Coles frustrated by trading hours row
COLES group chief economist Peter Crone has lambasted the Queensland state opposition for blocking legislation which would have enabled the supermarket giant to extend its trading hours.
Mr Crone spoke yesterday at the CEDA 2017 Queensland Economic Forum and said March’s Cyclone Debbie highlighted a need for change, with some supermarkets forced to stay closed as people scrambled for supplies.
“We’ve got three stores in Queensland where we can’t trade on Sundays – Ayr, Mount Isa and Goondiwindi,” he said.
“The cyclone (Debbie) was expected to hit on the Monday or Tuesday, and people wanted to come into our stores to stock up, and we couldn’t open on the Sunday.
“We actually had the mayor of Ayr on the phone to us saying ‘please open your store up’.
“The Queensland government did try to liberalise trading hours earlier in the year, and it’s regrettable the opposition didn't support it.”
Earlier this year the Queensland government proposed to standardise opening hours, including Sunday and public holiday trading from 9am-6pm.
Katter’s Australian Party MPs Robbie Katter and Shane Knuth, One Nation’s Steve Dickson and independents Billy Gordon and Rob Pyne declared they would join forces with the Liberal National Party to block the bill, with the state government electing to delay the vote.
Mr Crone, who worked as a senior economic adviser to former Prime Minister John Howard, told The Bulletin he believed changes to trading hours was inevitable, especially with the need for retailers to stay competitive with the online marketplace.
“What they (government) need to realise is retailers are not asking for changes for the sake of it – it’s something that customers also want,” he said.
“We don’t want to trade 24 hours a day everywhere, because we just wouldn’t get the customers coming through.
“It’d be nice to do 6am-10pm, even 7am-9pm is not too bad.”
Mr Crone also said customers were still cautious about spending.
“We know that people are doing it tough out there,” he said.
Deutsche Bank retail analyst Michael Simotas said Coles needed to do more to woo customers in its battle with Woolworths.