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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (14 May) . . Page.. 1366 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

People in the ACT had decided where they wanted to shop. What some people in this place, the Greens and the Liberals, wanted to do was turn the clock back and return to some fairytale existence where we would all be shopping happily at local shops; the local shops would prosper; the group centres would prosper; the big shops would prosper; and everybody would live happily ever after. Well, whether or not we like it, there are some realities out there in retail land. People do not want to shop at their local shop if it is more expensive or if the range and choice are less. They make the decision themselves and go to their group centres or to the larger shopping centres.

Let us talk about the attitude of the Liberals to business in this Territory and to the economy as a whole. We saw from the outset, when the Liberals first took office - and I have to draw attention to this point - supported by the Greens and the Independents, that they, in particular Mrs Carnell, began to talk the ACT economy down. They used all sorts of colourful expressions about the condition of the economy, all negative news to the people out there in business; and, of course, the dream came true. The economy did fall into a bad state because out there everybody was listening to the leader of their Government telling them it was in a bad state. What are they going to do? Are they going to stop spending, stop investing, stop making important decisions and so on? All of this was occurring at a time when the Liberals were conjuring up an idea about altering the trading hours in the ACT to satisfy a constituency that they felt attached to, or an ideology that they felt attached to, in the case of Mrs Carnell.

All of this took place and the shops adjusted their arrangements. A large chain bought into a group centre in my area; they also bought into group centres in other areas, as I understand it.

Mr Humphries: That was before the change, though.

MR BERRY: No; it did not happen before the change - not in my area, I can tell you. What happened was that the Government created all of this turmoil in the retail industry by saying it was changing the rules. Meanwhile, they had talked the economy down. The economy had slipped into recession. Now the Government comes back and says, according to Mr Humphries on radio this morning, "It was an experiment". It was not an experiment when he started it.

Mr Humphries: Yes, it was.

MR BERRY: No; it became an experiment, Mr Humphries, only when you got caught out and were starting to look for a back door. You had to paint yourself a back door because none existed. That was the clear situation. This morning you admitted to the experiment. This was an experiment with the ACT economy, much as Mrs Carnell's actions in the management of the ACT economy have been experiments, many of which have failed. This is just another one.

Mr Speaker, now we have the business fraternity wondering what this Government will do next. How on earth can you end up with a stable business-driven economy if you keep flip-flopping on important issues like this?

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