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Deregulation of Shop Trading Hours

Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 1:24 pm
by ghs
I've decided to setup a dedicated thread for the discussion of deregulation of shop trading hours :

From Stephen Marshall's Website :
Government will deregulate retail shop trading hours to allow businesses to remain open, South Australians to keep working and consumers to continue buying what they went, when they want.

How shop trading hour restrictions harm business and restrict choice

If we want South Australian businesses to compete in the 21st century, we need to remove outdated regulations that inhibit their growth.

We need our shop trading hours to reflect the society we live in.

We are now living in a fully globalised world: you can order food at the click of a button, you can buy clothes online in the middle of the night, you can book a hotel in London on your smart phone.

Currently, many stores in our prime shopping districts are not able to operate on Sunday mornings, public holidays, or be open past 5:00pm on weekends.

Years of dysfunctional and haphazard legislation have lead to bizarre regulations being imposed on our traders. For example, it is illegal to sell a car or boat on a Sunday or public holiday, but it is not illegal to sell hardware. Similarly, the current shop trading hour restrictions only apply to some prescribed shopping areas in the metro area, but not in most regional areas.

The law is so complex that many independent grocers have actually been trading unlawfully for up to 20 years.

Trading restrictions are placed on any supermarkets over 400 square metres, which includes most large supermarket chains and more than 50 per cent of our independent supermarkets in our suburbs.

Restricted trading hours are not reflective of how South Australians live their lives.

During the summer weekends especially, people like to stay out and about until later in the evening. Under the current laws, you are not able to visit some local supermarkets after 5:00pm, even though the streets are still busy and there are plenty of people who would like the opportunity.

This places unfair restrictions on local businesses who are unable to compete with smaller, 24-hour venues such as petrol stations and online traders.

South Australians deserve the opportunity to choose how and when they shop. Traders deserve the right to choose when they open and to take advantage of busy shopping periods. The current laws are embarrassing for locals and confusing for tourists. We need to change the way shop trading hours operate to bring South Australia into the 21st century.

Our plan to deregulate shop trading hours

If elected in 2018 a Marshall Liberal Government will deregulate retail shop trading hours to allow businesses to remain open, South Australians to keep working and consumers to continue buying what they went, when they want.

We will introduce amendments to the Shop Trading Hours Act to reduce red tape and liberalise trading hours based on the following principles:

1. Greater Adelaide Shopping District (CBD and suburbs) open Monday-Saturday – midnight to 9:00pm

2. Greater Adelaide Shopping District and CBD open Sunday and Public Holidays (except Christmas Day, Good Friday, Anzac Day morning) – midnight to 9:00pm

3. Proclaimed Shopping Districts open MondaySaturday – midnight to 9:00pm

4. Proclaimed Shopping Districts open Sunday and Public Holidays (except Christmas Day, Good Friday, Anzac Day morning) – midnight to 9:00pm

These changes will provide an enormous boost to local business, greater choice and flexibility for consumers, and more opportunities for South Australians working in retail. This also means that local businesses will be able to employ more staff and create new jobs.

Our reforms will also extend to remove restrictions which previously prevented retailers from selling certain types of goods on Sundays and public holidays.

This means that you will be able to buy a car on a Sunday, if you so choose!

Extended trading hours will give retailers the ability to maximise busy shopping periods, such as the lead up to Christmas.

As outlined in our 2036 manifesto, we are committed to reversing the over regulation and excessive red tape burden that reduces the ability of our businesses to grow and create jobs, as well as regulation which unfairly restricts our choice.

These reforms to our shop trading hours are long overdue. We want to give choice back to South Australians.

Re: Deregulation of Shop Trading Hours

Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 5:04 pm
by monotonehell
Stephen Marshall: *barks how restricted trading hours hurts*

Stephen Marshall: *proposes restricted trading hours*

Why not just say, "You can trade when the fuck you want" and let the market sort it out?

(Also, I removed the poll. Polls are pointless. Discuss and debate with reasons.)

Re: Deregulation of Shop Trading Hours

Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 9:56 pm
by bits
monotonehell wrote: Why not just say, "You can trade when the fuck you want" and let the market sort it out?
1)You will kill small business that are unable to trade 24/7.
Small business is crucial for the mass of humans to have the ability to control their own lives.
They employ themselves and make a living.
We have come to realize humans can work about 40 hours a week reliably. You just can't ask for a larger average or too many people will not be able to manage.
How can a single human do 24/7, they can't and that is the most obvious problem to deregulation.

Retail stores that are open for limited time would lose some percentage of sales to large companies trading during periods the small business is not open which leads to less profit and then closure.
Once they are closed we only have large company retail stores.

Large companies will only give install/service contracts that can support their opening time.
Eg If Coles open 24/7 they expect their fridge mechanic, electrician, IT, phone techs, locksmiths, etc to be open 24/7.
So the install/service work would only be won by large companies.


This is how you change the current 95% of businesses being small businesses to 99.9% of people are employed by 0.1% of people.
The rich people which can afford to buy poorer peoples time create an ecosystem where they are in total control of who works when and at what price.

And we end up going back hundreds of years back to slave labour. Poorer humans fought hard to get the current rights, why would you want to go back?!!?
You need a powerful owner to give you money so you can afford to live because it is impossible to compete with them in business due to a lack of resources.
Because you need to live you will accept whatever employment is offered, beggars can't be choosers.

The poorer and lower skilled a person is, the quicker the impact of deregulation.
The gap between rich and poor will rise quickly in a deregulated market.

2)Restricted trading hours are to protect social interaction. So people can enjoy life together rather than just becoming a slave to their job.
Whats the point in living if all you do is have a job to earn money so you can pay to live. Are you above or below all the other animals at that point?

At the moment after 5pm there is a high chance you can meet with most family and friends. It is a higher chance on a Saturday and even higher again on Sunday and the highest possible chance on public holidays.
It is a common meeting ground for everyone.

Our society is based around scheduled time off in our day, scheduled time off in our week and scheduled time off in our year.

Shall we scrap the general idea of dinner time, as an evening main meal makes no sense if we are throwing out the human time schedule. This will likely screw up the peaks restaurants enjoy and shrink the economy.
Shall we scrap the common meeting of friends and family at countless places such as cinemas/restaurants. That would shrink the economy.
Shall we scrap a "night out" ? With no common meeting times there is no busy Friday or Saturday nights. The inability to create these allotments of time will shrink the economy.
Shall we throw out Christmas? With no common time off for public holidays and the decline of religion in educated/modern countries, I assume this period would just be phased out as it no longer makes any sense. Which would shrink the economy.




We mostly have 365 evenings, 52 Weekends, 10 public holidays and 4 weeks annual leave a year.
We created these rules to protect the right for humans to live and interact in a reasonable way.

Of course you can increase short term productivity and short term employment by removing all the allocated time off, it is simple to see that. We can give everyone 4 more hours work a day, instead of 8 hours just do 12 hours? Easy.
If the stores were open on Christmas day some extra people would have a job, but we would likely end up with some amount of less gifts being given for people not attending. So did the economy grow or shrink because of the extra hours worked?

But those jobs come at a much greater social cost, we sell our souls to gain a few short term dollars.
Then suicide probably would increase which has huge social and economic costs.
Once you have totally broken down human traditions that are based around the human time schedule there is huge social and economic costs.

Not only would peoples lives suck, you likely gained nothing at all in the process (well the rich got a lot richer, I hope you are one of the lucky ones).
Are we trying to turn humans lives in to an efficient productivity farm? We could put them in cages and all sorts to "increase productivity/economy"


Deregulated hours are just not fair. That is why we created these restriction in the first place.
Whats the next pole, how about we just poop where we stand to decrease the lost productivity of the slave worker during toilet breaks?

Re: Deregulation of Shop Trading Hours

Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2016 12:53 am
by mshagg
That's such an outdated view of the world and probably the most narrow minded thing I've seen posted on these forums - which is saying something. In case you hadnt noticed, we've moved on from working 9-5 and coming home to a meal cooked by your wife. Even in my work environment of cardigan-wearing career public servants the focus is on flexible arrangements, non-core hours, working from home, compressed weeks etc.

Someone who studies or has family responsibilities may well jump at the chance to work a full day on a Sunday or a public holiday. People like you sit there and say "that's no good - that's when i spend time with my family so you should be doing the same". It's borderline offensive.

I dont see Adelaide becoming a "24/7" city any time soon, but if you think people wouldn't take the opportunity to engage in retail interactions - both as an employee and as a customer - before 11am on a Sunday morning, or after 5pm on a Saturday, you're living under a rock.
Shall we scrap the common meeting of friends and family at countless places such as cinemas/restaurants.
Are these establishments operated by robots during your leisure time? Or do the people already employed there simply not fit into your narrow world view?

Re: Deregulation of Shop Trading Hours

Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2016 9:12 am
by bits
mshagg wrote: Are these establishments operated by robots during your leisure time? Or do the people already employed there simply not fit into your narrow world view?
Bakers, correctional officers, police, Fire fighters etc have also existed for a very long time.
They are a minority amount of people which are difficult to arrange meeting times with. If you try to arrange a large family gathering you may struggle to include those specific people due to incompatible work times. As more people work incompatible times a large family gathering becomes impossible.
The majority of people do work 9-5 or similar and that is what needs protecting. Erosion of regulated hours continues to deplete the majority until there is no longer a large majority.

We can have stores open late already, we do not need deregulated hours for stores to open late.
If the after hours period had such a demand from people wanting to work and customers wanting to buy, those people should apply for an ABN and get a trading license that allows them to trade whatever suits.
The Fox and Firkin trading license comes to mind for a general store that has non-standard trading hours.

Deregulation is only for large business.
They will loss lead and use unfair trading practices(such as very long trading hours) to lock in all customers to the exclusion of small business.
It destroys small business which is the access for the masses to fully control their life.
Deregulation is how you create and accelerate a separation of the rich and poor.

I do not want to live in a world where almost everyone is just a rich persons drone to be programmed for maximum productivity. Where individuals have no fair ability to compete with larger organizations.

What kind of a shallow minded person wants more control to large companies in vein hope the large company can better our lives beyond what we could do ourselves.
Why have people become so desperate they are willing to give full control to large companies?

Tell me how individuals in our society are better off with deregulation and if your answer is "they can be employed by a person that can afford them" try again.

FYI:
Did you know we already gave concessions to large companies that claimed there should be more options for customers.
Coles Central Markets, Firle and Kuralta Park are already open 6 days a week from midnight.

Also according to Steven Marshall the only worthwhile holidays in the modern diverse 21st century Adelaide are 2 Christian holidays and a war holiday he would not dare remove.
Holidays such as New Years Day, Australia Day, Labour Day and Proclamation Day are apparently below important things such as the religious Christian holidays.
Too bad for the other religions and the non-religious, those people are not important in Steven Marshalls narrow mind.

Re: Deregulation of Shop Trading Hours

Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2016 5:20 pm
by Splashmo
Can someone please explain to me why some supermarkets close at 9pm and open at midnight?
Wouldn't it make more sense to trade until midnight and reopen at 6am?

Re: Deregulation of Shop Trading Hours

Posted: Mon Dec 12, 2016 10:49 am
by ghs
Splashmo wrote:Can someone please explain to me why some supermarkets close at 9pm and open at midnight?
Wouldn't it make more sense to trade until midnight and reopen at 6am?
They're not allowed to trade from 9pm until midnight due to the government regulations.
That's one of the reasons why we need de - regulation.
Opening at midnight is not ideal for the workers. Who wants to start work at midnight ?
If they were allowed to trade 24 hours a day then the employees could work 3, 8 hours shifts.
For example - 6am to 2pm, 2pm to 10pm and 10pm to 6am.

Re: Deregulation of Shop Trading Hours

Posted: Mon Dec 12, 2016 2:49 pm
by monotonehell
You can trade anytime you want, if you are selling spare parts for agricultural machines or fine art.

Anyway, tonight at 11:30pm, I'm popping down to Woolies for a bunch of carrots which my combine harvester needs stuffed under the seat or it wont go. If that doesn't fly, then I'm picking up a still life.

The whole 1977 act needs a vast clean up. There's so many specific proscriptions and exceptions that it's a ridiculous act & amendments.

That's all before actual hours come into consideration.

GHS: three eight hour shifts in retail? That's not how retail works. It's majorly casualised and your hours depend on expected demand.

Re: Deregulation of Shop Trading Hours

Posted: Mon Dec 12, 2016 3:39 pm
by rev
I'm with Mono on this.
Shops should be able to open and close whenever the hell they want. Naturally they'll do this when there is demand and they'll make money. If they aren't going to make money in the early hours of the morning they wont open, those that can make money at those times, will be open.

The only thing the government should do, is ensure that those working beyond 9-5 are paid correctly and fairly.


The whole sooky argument of owner operators who wont be able to survive...why not? Why wont they survive?
You are running a business. If you can't adapt to the market environment, then maybe you shouldn't be running a business?

Why wouldn't they be able to hire some staff to run their shop late at night?
They expenses will be the same wage wise.
If they can make money late at night, then they'll do it.

If you don't want to stay open late at night, then don't.

Re: Deregulation of Shop Trading Hours

Posted: Mon Dec 12, 2016 3:41 pm
by rev
ghs wrote:
Splashmo wrote:Can someone please explain to me why some supermarkets close at 9pm and open at midnight?
Wouldn't it make more sense to trade until midnight and reopen at 6am?
They're not allowed to trade from 9pm until midnight due to the government regulations.
That's one of the reasons why we need de - regulation.
Opening at midnight is not ideal for the workers. Who wants to start work at midnight ?
If they were allowed to trade 24 hours a day then the employees could work 3, 8 hours shifts.
For example - 6am to 2pm, 2pm to 10pm and 10pm to 6am.
What a small town mentality. Who wants to start a midnight? Someone who wants to earn a living? Someone who enjoys working at night?

Re: Deregulation of Shop Trading Hours

Posted: Mon Dec 12, 2016 6:09 pm
by bits
rev wrote:I'm with Mono on this.

The whole sooky argument of owner operators who wont be able to survive...why not? Why wont they survive?
You are running a business. If you can't adapt to the market environment, then maybe you shouldn't be running a business?

Why wouldn't they be able to hire some staff to run their shop late at night?
They expenses will be the same wage wise.
Many small businesses are sole traders and can not afford to buy other humans.
The regulations are to protect the financial rights of individuals/small businesses.

If you move the bar for small business to "you must be able to afford a minimum of 4 employees to be competitive" you have destroyed the financial freedom of millions of Australians.
And have accelerated the divide between the rich and the poor, those that can afford to buy 4 people vs those that can not.

It is a human right to have "freedom of employment". That is why we have and continue to need rules to protect the freedom of an individual to be self employed and enjoy "just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity".
It is grossly unfair to say humans lacking wealth have no choice but to work for humans that possess greater wealth.


The laws are currently set so it is realistic for a sole trader to operate with reasonable hours.
It is the same reason the Central Market is not open every day of the week.
The Central Markets are not closed due to regulation, laws or lack of demand. They are closed because humans run those stalls and need time to enjoy family, friends and rest.
Sounds a lot like another human right, the right to "rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay"


The rules deliberately limit large stores.
Small business can apply and have been approved for unusual trading hours.
Regulation is not stopping small business, it is stopping large business.
If there is demand, let small business fill it. Australia has a lot more to gain socially and economically if a small business takes up the challenge.

Re: Deregulation of Shop Trading Hours

Posted: Mon Dec 12, 2016 8:06 pm
by rev
So have you gone out and asked every small business to know and be able to say with certainty what you're saying?

read my post carefully.
Im in favour of allowing businesses to operate at any time they like. Complete unrestricted trading hours.
That's starkly different to your assertion that businesses should be forced to open.

The market will sort it self out.
Those businesses that there is a demand for after regular hours will open and thrive those who don't have demand won't.

Re: Deregulation of Shop Trading Hours

Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 3:08 pm
by monotonehell
Bits: I agree that smaller traders need to be protected from the anti-competitive antics of the big traders, but how does the current setup do that?

Smaller traders can trade outside the big trader's hours... So that means that the smaller traders can only benefit from the extended hours when the big traders are closed? Yay! I can trade from 9pm to 12am... So how does that work for the smaller traders' quality of life?

The anti-competitive horse has well and truly bolted, the complex and unwieldy, patched over gate was never shut. Smaller traders are all but dead. Those trading well outside hours are mostly chains of convenience stores, not small business people.


Rev: Don't assume you are with me, yet. I was only being devil's advocate with the first post. ;)

Re: Deregulation of Shop Trading Hours

Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2016 3:38 pm
by Brucetiki
I can't see a significant impact if the trading hours were deregulated.

The handful of Coles that trade from midnight-9:00 will probably go 24/7, and suburban malls will trade on most public holidays (and definitely Boxing Day). The irony we have at the moment is the SDA playing the 'workers want a break' card, yet you have some workers saying they'd be more than happy to work on these days. If you look at Christmas/Easter, we had shopping centre's open on Tuesday (a public holiday), and Easter Saturday is pretty much a normal trading day these days.

Also, Melbourne/Sydney have deregulated trading yet small businesses are still surviving.

Re: Deregulation of Shop Trading Hours

Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2016 10:37 pm
by Nathan
Brucetiki wrote:The irony we have at the moment is the SDA playing the 'workers want a break' card, yet you have some workers saying they'd be more than happy to work on these days.
You mean to say the SDA doesn't accurately reflect their membership? *feigning shock*