Media Release: The Soothsayers at the CCI get it wrong. Again.
Go Back- 5th February 2019
Media release | 05 February 2019
The Soothsayers at the CCI get it wrong. Again.
In the lead-in to last year’s Christmas trading period, the CCI were shrieking hysterically that the state government’s decision not to allow 7am opening for general retail shops until a week before Christmas Day was a major blow for the WA retail sector. As part of their campaign, that great bastion of free-market economics treated us to the following pearls of wisdom:
“This decision will drive customers online and away from bricks and mortar shops…”
“The only thing this decision achieves is cementing WA’s label of ‘dullsville’…”
“A 21st century government that isn’t shackled by archaic union views would allow consumers to shop when it’s convenient…”
What a shame for the CCI that we now find that Western Australia was the only state to experience growth in the retail sector in the Christmas period last year, bucking the national downward trend.
Retail data for December 2018, released today by the ABS, show the WA retail sector grew by 0.1 per cent against a national turnover fall of 0.4 per cent.
Despite not opening the shops at 7am (when nobody is shopping anyway) WA was able to achieve growth in the sector over a period that saw the completely deregulated states of NSW and Victoria decline by 0.6 per cent and 0.5 per cent respectively.
Perhaps the CCI might like to put their neo-liberal minds to work figuring that one out? If they did, they might have to reluctantly conclude that, as the SDA has been saying for years, retail trading patterns are very complex and influenced by a wide range of factors – with trading hours being largely irrelevant.
Still, as the SDA has also been saying, the CCI and their friends in the Liberal party seem loathe to let such trivialities as hard facts get in the way of spouting off neo-liberalist dogma about the glories of the free market.
As such, we suspect they will either ignore these ABS figures, or come up with the mother of all spins to justify their (increasingly isolated and irrelevant) position. Stay tuned.
MEDIA CONTACT: Gareth Thomas – 0487 254 547
