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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (14 May) . . Page.. 1372 ..

Mr Moore: You should welcome the backflip.

MR WHITECROSS: I always welcome backflips from the Government, especially on dumb policies like this one. Mr Moore is right to say that we should welcome the backflip; and I do welcome the backflip. I have to say, though, Mr Moore, that I do not place a high value on the sincerity of their policy change. It is clear that this policy reversal was mainly to do with Liberal Party polling. Equivalent survey results to the survey results that the Government has quoted today have been around for some time. The ABS survey results at the time that they introduced their legislation were all saying the same thing - that people overwhelmingly chose to shop at large supermarkets.

Mr Speaker, this change in policy has everything to do with the fact that this Government's failed trading hours policy did not have the support of the vast majority of Canberrans. It is simple political opportunism, a desire to get a political albatross from around the Liberal Party's neck in time for the next election. When Mr Humphries introduced this policy, he announced that making everybody unhappy is a way of saying that we have struck the right balance; and did he not make the Liberal Party organisation sick in the stomach when he said that making everyone unhappy is a way of saying we have struck the right balance? Mr Humphries has now decided that making everyone unhappy is not a way of striking the right balance. Mr Speaker, this was a bad policy. We are burying it today, and I am pleased to see that we are burying it. It never enjoyed the support of the community or any of the major commentators in this area, and the Liberals are right to be now running away from it.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill agreed to in principle.

Leave granted to dispense with the detail stage.

Bill agreed to.

Debate resumed from 4 December 1996, on motion by Mr Moore:

That this Bill be agreed to in principle.

MR SPEAKER: Is it the wish of the Assembly to debate this order of the day concurrently with order of the day No. 3, Education (Amendment) Bill 1996? There being no objection, that course will be followed. I remind members that, in debating order of the day No. 2, they may also address their remarks to order of the day No. 3.

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