Page 4413 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 14 October 2009
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We could have simply refined our policy on the basis of a hunch, as some others urged us to do at the time that the Martin review was first announced. Instead we chose the path of evidence-based policy making. We engaged an independent expert who consulted deeply with the community and with the industry. We considered his findings, weighed his judgement and experience, and we listened. In listening to John Martin we have also listened to our community, because it is our community’s views that are reflected in the recommendations of this most expert and thorough review. It was not overly surprising, I think, to see some of the objections and some of those that have objected to this particular proposal. I think there is a degree of quite patent vested interest in those that would oppose reforms such as those that have been mooted.
It is relevant that I provide, albeit in a truncated and potted way, some history of retailing in this city to provide some context for what it is that we are seeking to do. That context really is around the creation in Canberra, probably uniquely in Australia, of a formal hierarchy of town, group and local centres. The hierarchy was historically designed to meet three basic types of shopping trips: trips to local centres to provide goods bought daily—milk, bread, the missing ingredient for the night’s meal—trips to group centres for weekly grocery shopping and trips to town centres to primarily meet the need for higher order goods which were bought less frequently and for which customers would travel further.
The hierarchy has been an important management tool for allocating commercial activity with the intention of ensuring good accessibility to retail facilities, coordinating infrastructure and providing certainty of amenity to residents. The development of retailing in Canberra has been somewhat unique in that government has exercised control over land distribution under the leasehold system. I must say that the only real criticisms of the Martin report that have been aired to my knowledge so far have been grounded, I think, in a presumed ignorance of that fact and of our history.
The potted history just given is not intended to suggest that our retail hierarchy has remained static. As we know, it has not. It has been modified to respond to social and economic changes and to accommodate a changing retail format. ACTPLA’s modern approach to local, group and town centres is based on the rigorous application of data collection and analysis in relation to the socioeconomic characteristics of the population, the forces shaping retailing and an appreciation of the administrative, legal, physical controls and financial tools available to achieve objectives. Generally, I think it has to be said that it does work reasonably well.
But what sort of government would admit there is no longer room for improvement, no need for socially progressive policy making? Grocery retailing is a fast-moving feast. Product range, shopping hours and workforce participation by women all contribute to a need for vigilance and, where needed, change. The Martin review highlights certain rigidities in the existing retail hierarchy, a hierarchy in which supermarkets are inevitably anchor tenants.
For example, group centres evolved in the period from the 1960s in response to the emergence of larger scale supermarket retailing. More recently, as work and social
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