Greg Thomson, Community Newspaper Group editor-in-chief
I RECENTLY spent five blissful days enjoying all that Margaret River and the region had to offer.
It was school holidays and the township was humming, particularly the shops in the town’s main street.
Big business and small business appeared to be thriving.
A main street deli was doing a roaring trade in take-home packs of gourmet heat-and-serve dinners – the perfect end-of-day meal for our party of travellers worn out from wine tasting and underground caving.
Meanwhile, over at the local Coles supermarket, the business was permitted to trade from 8am to 7pm, seven days a week.
I rang a mate from Perth who was spending the same week in Broome.
He too marvelled at the convenience of the local Woolworths stores being allowed to open not just from 7am to 9pm, but also across seven days.
In Broome, it means locals and tourists alike enjoy the convenience of shopping where and when they like.
When I lived in the Northern Territory a few years ago, my local Coles and Woolworths were allowed to trade 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Security staff there were forced to fumble with the keys that lock up the front doors on just two days of the year – Good Friday, and on Christmas Day.
Okay, nobody seems to be interested in opening up the debate over Sunday trading in Perth, but momentum is growing for extending weekday trading.
In Perth, the city’s absurd trading laws are supposed to protect consumers from the “predation” of the nation’s two biggest retailers, Woolworths and Coles.
The irony is that protectionism in the city is exposing consumers to rampant price gouging, while permitting a Sunday monopoly for another retail chain, the network of IGA stores.
Extending weekday trading to 9pm would at least meet the champions of deregulated shopping hours half-way.