Page 2018 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 6 May 2009
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The last thing I would call upon the government to do in this motion is to issue a small business impact statement on the Giralang shops development, which takes the ACCC recommendations into account. Small business impact statements are a part of the Labor-Greens agreement. It is something that the Greens have been pushing for over many years. We took this issue of requiring large development applications to include a small business impact statement to the election last year and we found it resonated with the community. People can see that as Canberra grows, so do bigger non-locally owned businesses—sadly, often at the expense of pioneering locally owned businesses. Madam Assistant Speaker, I commend this motion to the Assembly, and I look forward to working through the issues with the other parties.
MR BARR (Molonglo—Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Children and Young People, Minister for Planning and Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation) (4.56): I thank Ms Le Couteur for raising this matter today; it is a very important debate and one that this Assembly most certainly should be having. As a passionate advocate of consumer interests, this is a particular area of public policy that I have a strong interest in. In response to the series of issues that Ms Le Couteur raised today, I would like to indicate a general support for them, but I do have some specific issues with elements of the motion and so I have circulated some amendments that I will move shortly. I just draw to the attention of members that the word “of” was inadvertently omitted from paragraph (2)(b) of my amendments. I think the amendments have been recirculated with the word “of” included, and I apologise to members for that initial omission.
In seeking to move amendments to this motion, I want to indicate that the intention of the Greens party in moving this motion is good, but they have just failed to grasp the big picture again. The problems that I have with the motion I hope will be addressed by other parties supporting my amendments. But let me state from the outset that this Labor government supports a planning framework that supports local centres. We would like to see as many Canberrans as possible able to live within walking distance, perhaps even a short bike ride, of shops that provide for their basic needs.
Our support for local centres is built into the territory plan, and we have no intention of changing that, which brings me to my first amendment. Paragraph (1)(b) of Ms Le Couteur’s motion claims that the government has removed references to gross floor area size restrictions for shops in local centres. This is incorrect. There has never been such a size restriction and we do not intend to create one, because it would create more problems than it would solve. The motion also refers to the recent ACCC report on the competitiveness in the retail grocery sector. I say again that Labor supports the thrust of the ACCC’s report. This is reflected in the current ACT supermarket competition policy, which states:
The ACT Government believes that Canberrans are best served by a diverse and competitive retail grocery supermarket sector that supports consumer choice and convenience.
It goes on to say:
In considering the use or sale of land for grocery supermarkets, the ACT Government will take into account the capacity of a retailer to access suitable
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