Treasurer Rob Lucas in renewed bid to deregulate Adelaide’s shop trading hours

SA’s Treasurer won’t give up on his plan to deregulate Adelaide’s shopping hours and hopes to use the issue to wedge Labor, writes Paul Starick.

A renewed bid to deregulate Adelaide’s shop-trading hours will be revealed within weeks in a likely fruitless attempt to enable retailers to open when they want.

It is understood Treasurer Rob Lucas will again put legislation to state parliament as part of the Liberals’ long-term quest to “bring South Australia’s archaic shop-trading hours into the 21st century”.

Upper House crossbenchers are signalling their intent to block any changes, unless Mr Lucas makes concessions to appease SA-owned supermarkets such as Drakes Supermarkets and Foodland.

Suburban retailers will be able to open for the first time on Adelaide Cup Day – this Monday. As the Sunday Mail revealed on February 14, the Adelaide Cup Day opening is the first step in an escalated push for trading hours reform.

Mr Lucas has granted a special ministerial exemption enabling retailers to trade on Monday. All shops, regardless of size and location, will be able to open from 9am to 5pm under the Shop Trading Hours Act exemption.

This means CBD shops will also be able to open from 9am – extending their operation by two hours – and some major retailers at West Beach’s Harbour Town that could not previously trade on public holidays will be able to do so.

The ministerial exemption is part of a gradual ratcheting up of pressure on reform opponents – chiefly the Labor Opposition, the shop assistants’ union and SA Independent Retailers. Mr Lucas granted similar exemptions for Boxing Day over the past three years, Easter Monday in the past two years and last year’s Proclamation Day.

The pragmatic Mr Lucas must be expecting this latest round of his almost 40-year parliamentary quest for trading deregulation to fail.

After all, in July last year he signalled an ultimately aborted move to launch another bid to open up trading hours and reach a decision either way by Christmas.

But there is a two-pronged tactic in waging this battle for another round. Firstly, the Liberals cannot afford to be seen to abandon one of their centrepiece promises at the 2018 election. Just days out from the poll, then-opposition leader Steven Marshall vowed, if elected, that his government would “move swiftly to deregulate shop trading hours, in a major boost for retailers, workers and consumers in SA”.

“SA businesses and consumers want choice, and deregulation of shop-trading hours will create more jobs and opportunities for workers in the state’s retail sector,” Mr Marshall said on March 12, 2018.

Shoppers in a busy Rundle Mall. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Kelly Barnes

The second, more strategic, reason for a renewed – but fruitless – push is to position for the next election – on March 19 next year.

Less than three months before voters go the polls, thousands will be flocking to shops in a bid to snare bargains at Boxing Day sales.

The Liberal intention is to remind these voters to enjoy their freedom to shop on public holidays while they can. Former shop assistants’ union boss Peter Malinauskas, they will argue, is beholden to his union mates and will, if elected Premier, revert to Labor’s “crazy” and “archaic” system.

Bricks-and-mortar retailers, the Liberals argue, are already under huge pressure from online sites, so deserve flexibility to be able to compete on some sort of level playing field.

This attack on Mr Malinauskas is another plank in Mr Marshall’s central strategy to extricate himself from minority government and win the next election – rhetorically asking voters who they trust to create jobs and prosperity.

The aim is to contrast his record – both as a successful businessman and creator of a defence and technology-based state economy – with Mr Malinauskas’s exper­ience as a union boss. Mr Malinauskas will revel in the comparison on shopping reform. As a union leader in 2011, he worked with Business SA chief Peter Vaughan to forge a deal that meant stores of all sizes in the CBD could open from 11am to 5pm on New Year’s Day, Adelaide Cup Day, Easter Sunday, Easter Monday, Proclamation Day, the Queen’s Birthday and Labour Day, and after midday on Anzac Day.

Labor argues its principal concerns are jobs and competition. Independent supermarkets in SA have the nation’s biggest market share, between 25 to 28 per cent. They argue this means more dollars in SA and for their workers.

Labor says deregulation means less competition and fewer jobs. Labor also cites figures showing SA has the lowest average household weekly expenditure on food, arguing the present system works.

However, the Liberals’ platform ahead of the 2018 election was explicit and clear about shopping hour reform. Their mandate has been frustrated by the Upper House, as is its right. Voters now face yet another clear choice on the issue next election, after which – perhaps – a conclusion might be reached.