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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 13 Hansard (4 December) . . Page.. 4356 ..

Mr De Domenico: Shock, horror; not delivering our promises! You would not contemplate doing it, would you?

MR WOOD: You did not deliver any effective outcome. You went through some sham, which has met totally with opposition from Canberra shoppers, who have made it quite clear that they do not like what you have done. You now acknowledge that in a small way in proposing to extend Christmas trading hours. Let us support Mr Osborne's amendment, and as soon as possible, as soon as this Assembly will allow, return to the former situation.

MR MOORE (10.54): Mr Speaker, we have a situation where Mr Osborne has tabled a piece of legislation, and he has indicated publicly what he is going to do. It is a very sensible piece of legislation to allow Christmas shoppers the opportunity for open Christmas shopping. Throughout South Australia, even when I was growing up and we had very limited shopping hours - much more limited than the Government has proposed here - when it came to Christmas shopping hours there was always much more open time. It was not just at Christmas that times were extended; it was also into the new year sales period. That is what Mr Osborne's amendment recognises.

The normal and polite approach, I would have thought, in dealing with an Assembly, would have been to say, "If we do not quite like the times Mr Osborne is proposing, we will move an amendment to Mr Osborne's legislation". But not this Government, no. This Government says, "No, we will not do this; we will use our regulatory power, a lower order power, in order to achieve this, and knock off Mr Osborne's legislation".

Mr Humphries: That is the way it is done every year, Michael.

Mr De Domenico: That is the way it is done every year.

MR MOORE: I think that should be understood as being, at the least, impolite. Mr Humphries and Mr De Domenico are interjecting that that is the way it is done every year, but this is the very first year that our shopping centres have been operating under the Trading Hours Act 1996.

Mr De Domenico: Under the deregulated program.

MR MOORE: I hear Mr De Domenico interject. I think the word he used was "deregulated", but I believe the term he meant to use was "reregulated" - the reregulated trading hours this Assembly reregulated. I think Mr Wood was pushing his luck before when he said that this was a very bad decision. In one sense, that appeared to me to reflect on a vote of the Assembly. I happen to agree with Mr Wood in that assessment, but it was pushing the standing orders. However, I think it was done in the appropriate context.

This is a very good piece of legislation. There are no two ways about it. This is a very simple piece of legislation, and it is one of the easiest pieces of legislation to read: In the period from 9 December to 8 January we will have deregulated shopping hours. In other words, for a very short period they will go back to being the same as they were before the Trading Hours Act 1996. It is not an attempt to undermine the whole process

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