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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (14 May) . . Page.. 1367 ..

Mr Humphries: As if you care about the business economy; as if you care about business.

MR BERRY: Mr Humphries interjects, "As if you care about the business economy". Labor does care about the business economy because it forms an important part of society. It provides jobs and, properly regulated, makes an important social contribution. It is all part of our understanding of how societies work.

Mr Humphries: You do not have any understanding of how business works.

MR BERRY: We do not have a single-minded view of the world, Mr Humphries, like you do. That is the difference. Mr Speaker, we have a situation in the ACT where there has been instability created by Mrs Carnell, further fuelled by these sorts of dopey decisions about trading hours. They can be described in no other way than dopey. The end result has been more instability, less confidence in the economy and now a situation where Mr Humphries is trying to dig himself out of a hole, and the Greens are trying to justify their position. The fact of the matter is that they have created damage which will be with us for some time as a result of the instability that has been created by this decision, which I have properly described as dopey.

MS McRAE (11.28): I rise to speak because I do not feel that we can let Ms Tucker put on record such nonsense about poor people. This issue is of extreme importance to poor people, and the change we are seeing today is extremely important. Let me put some facts straight. It is about time that Ms Tucker and the rest of the world read the Social Atlas. First of all, the vast majority of people that you would call poor live in Queanbeyan because they cannot afford to live in Canberra; and the vast majority travel to Canberra every day. Some of them hop on a bus; some of them get in their trucks in the morning. Have a look at where poor people actually live. The rest of them are not stupid and they live, wherever possible, as close as possible to bus routes that get them to town centres. If you look at the transport movements of people who are forced to travel and do not have a car, you will find that they choose to go on buses.

Why do they live near bus routes and why do they choose to do that? Because poor people work long hours; poor people work shifts; poor people work overtime; poor people begin work at ungodly hours to do either nursing in the case of the women or a lot of shift work in the case of men. The point of all that is that they need extended shopping hours and flexibility in shopping hours more than anybody else. Poor people do not have time to go tripping down to the shops on a little excursion with the children - isn't it cute? Poor people have always worked. Poor people have always been the double-income families. Poor people have always been the people who are dependent on public services. I think Ms Tucker would be far better to keep on talking about public transport and the need for good public transport than to start dabbling into the shopping wishes of poor people.

Poor people, more than anyone else, resent being ripped off by their local shops. It is poor people who notice the 50c extra on every item. For us middle classes, who can have a little wander and exercise the dog, it does not matter. But for poor people the importance is to be able to get as easily as possible to the biggest and cheapest shop. Poor people do have cars because they are forced to, by the nature of public transport.

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