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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Wednesday, 23 June 2004) . . Page.. 2509 ..

As members will be aware, the Pharmacy Act specifies that the act is to be administered by the Pharmacy Board. The board’s primary responsibility is to maintain the standards of pharmacy practice. I do not think it would be sensible for the Pharmacy Board to be responsible for oversighting the leasehold arrangements of pharmacy businesses and I doubt that the board has the capacity and/or the capability to monitor business leases in accordance with the Pharmacy Act, modified as the bill proposes. Further, the Pharmacy Board does not have regulatory powers under the Land Titles Act, making this mechanism even more unworkable.

In fact, the bill is opposed by the Pharmacy Board, which has advised me that if the bill is passed as presented, pharmacies would have to buy the complex in which they are located or be forced to leave their shopping centre. The chairman of the board has advised that this would mean that most shopping centres would no longer have a pharmacy. This would inconvenience the public, leaving many of them without a pharmacy at their local shops. That is how fundamentally flawed this legislation is.

I would also like to address the proposed changes that I understand have been discussed by some members, in particular a change being proposed by Ms Dundas as an amendment to this bill. From what I have seen, the amendment states that a registered pharmacist must not carry on their pharmacy business as owner “(a) on or inside the premises of a supermarket or any other business other than a pharmacy; or (b) at premises (i) that are adjacent to or partly inside the premises of a supermarket or any other business other than a pharmacy, and (ii) where customers have direct access from the premises of the pharmacy to the premises of the supermarket or other business”.

This amendment appears to have the intention of preventing a pharmacist from opening up a pharmacy within a supermarket. I have been advised in no uncertain terms that the amendment would also prohibit a number of other pharmacy operations in the ACT. For example, in the first case I am advised that a pharmacist’s shop may consist of two interrelated businesses. The “back shop” is where pharmacy is practised—that is where the medicines are dispensed. The “front shop” is where general retail takes place. The two shops are generally run as two different businesses with different business structures. The practice may be for the “front shop” to rent the premises. The prohibition on the pharmacist from carrying on business “inside the premises … of any other business other than a pharmacy” would cast doubt on the common market practice that I have just described. It would prohibit an arrangement where the “front shop” leased the pharmacist shop and may prohibit the carrying on of business in conjunction with the “front shop” in other cases.

The amendment is also damaging to the practice of pharmacy in the territory with respect to the requirement for a pharmacy business not to be carried on inside the premises of another business. The shopping centre owners, particularly the owners of the large corporate-owned and operated centres such as Woden Plaza, Tuggeranong Hyperdome, Belconnen Mall and Civic, are carrying on “non-pharmacy” businesses. The operation of the shopping facility itself is a non-pharmacy business. Therefore, the pharmacies in these centres are operating inside the premises of another business. These pharmacies would be deemed to be in contravention of the act if Ms Dundas’s amendment were to be passed.

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