkets. They were not even willing to give their own program a chance to work before they closed down the town centre supermarkets. That is how much confidence the Government have in their own policy. That is how much of a mishmash this policy is. They will not even try the direct route before they start restricting customers' choice.

Mr Speaker, let me talk a bit more about customers' choice because I think it is the crux of what this is about - the Government's insistence on restricting the choice of consumers. Mr Speaker, the September edition of Choice talked about supermarkets and what the cheapest supermarkets were. It is interesting, Mr Speaker, that among the cheaper supermarkets in their survey are town centre supermarkets in Belconnen and Tuggeranong.

Mr De Domenico: Which ones?

MR WHITECROSS: Mr Speaker, there are quite a few actually - Franklins, Woolworths, Coles. They are town centre supermarkets, Mr Speaker.

Mr De Domenico: Read them all out.

Mr Hird: Yes; what about Jewel?

Mr De Domenico: What about Jewel?

MR WHITECROSS: Jewel Food Barn in Tuggeranong, another town centre supermarket which you are closing at 7 o'clock when they currently trade until 8.00 pm.

Mr De Domenico: Read out some more. What about the ones in Belconnen?

MR SPEAKER: Order!

MR WHITECROSS: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Mr De Domenico, not content with interjecting, is now interjecting from someone else's seat. Thank you, Mr De Domenico, for drawing my attention to the fact that Jewel, in the Tuggeranong Hyperdome, another town centre supermarket, is also offering cheap groceries in Canberra.

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