Caleb Bond: The fact people in Adelaide can’t shop until 11am on Sunday is embarrassing

New Year’s Day trading and shops being open for 66 hours straight before Christmas proves how broken Adelaide’s trading rules are, writes Caleb Bond.

So you can shop for 66 hours straight in the lead-up to Christmas – quite literally shop till you drop from dehydration or malnutrition or a realisation that you must have been mentally deficient to do it in the first place.

But you can’t go to a metropolitan supermarket before 11am on a Sunday to source some bacon for your breakfast at any other time of the year.

You know it makes sense.

This is a problem unique to Adelaide. Once you get past Mt Barker, the rules are far more sensible.

The good people of Goolwa, for instance, are able to buy their bacon from 7am on Sundays. They can even go to the shops after 5pm on weekends.

Treasurer Rob Lucas has again used his special ministerial powers to allow this 66-hour shopping spree. And, for the first time, open up New Year's Day trading to suburban shops.

There is no logical reason for the city to be the only place that can open up.

And nor is there any reason to keep the shops shut across Adelaide on a Sunday, hours after most people have risen.

Likewise mandating that they must shut at 9pm during the week.

Treasurer Rob Lucas. Picture: Tricia Watkinson

It is, quite frankly, embarrassing how far behind Adelaide is on this.

We’re not talking about forcing shops to open 24 hours a day. We’re simply talking about giving shops the option of opening whenever they think is most profitable – and thus being able to employ as many staff as possible.

Under existing rules, some small shops with a footprint of fewer than 400sq m – including supermarkets – can stay open until midnight if they want. The vast majority of those businesses choose to close at 5pm because they want to maintain business hours and obviously do not believe they are likely to be profitable beyond 5pm.

Despite the bleating of some in the small-business sector, opening up that privilege to everyone else would not kill their enterprises.

If supermarkets don’t think they’ll have enough customers to justify being open past 11pm, then they’ll shut at 11pm.

If a competitor in your line of business wants to keep their doors open till 7pm while yours shut at 5pm, then that’s your problem.

The market and its consumers ought to be able to dictate opening hours. After all, without the consumers, these businesses wouldn’t be making any money.

You can already shop online any time you like. Why should bricks-and-mortar businesses be at a disadvantage?

And why are cafes open from 6am on Sunday but not the places that sell their ingredients?

Slow and steady, in this case, does not win the race.

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