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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 13 Hansard (4 December) . . Page.. 4364 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

Trading hours legislation. But did it ever get to the top? Did those opposite ever table trading hours legislation in this place? Did they ever get to a stage where they were not suggesting, in fact encouraging, shops in the ACT to break the law, because that was what was happening, as we all know? Shops were trading outside the law of the Territory, and those opposite were encouraging it. But they were not game, they did not have the guts, to legislate what they are now claiming is what they have always believed in.

Again, if anyone would like to go back and have a look at the legislative programs for the last Assembly - and perhaps even the one before; I cannot speak for that one - there it was: Trading hours legislation. So, if those opposite believe, "We want to see it in legislation", why did they not do that themselves? Talking about inconsistency, why did those opposite continue to allow shops to trade in an illegal fashion if they were so definite that they believed in this sort of approach? Not once did that legislation, which was, I think, priority 2 or priority 3, ever get up to the top of the list, and not once did they have the guts to legislate what they claim they believed to be the case.

What we on this side of the house have done is address a situation that should have been addressed a long time ago. Trading hours is not an easy situation in the ACT. We all know that. What we have to come up with is something that balances small shops, medium shops and large shops. That is what we have attempted to do, but part of that balance is making sure that consumers have access to shops when they need them. Our legislation, passed in this place, ensured that that was the case. The regulation changes we are proposing today make sure that people will have access to supermarkets when they are using town centres over Christmas. Again, it is an up-front approach, with everything on the table - legislation on the table, regulations on the table; not what those opposite did, not the inconsistency Mr Whitecross spoke about that we saw from them. True inconsistency is leaving legislation in place and then encouraging everyone to break the law, which is what was done. Every year, those opposite had to extend trading hours over Christmas, simply because they had not legislated for deregulation.

As we all know, at the moment, except for a couple of supermarkets, our shops can trade 24 hours a day, seven days a week - apart from five supermarkets. There is no need to extend trading hours for the vast percentage of shops this Christmas, for the first time ever, because we have had the guts to legislate in an area that is very difficult. It is fraught with differences of opinion, but at least we have put it on the table. We have legislated. We have attempted to reach that balance between different size shops in the interests of consumers, the interests of small business, jobs - all those sorts of things that make it a very difficult balance to reach. It is amazing that Mr Whitecross could say, "We want to see it in legislation", when for four or five years they did not have the guts to put it in legislation.

MR BERRY (11.27): Mrs Carnell, brazen as ever, tries to defend the indefensible. This is the person who has headed a government here in the ACT that has seen over 5,000 jobs lost in the last 12 months, with 2,700 more people on the unemployment list since she came to office. For the last three months, more than 50 per cent of our young people have been unemployed. And now we have a situation where they are prepared to have the guts to make more people unemployed. It takes some courage to do that in this

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