OPINION by Peter O’Keeffe
Go Back- 26th October 2015
Despite my best efforts, I have yet to meet the Commerce Minister Michael Mischin. As such, I am ill-equipped to make any direct comment about his capacity or demeanor. A perusal of his CV, which includes impressive academic qualifications and some challenging and high-ranking jobs, suggests a man of intelligence. Speaking to people who have dealt with him yields a picture of a thoughtful and considered individual.
As such, it was very disappointing to read his press release regarding extended trading hours. It was a release peppered with rhetoric and assumptions about job creation that read like something from the “Yes Minister” playbook.
Minister Mischin speaks of “flexibility” and “choice” for consumers as though the extra hour of trade in the morning, an extra hour I suspect he knows full well will be taken up by only three or four major retailers, was the greatest boon to consumers since air-conditioned shopping centres.
He speaks of “boosting employment opportunities in the retail sector” when, since the two biggest extensions to trading hours in recent memory, (weeknight late nights in 2010 and Sunday trading in 2012) employment in the major retailers has actually fallen.
He speaks of addressing anomalies in the hardware retail market when Bunnings, which can (and often does) trade from 6am weekdays, and all day on Sundays, still has the wood (if you will pardon the pun) on Masters.
And, perhaps inevitably but nonetheless disappointingly, he applauds the (largely illusory) benefits for consumers and retailers (the majority of whom oppose the changes) but says nothing about the employees who will again bear the brunt of changes to trading hours. The very people who will suffer inconvenience and upheaval for a change that neither the public nor the retailers (other than the big two) are seeking. Retail workers deserve a say, but the Minister is not listening.
