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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (14 May) . . Page.. 1368 ..

MS McRAE (continuing):

They very rarely have two cars. They very intelligently locate themselves in places where they can use buses and get to town centres where their employment usually is and where the cheapest shopping is. It is poor people who most benefit by unregulated shopping hours so that they can shop when they come off shift at 4 o'clock, 6 o'clock or whatever ungodly hour they have to work until because that is the only work that is available to them - ghastly work that nobody else wants to do. That is what is available for unskilled people; that is what is available for the low-income earners.

That is why it is so important to keep the shopping hours unregulated, to allow full choice, particularly at the town centres where the buses go, where those who do not have a car can access them at any time. Poor people do not work from 9.00 am to 5.00 pm; they cannot just wander home and have a little walk with their dog; they do not have access to local facilities; they are not able to shop around easily and find bargains. They are trapped by their circumstances. By saying to them, "Go and use your local shop and develop a community", we are demeaning them; we are patronising them; and we are making idiotic statements about their needs. I think it is very important to keep that in context when we are talking about shopping hours.

Freedom of choice for middle-class people is a completely different idea. To grow your own vegetables, to weave your own cloth, to be self-sufficient, to be nice to children, to go and buy nice green things at the supermarket, to buy expensive products, to protect chooks - all of that is middle-class choice which comes from an adequate income; it is not readily accessible to people on a low income. It is about time that we put that in context, instead of patronising people and telling them that they live badly, telling them that they should walk to the local shops, telling them that they are destroying the environment and telling them how to live. This debate is all about free choice, which also has a social justice backbone, and it is about time that the Greens recognised it.

MR WHITECROSS (Leader of the Opposition) (11.33), in reply: Mr Speaker, we are here today to bury a bad law and a law that should never have been on the books in the first place. This Bill seeks to repeal the Government's restrictive trading hours laws for large supermarkets in town centres. The Government had sought to suspend this law by regulation last week - something which they did after making an agreement with the Opposition to do something different - but we do not believe that suspending the law by regulation is good enough. We want this law off the books. We want this law gone because we believe that it was a bad law; and we do not want the Government to be in a position where they are tempted to revive it later by regulation, just as they have now suspended it by regulation.

Regulation is not good enough; it does not guarantee that the Government will not change their mind. After all, the Government introduced this legislation, with no analysis, in the face of the overwhelming opposition of the ACT community. Who is to say they will not change their mind? Their decision to walk away from this law, Mr Speaker, has not been made because they thought the law was wrong; it has been made because their pollsters have told them they have to ditch it. This is poll driven and not policy driven. Because of that, we cannot guarantee that they will not cave in under pressure and change their mind.

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