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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Wednesday, 23 June 2004) . . Page.. 2596 ..

the difference. Even the territory plan knows the difference. It is a searing indictment of the planning minister that he would not even support the definition in the territory plan.

MS DUNDAS (10.31): Mr Speaker, I would like to raise some issues that have been raised during the debate, but I would need that piece of legislation back to do so. I will start by addressing some other issues. I thank members for their participation in this debate and their willingness to work through the issues.

Mr Hargreaves asked me to address two issues specifically. The first one was about concerns that Lanyon Marketplace is a supermarket. There is a supermarket in the premises of the marketplace but the entire marketplace, where a number of different shops are doing a number of different things, does not of itself constitute a supermarket. When you walk into a marketplace, when you walk into a shopping centre and when you walk into a mall, you see an array of shops; you do not see an array of shelves. That is what the definition of a supermarket talks about.

On the other issue that Mr Hargreaves raised about other businesses trying to engage in predatory practices concerning pharmacies, I think Ms Tucker summed up the situation quite succinctly when she said that that would be a problem if the owners of these large corporations became pharmacists, but the amendment addresses quite clearly the problem here. The amendment says quite clearly that it is about a registered pharmacist carrying out a pharmacy business and that that must not happen in a supermarket.

Perhaps members should take the time to read the Pharmacy Act 1931, which, quite clearly, talks about what it takes to become a registered pharmacist. Section 9 talks about the training and the process that needs to be agreed to by the board for somebody to be registered as a pharmacist. Section 42 talks about what happens when any person other than a registered pharmacist carries on or attempts to carry on in any place on any occasion the business of a pharmacist, or pretends to be a pharmacist, or assumes and uses the title of pharmaceutical chemist.

Under this amendment, somebody trying to run a pharmacy in a supermarket would not be allowed to do so. “Registered pharmacist” is already clearly defined in the act and what happens to somebody who tries to run a pharmacy but is not a registered pharmacist is also clearly defined in the act. I think the specific issues Mr Hargreaves raised and similar issues raised by the minister have been addressed by the rest of the act. As Ms Tucker has said, we have all clearly put on the record what we see this amendment to mean, what this amendment says, and we have no worries in clearly stating that a pharmacy cannot operate inside a supermarket.

Question put:

That Ms Dundas’s amendment be agreed to.

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