Daniel Wills: Another shop trading showdown in SA as a Liberal Party that promised change makes another all-or-nothing gamble
The public is completely behind the Marshall Government’s shopping crusade but their patience is going to run out if they can’t get it done this time, writes Daniel Wills.
Opinion
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It’s an argument that SA parliament hasn’t just been having in the last two years since Premier Steven Marshall’s election, but for decades – and with exactly the same result.
Treasurer Rob Lucas, who’s headed for retirement at the next election in 2022, is getting ready to reheat the shop-trading debate in state parliament later this year one last time.
Already, it’s clear that none of the rival parties are buying it and Mr Lucas won’t compromise to get a cut-rate version of reform through.
While nothing much has changed with the numbers in parliament, SA shoppers have had things very differently over the lockdown period.
Stores were, ironically, opened up as people were told to stay home.
Citing health advice, Mr Marshall and Mr Lucas brought in surprise temporary extensions of shopping hours. It would be useful in helping spread people across more time and reduce transmission risk, they said.
It coincided with stores seeking to put in special times for vulnerable shoppers to get in and buy their supplies, and also keep up with blistering demand from other customers.
And while SA Health officials did publicly say that longer hours could help to control contagion, Mr Lucas’ political opponents suspected a more conniving game was always at play.
Without reading his mind, it’s impossible to know.
But the move has had stark political consequences. He is now using it as hard proof that there’s nothing to be feared from deregulation, which SA has now lived with for a while.
Flagging a fresh bid later this year to secure wholesale and lasting reform through parliament, Mr Lucas told The Advertiser“the world didn’t end” and the “the sky didn’t fall in” during the four months of extra trading, taking a shot at alleged Chicken Littles in Labor and unions, who have been his lifelong nemeses.
The COVID period is a uniquely terrible time for a controlled experiment to measure the impact of one particular policy or another. It has been a weird time of panic and change not seen for a generation.
It’s a pretty fair bet that Coles, Woolworths and Foodland will never again sell as much toilet paper as they did in those few weeks when SA lost its proverbial, and no one can really know how consumer behaviour will change throughout what could still be a very long recovery.
But all public polls have shown people in SA do want more shopping hours – and by a big margin.
There is a sizeable coalition of those frustrated at not being let into the supermarket before 11am on a Sunday, or sick of being the butt of jokes from mates interstate, who would like to see some change.
And so, a bitter cynic might think Mr Marshall and Mr Lucas see little to lose in watching their shop-trading plans get shot down again by the opposition and crossbench.
It keeps the political issue alive.
Mr Lucas is again putting complete deregulation or nothing.
A tweak on hours for weekends or a few public holidays just won’t fly.
Compromise is for the weak.
He openly concedes that is likely to result in a defeat on the floor.
“The government will be very happy to campaign right through to 2022 on something that is supported by 70 per cent or more of people,” Mr Lucas said this week.
“Part of the campaign push will be that, with a re-elected Marshall government, you’ll be able to shop on Boxing Day.
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“If you’re going to be flirting with the (former) shoppies’ union boss in Peter Malinauskas, that’ll be the end of Boxing Day, Easter Monday and other public holiday trading.”
Labor relishes this fight. There’s few core principles that it seems to hold as dear as dictating when is or isn’t a reasonable time for a person to head up the road and buy a lettuce.
But Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas has, over years, also shown himself an arch pragmatist who senses the political mood.
As a young union leader, he brokered an unthinkable two-state solution with business that at once allowed Boxing Day trading in the CBD, stopped it in the suburbs and boosted conditions for shop workers.
He’s now offering ground on the most annoying of Adelaide’s restrictions – 11am Sunday openings – if Mr Lucas deals him in to talks.
For Mr Malinauskas, too, failure might not be so bad. He gets credit for offering to be reasonable without having to actually make any real sacrifice if the government slams the door shut.
What polls don’t tell you, though, is how strongly people feel in favour of change. Yes they want it, but it’s not clear it would lead them to shift votes.
In fact, a time must come when finally voters get sick of all the bluster and just blame the government of the day for not getting it done. Especially so if it’s Liberals, who they elected four years ago to make a change.