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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (19 February) . . Page.. 92 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

There has been no evidence forthcoming from the Government to prove that this policy is working. The Government's trading hours policy, Mr Speaker, is anti-employment, anti-jobs. At a time when unemployment is still at worryingly high levels and the level of youth unemployment is an embarrassment and a severe social problem in Canberra, the Government has persisted with this policy which logically has an effect on jobs while still pretending to be concerned about it. This Government time and time again has talked big about its commitment to jobs but has shown no real commitment and no capacity to deliver.

Mr Speaker, the Government would like us to believe that this policy has had no effect on jobs because they have not seen queues of people walking out of supermarkets with their redundancy packets. That is what they would like to have seen, to prove that people lost their jobs in town centre supermarkets. Mr Speaker, of course, we all know the reality. What the supermarkets have done is reduce working hours for casual employees, some of whom rely on that income enormously. What they have done is not employ new staff, and they have relied on natural attrition to reduce the number of people employed in the industry. This does not assist the problems of unemployment, especially youth unemployment, in the Territory. In December, Mr Speaker, employment in Canberra fell for the fourteenth consecutive month, and the participation rate was at its lowest level since March 1987.

Mr Humphries: That was due to trading hours, was it?

MR WHITECROSS: The trading hours policy certainly did not help, Mr Humphries. The social costs associated with this policy are enormous. Mr Speaker, what has been the impact of this policy on the lives of customers, of consumers? There is increased congestion at town centres during peak trading times because people have to get there before they close. Increased congestion at group centres has become a chronic problem at a number of group centres in Canberra. Such congestion means reduced levels of service and frustration for shoppers. They have created problems for supermarket operators and group centre operators in terms of parking, queues at the shopping centres and disgruntled customers.

Mrs Carnell: You just made that up.

MR WHITECROSS: Go out into the real world, Mrs Carnell, and you will find out that that is what is happening as a result of your policy. While you are ensconced up in your office in the corner here, in the real world people are finding it more and more difficult to do their supermarket shopping because of your arbitrary closure of town centre supermarkets. Go to Dickson, Kippax and Calwell. Go to the group centres and see what it is like to shop there now, because of your decision to restrict choice of supermarkets for the customers. That is the reality. The policy is inconvenient for people who live near town centres.

If you are unlucky enough to live at Emu Bank or in Greenway, or even across the road here in Braddon, or in Lyons, you will suddenly find that your local large supermarket has been closed by the Carnell Government. Mr Speaker, they are the realities of this policy.

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