Sunday is funday as WA freezes out archaic rules

WA will dismantle a bizarre law requiring businesses to seek an exemption from the commerce minister to open on Sunday.

An ice way to spend a weekend … competitive skaters Billy Cornwell, 13, and Madison Axford, 20, train at the Cockburn Ice Arena in Perth. Picture: Colin Murty

The West Australian government will use its extraordinary majority in both houses of parliament to dismantle one of the state’s more bizarre trading laws: a requirement for businesses such cinemas, ice-skating rinks and pool halls that want to open their doors on a Sunday to seek a formal exemption from the commerce minister.

After more than 40 years, the Sunday Entertainments Act’s days appear numbered, with a bill to repeal the legislation to be read into the WA parliament’s lower house for a second time on Tuesday.

Labor’s control of both houses of parliament means the repeal should just be a formality, but the Coalition is also expected to vote in favour of the move.

Commerce Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson, who introduced the repeal bill last month, said the act was no longer relevant.

“The process of having to apply for an exemption places an unnecessary administrative burden on businesses,” she said. “Government agencies also incur financial costs because there are requirements to publish exemption notices in the Government Gazette and issue permits in writing.

“The Sunday Entertainments Act is out of step with contemporary community practices and attitudes towards holding paid enter­tainment, sports events and amu­se­ments on the mentioned days.”

Requests for exemptions or permits, which have also been required for paid entertainment on Good Friday and Christmas Day, are not contested and have been granted as a matter of routine for years.

The rules meant a permit had to be granted to allow an AFL match to go ahead at Optus Stadium on Good Friday in 2019.

The archaic patchwork of regulations governing WA businesses has long been a bugbear of industry as well as a source of mirth.

The state’s Potato Marketing Corporation, which used to regulate the types of potatoes that could be grown, has been dispatched to the compost bin of history but other unusual restrictions still remain.

WA’s hardware stores are allowed to sell light bulbs but not light fittings, as well as wood-fired heaters but not gas heaters.

News agencies are banned from selling computer games that are mains operated, while car dealerships are forbidden to open on Sundays.

Chamber of Commerce and ­Industry chief economist for WA Aaron Morey said the trading restrictions were based on England’s 1677 Sunday Observance Act.

“The lords who presided over that legislation presumably did not anticipate Amazon.com and other online retailers, which are slowly starving local shopping precincts and small businesses of foot traffic,” he told The Australian.

“Nearly every other state has moved into the 21st century.

“It is past time that WA caught up.”

One venue that will be freed from the arduous restrictions is the Cockburn Ice Arena in Perth’s southeast, where Jacqui Cornwell watched her 13-year-old son Billy train with fellow competition skater Madison Axford, 20.

Ms Cornwall, treasurer of the WA Ice Skating Association, said ice rinks were expensive to operate without the added costs of applying for Sunday exemptions.