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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Wednesday, 23 June 2004) . . Page.. 2507 ..

How many communities do not have a butcher because the local supermarket has put a butcher in and effectively priced out the community butcher? How many suburban shopping centres these days do not have a greengrocer anymore because the big food chains, through their supermarkets and their buying power, have gobbled up the community grocer? For a long time, Chisholm shops, for instance, did not have a grocer. We have just got one back, and it is quite useful to have a local chap who lives in the area providing those services.

We have been quite lucky with Chisholm, which is my shopping centre. We have maintained both our butcher and our newsagent, and we have got a pharmacy as well. Chisholm shops have survived very nicely. But there are a number of other shopping centres in that part of Tuggeranong and in the surrounding areas that have suffered because once the glue goes out of the community, the community falls apart.

We have a number of reasons for backing this bill. First and foremost, we believe the local pharmacy system is working well; it is working effectively. I think it is delivering cost-competitive price on items—there is competition between various pharmacies. And pharmacies deliver so much more. They deliver the sort of service that we all like—that personalised attention from well-trained staff who are there to meet our needs and with whom over a period of time we have built a relationship. From that relationship comes trust, so that when you have a personal health issue you can actually talk to somebody. Often that person is your local pharmacist.

Given that doctors are not necessarily located in a lot of shopping centres these days, the pharmacist is often the easiest and most accessible person you can speak to. I do not believe people get the health care they deserve if they cannot talk to a person they trust. Trust is at the heart of delivering health services and the person that I believe we trust most often in our local shopping centre—if I were asked for my personal preference, I would say the local newsagent—is our pharmacist. We have to keep that trust in the community.

We then have all the add-on services—the additional advice, the service they provide, the home delivery and all those bits and pieces that only a local person will take the time to deliver. Let’s face it, certain supermarket chains do not. And then there is the economic advantage to the ACT in that these are local businesses owned by real local people. They have made the effort, they have invested in their local community, they live here, they have raised their families here and in the main they retire here, and some of them have recently even used RILU local services. These are people that we know and trust, and we should support them. It is for all those reasons that the opposition will be supporting the bill.

I understand there is some dilemma about whether the bill actually achieves the purpose that it seeks to achieve. Ms Dundas has pointed out at least one error with it and she has circulated an amendment that she will bring before the house. We support the intention of her amendment, although there is some conjecture as to whether it actually achieves its purpose. We will support the passage of the bill through the in-principle stage. We would be happy to agree to the debate being adjourned. We will seek advice throughout the course of the afternoon as to how we can make this bill achieve what it sets out to do.

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