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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 13 Hansard (27 November) . . Page.. 4819 ..

centre. There was a question about whether or not he should apologise to the owners of the markets.

MR SPEAKER: The public information that has been circulated about these issues has involved the Jamison markets and the arrangements for various shopping centres. It is hard for me to say to the minister that he cannot mention that in the course of his answer to a question which is obviously about the general question of where supermarkets ought to be.

MR CORBELL: Maybe Mrs Dunne endorses Mr Stefaniak's approach to undermine the Jamison shopping centre, Mr Speaker. But the reason I raised Jamison is this: there is a very clear retail hierarchy in the ACT and development of a supermarket at the Belconnen markets would directly undermine that retail hierarchy. It would establish another supermarket outside of the retail hierarchy, which would have a deleterious effect on the already established traders and shop owners at the Jamison group centre, which is the closest group centre to the Belconnen markets.

It is interesting that those opposite-both of them from the electorate of Ginninderra-seem to think that it is okay to advocate policy which undermines the future viability of the Jamison shopping centre. I am sure that the owners of the Jamison shopping centre, I am sure that all of those small business operators in the Jamison shopping centre, would be very disappointed to learn that their local members are advocating a planning approach which would undermine the capacity and viability of those local shops.

This is the party that purportedly represents small business. This is the party that is meant to stand up for those individual little shopkeepers and say, "We are going to look after you."Well, next time Mr Stefaniak and Mrs Dunne visit the Jamison shopping centre I am going to make sure that they all know that the Liberal Party advocates putting a supermarket away from Jamison in a way which will directly undermine the capacity of Jamison to be an effective shopping centre, in a way which would undermine the retail hierarchy and the investment decisions that those shopkeepers and building owners have made.

So, Mr Speaker, that is why the government does not support a supermarket at Belconnen markets-it undermines the retail hierarchy and it places at direct risk the viability of all those small business operators at the Jamison group centre.

MR STEFANIAK: Mr Speaker, I ask a supplementary question. Minister, would not Aldi at Lanyon and Aldi at Kippax have a similar impact on Calwell and Charnwood? Have you got a vendetta against the owners of the Belconnen markets, Minister?

MR CORBELL: Desperate stuff, Mr Speaker. I do not know whether Mr Stefaniak has ever looked at a copy of the territory plan, but if he did he would find that Kippax is a group centre and that Conder is a group centre. We have no difficulty with existing retail centres competing against each other. But what Mr Stefaniak is proposing and what Mrs Dunne is proposing is a complete obliteration of the retail hierarchy in Canberra. "Yes, sure, just build a supermarket wherever you like. We don't care about what that means for existing shopping centres. We don't care about what that means for the investment decisions and the small business-

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