Page 986 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 26 July 1989
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openly with their tenants is not enough for us to go on to say that things are not too bad and that we ought to leave it to the marketplace to sort out its own rules. That is what has been happening to date and, on the evidence we have collected, it has clearly failed.
If better economic times had continued, the imbalance in power that exists between retail landlords and their tenants might easily have been ignored as the source of an occasional, but not very significant, grievance on the part of the tenants. Now, though, Canberra's retail tenants are beset by more and more factors which are beyond their control or influence, and many of them are being pushed further and further into the corner. Not the least, of course, are the problems associated with interest rates at the moment. Retail tenants can do nothing about erratic or unthinking planning decisions. The Boulevard shopkeepers simply have to hang on if they can and wait until their isolation by construction sites ends and the customers come back. That, Mr Speaker, as I am sure some of you may know, is often very difficult. The Hyperdome tenants have to hope that the public service infrastructure that should have been in place long ago finally builds up to provide the level of business necessary for their survival.
Retail tenants can do nothing about the whim of Commonwealth government departments to shift from one part of the city to another, suddenly depriving nearby shopkeepers of a substantial part of their regular trade. Retail tenants can do nothing, either, about the Federal Treasurer's well-known policy of using interest rates to dampen spending - spending which used to take place in their shops, to which I have already alluded today.
Of course, shopkeepers, in the main, can and will survive bad economic times. They can survive planning decisions and drops in passing trade, and a hundred other factors not of their making, if they are given at least a fair chance. But a fair chance means that they have to be able to negotiate fair and reasonable rents, to resist sudden increases to those rents or punitive lease conditions, to stop being the victims of any unscrupulous landlord who chooses to abuse the free rein allowed by the law as it stands, and to have some avenue that they can follow to resolve tenancy disputes and grievances.
Unless this Assembly decides to move towards giving retail tenants that fair chance, we may find ourselves presiding over a crisis in the retail sector of a sort never before seen in Canberra.
Facing such a possibility, we should also remember that the retail sector - in particular the small business component, which is the most vulnerable - is a major contributor to employment in the ACT. Time and time again we hear that fact spoken about. Commentators talk about it, and we know that it is a major contributor to employment in the ACT. If retail tenants sink under the weight of the costs they
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