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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Wednesday, 23 June 2004) . . Page.. 2522 ..

MRS CROSS: I withdraw that, Mr Speaker. It seems to me to be a less than honourable tactic when the option is always there to sit down and talk things over. Sadly, that is not the minister’s way.

The government’s interpretation of the current legislation is worrying, because it seems to ignore the sort of Pandora’s box that might be opened up without this interpretation and subsequently impact adversely on an element of our preferably robust small business community. As I said last year, this wavy interpretation of the legislation simply reinforces the need for this legislation. We need clarification, and this legislation provides that clarity with the proposed Dundas amendment.

Among arguments put forward by supporters of allowing pharmacies in supermarkets is the matter of convenience. In practice, this argument does not hold water. It is designed to persuade the unthinking. Is it a source of inconvenience to have in, for example, Southlands centre in Mawson two independent owner/operated pharmacies almost cheek by jowl with the Woolworths supermarket? They all seem to be operating satisfactorily in the eyes of the centre’s customers. I cannot conceive of anyone trying to make a case that this is an inconvenient arrangement. Nor is there any inconvenience in having an independent pharmacy operated in a shopping centre where there is also a supermarket or even two supermarkets. How is convenience enhanced by putting a pharmacy inside one or both the supermarkets rather than outside and nearby? Convenience is not an argument of any consequence.

The other argument usually put forward for allowing pharmacies to operate out of supermarkets is the argument of competition. Some, including some supermarkets, believe that not allowing pharmacies to operate out of supermarkets is anti-competitive. Let me go back to the example of Southlands in Mawson and see things in practice as they presently are. There we have two of the ACT’s more than 50 independent pharmacies competing against each other and, on a significant range of health products, competing with Woolworths right next door. That is a perfect combination of convenience and competition, the sort of example of practical, effective, day-to-day operations we see everywhere and which we want to keep in our communities.

Further, while the national competition policy review of pharmacies stated that there are “serious restrictions on competition”, it went on to say that “current limitations on who may own and operate a pharmacy are seen as a net benefit to the Australian community as a whole”. This is highlighted in recommendation 1 of the review that recommends:

(a) legislative restrictions on who may own and operate community pharmacies are retained and

(b) with existing exceptions, the ownership and control of community pharmacies continues to be confined to the registered pharmacists.

The long and the short of the matter is that pharmacies do compete; they compete against each other and they compete against supermarkets. Whilst, admittedly, they do not exist in a perfectly competitive market, this competition restriction is accepted as necessary even by the National Competition Council because pharmacists have a special role in society. Arguments against prohibiting pharmacists operating out of supermarkets based on competition are weak, particularly considering that the great bastion of competition in

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