Shop hours must be the same for all

LEGISLATION governing Perth’s retail trading hours are in a mess and in urgent need of a serious rethink.

Premier Colin Barnett sparked a fresh wave of controversy with his plan to introduce legislation to permit shops in Perth to remain open to 9pm on weeknights. It wasn’t that long ago that such plans were rejected at a referendum.

Under the present laws, Perth shops must close at 6pm on week nights, and 5pm on Saturdays. Thursday night has a late-night exception to 9pm.

The absurdity of the laws is that some retailers are already permitted to trade late into the evening on week nights, and across the weekend.

Furthermore, another set of laws exist for Sunday trading in the so-called tourism precincts in the central business district and at Fremantle.

The Government is also proposing to introduce separate legislation to create a tourism precinct at Joondalup – resulting in further inconsistency.

I can’t follow the logic of the existing retail trading hour framework, and doubt that I am alone on this front.

In Parliament, Treasurer Troy Buswell highlighted the inconsistency between one set of regulations governing regional centres such as Bunbury and Geraldton and the nonsensical approach taken in WA’s capital city.

Surely we ought to be on one level playing field.

The Government’s proposed legislation will at least give more choice to consumers as to when and where they shop during week days.

The laws will also protect the right of smaller retailers to decide if and when they choose to trade.

Competition in the retail sector is good for business and for consumers.

It ought not be the Government’s role to provide layers of competitive protection for selected groups of Perth retailers, while subjecting the rest of the State to another set of illogical and unfair regulations.

What everyone else is thinking

Simon

09/11/2009

I definately think that extended trading hours should go ahead because it would be convenient to have the opputunity to walk down to the shops at a later hour without worrying that the shops are closed. Western Australia has had the same laws now for too long, the population is growing and we need changes like this to occur for the needs of the public society.

averill

15/10/2009

Spare a thought for the shop workers! What will they do about finishing at 9.00 or 9.30pm. If any of them live in the hills, they had better have their own transport, because buses are non existent after 7.00pm. More staff will have to be employed, because of the longer hours, and that will result in higher prices. Is this what we want??? The majority voted "No" in the referendum, to Sunday trading; so why do we have to keep going through this over and over , until the business men get what THEY want ?

Nanette

22/08/2009

Do we really need the government regulating business hours? What's the matter with supply & demand determining the hours business will operate? I for one find the present regulation very inconvenient.

Ron Bellamy

21/08/2009

Who ever said Bussiness is fair, of course Woolies And Coles are hurting because of IGA having longer hours, so is IGA hurting with Coles and Wollies buying power, what about the family Bussiness that went broke with IGa opening for longer hours let get back to the corner store when only the owner and his family were allowed to work outside normal hours

Philip Barnard

31/07/2009

Be very careful, think long and hard about deregulation, since the deregulation of the fuel industry how many independent service stations do we now have in WA. We have lost most of our corner stores as it is so how many independent clothing and jewelry stores will be able to withstand the competition of having to open even just seven days a week so it will finish up the same as petrol with only the major players left paying basic hourly rates regardless of whether your on from 7.00 in the morning till 4.00 in the afternoon or 7.00 at night till 4.00 in the morning.
Jack is right we are not going to have any more money to spend, what about the people who are forced to work so we can shop how can they have a normal family life.
If you are really concerned about employment then complain about companies like Telstra who has it billing call center in Manilla and about to send service difficulties and faults there by end of August

chris

14/07/2009

Government interference in something as simple as trading hours just shows how incompetant they are, surely businesses have enough brains to decide their own trading hours. No one is compelled to shop at night or on a Sunday and most people should be able to decide for themselves when to shop. The extra hours will also make more jobs for people who want to work the extra hours and no one is compelling current staff to work more hours. It works fine over East. Referendums cannot always get the correct result, just think what the answer would be if the question was "Should we pay income tax?"

Bignanna

06/07/2009

I'm all for extended tradings hours whether its till 9.00pm Monday to Friday, then Saturday and Sunday. What I've been reading in a lot of comments on other sites, are people thinking that if shops don't want to open till 9.00pm they should be allowed to close their doors at 5.30pm. To me why shut your doors, if the shopping hours are to be extended, well sorry all shops must stay open, as whats the use of looking for a nice bra or dress if these shops are going to shut at 5.30pm seems silly to me to have the extended hours then maybe 6 shops in the shopping centre close at 5.30pm. Its all or nothing

Craig Williams

30/06/2009

Yes, let's have a three year trial of 24/7 extended trading hours, and THEN have a referendum to see if we like it or not!

Bruce in Hillarys

28/06/2009

Went into the CBD today (Sunday). What an eye-opener! Could hardly move for the crowds of people [gasp] shopping!! Bring on 24/7 trading -- Government: butt right out!

Vyt

27/06/2009

Jack the problems you state would occur if all shops extended their hours. It is not necessarily for longer hours, but more flexible hours, to allow the varous shops to tailor their hours to the needs of their customers. Some might extended to 24/7, but many would operate total hours not unsimilar to those they operate now, just that they may not necessarily be the standard hours the pollies have allowed us to have. Like I said in the New York example, it was the small Mom and Pop and the Kids type of shops which really went into the extended and more flexible trading hours in a big enthusiastic way since family members can take turns in the shifts, and often the family actually lives in the apartment up above the shop that they own as their home. Most big business chains are more tied-in with cumbersome bureaucracies to be able to go too far in extended or more flexible arrangements. Some like Pathmark Supermarkets were clever enough to see the 24/7 opportunity first and are winning.

ozieite

26/06/2009

In Queensland where i lived for many years, all major shopping centres
are open until 9pm weeknights and they trade from 8.30 am. to 5pm.on Saturdays and 9.30.am to 5pm on Sundays. I think it is a great idea especially if you are a shift worker as many are in WA. I know would rather shop at night or on weekends where if there are longer trading hours there would be less of the pushing and shoving and the queuing up
at the checkouts.

Jack

24/06/2009

I think we can safely accept that there is a finite pool of dollars to be spent. These will be spent regardless of the hours available to so do.
1. Therefore additional hours will not generate greater expenditure.

2. Increased hours will result in increased costs.
This is logical as there will be increased wage costs (or decreased staff numbers and decreased service).
There will also be increased consumption of service facilities (electricity, water etc)

3. Increased hours will result in increased costs to the consumer. The costs mentioned at (2) above have to be covered somehow, and one cannot see retailers becoming charity providers.

4. Increased shopping hours will ultimately result in a decrease in competition and further costs to the consumer. The only ones to benefit will be the larger retailers. Increased hours will force smaller retailers out of business

Of course, as some pollies say, shops will have a choice of whether or not to open. How stupid is this?

23/06/2009

Why as a society do we always want to either ban something or make it compulsory to enforce uniformity? Why should government even set hours of trading? If a business gets lots of customers 7am to 10 am and nothing comes in til after 10pm to3am, why should it not shut down from 10am to 10pm and 3am to 7am. Any successful business knows that the customer is always right, and that includes when they want to shop. In the 1970's in New York, it was not government decree but a supermarket chain, Pathmark, which had the brilliant idea for 24/7 shopping, which even then in the Big Apple was not generally available other than some specialty shops. And it was not the government but Pathmark which first introduced unit pricing for all its products. Eventually others have followed suit, some with the hours but all now give unit prices. A savvy business would want to be a leader in what consumers want. And in NY, the Mom and Pop and Kids shops, not the big chains, who most enjoyed any time trade.

Dragon

The current system is not only archaic but unworkable, we have places like Rockingham, Perth & freo able to open on a weekend, Morley opens for special occasions on Sundays as do other centers. At the moment it's anyones guess as to when we are allowed to shop.
I'm with Colin, standardise things & open it all up. The public will then shop when we want to, as we need to.
It will also create jobs which arte currently very much needed.
Colin got & still gets my vote for having the courage to try to change things for the better for our state.
Good on ya Colin.

Ian_Mackereth

I do wonder what would happen if we had a referendum where the "No" option was the progressive alternative and the "Yes" was the usual WA="Wait Awhile" default.

What would the good folk of Perth decide, faced with the choice of having to either (shock!) vote Yes at a referendum or (horror!) accept a change in the status quo?!

The decision for late night shopping seems an obvious one: stop Governement regulating it away and, if it's unwanted and a Bad Idea, businesses will remain empty after 6pm and will close their doors again in the evenings!

I'm amused that it's the IGA who are always so vocal about stopping late night and weekend trading, since I'm sure they do their best business then, when the opposition isn't allowed to compete with them!

Before the last referendum, I was in our local IGA on a Sunday, at one of the several busy checkouts, reading the placard telling me how Sunday trading would wreck families, and ruin the economy

Natalie

When I lived in Sydney 15 yrs ago, any grocery shop open later than 9pm could not employ minors (anyone under 18) to work those hours, opening up a great number of evening positions for stay at home mums who didnt want to put their kids in care, but who could work once their partner came home. For that reason I supported extended hours. I also supported it because my husband is a shift worker and Sundays are a day like any other for us, as are evenings and nights. It was easier for me with two small children to get out at odd hours than during the day.

Having said all that, I voted NO to daylight savings (a number of times) and expect the government to uphold my vote so I feel that I should now shut up and put up to respect the NO vote of extended trading hours.

I do feel though that if we had at least trialled the hours (as we were forced to do with DS) more people might have agreed to them.

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