Daniel Wills: SA Labor headed for a short-term win on shops in South Australia Parliament but bigger battle looms

PREMIER Steven Marshall is hurtling towards a likely defeat on the floor of Parliament over shop trading hours. It would be a big win for Labor, but only the start of a bigger battle to come.

• Labor says extended Sunday trading is ‘dead’

TIME is against the State Government as the clock runs down on its first 100 days in power, and opposition to its signature shop trading policy hardens.

Barring something unforeseen, the deregulation of trading hours in SA will be Premier Steven Marshall’s first big political loss since the March election.

By his pre-election promise, legislation to open up weekend and public holiday shopping should be in Parliament by the end of this month and it faces a frosty welcome. In the Upper House, the Government needs at least three crossbench votes to get anything passed. On the numbers as they stand, it is at serious risk of getting none.

Independent MP John Darley, first thought to be the reform’s most likely backer, says his view is fast shifting to opposition. SA Best, which promised at the election to block more shopping, is cementing that view despite early suggestion it was open to a possible deal.

For Labor, stopping more shopping would be a tremendous early victory in this political cycle. The issue is an article of faith for Labor’s dominant shop assistants’ union, formerly headed by Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas. Defeating the Government on a key point of difference promoted at the election would prove Labor is no spent force in the Parliament, and rally the base after a bruising fall from power.

Labor is already so bolshie that Mr Malinauskas’ olive branch on Sunday morning trading has been pruned back, as he senses enough leverage to force a complete Government capitulation.

But there is a risk for the Opposition that this early joy would be short-lived.

If he’s blocked now, Mr Marshall will almost certainly go to the next election seeking a bigger mandate for a reform. He would claim that shady union bosses in smoke-filled rooms, one of whom heads the Labor Party and alternative government, stand in the way of change that SA wants and needs.

The best available evidence suggests Mr Marshall starts on solid ground. A study by the University of SA’s Institute for Choice in March found a massive three quarters of voters want changes to SA’s shop trading hours restriction.

The number says it would be good for the economy. On the detail, smaller majorities want shopping hours on the weekends and public holidays freed up.

But the survey can’t show how locked-in that support is, and if the right arguments could swing it around.

The independent grocer’s lobby this week made a potentially game-changing intervention in the shops debate.

They come at the issue not from other side of the political aisle, but within a sector usually considered a cornerstone of the Government’s support.

And they attack Mr Marshall’s best arguments head-on, with credibility.

When Labor calls for things to stay as they are, it regularly falls back on the claim that retail employees need specially-allocated windows of family time that most other workers lost years ago.

The broad public appears to see this as a worthy trade off for greater choice, a bigger economy and more jobs.

The smaller grocers know better than most about growing the economy and jobs and are now literally advertising their claim that more trading will deliver fewer jobs and a weaker economy, flipping the assumed facts.

More than that, it’s wrapped in an easily eaten-up narrative about the “big end of town” in Coles and Woolworths ganging up to crush the “little guys” of Foodland and IGA who both carry lots of goodwill as strong local brands.

Mr Malinauskas this week, after a day in which Labor MPs wore the “save SA shops” campaign badges into Question Time, told The Advertiser he firmly believed Labor could beat deregulation in both the Parliament and public.

“Our position is underpinned by principle and evidence,” he said.

“I don’t see those things changing.

“Whenever I’ve spoken to members of the public about this issue, when they understand the consequences of deregulation, they’re opposed to it.

“Once they understand, and once there is a greater awareness that total deregulation results in less competition, I think you’ll find that community attitudes aren’t in favour of this.”

One example from history hints that hope has currency. In 2005, WA held a referendum on allowing more Sunday and weeknight shopping. After the blanket coverage and deep debate that comes with such an event, 60 per cent of voters rejected the case for change.

The echoing message for Mr Marshall and the Government is that support for reform, while broad, could be very shallow. A big push from business and union groups that face the most wrenching adjustment under new trading hours could tip opinion against him.

Business SA executive director Anthony Penney says a huge 82 per cent of members, including small jewellers and dress shops, want the choice to open longer even if many wouldn’t use it.

Of the new grocers’ campaign, he says: “Opponents are looking at this through a relatively narrow lens”.

“We need to look at the overall impact,” he said. “The data and evidence stack up. Deregulation is good for employment, turnover and the economy.”

A good story can speak much louder than any fact or figure, and the “little guys” are ready to tell theirs for as long as it takes to keep the shutters down.