Few people are aware that WA's shopping regulations, some of the most restrictive in the world, are race-based.

The laws had their genesis in the competition posed by Chinese shopkeepers to the colonial shop owners in the 1890's.

The colonials, incensed that the Chinese shopkeepers kept working after they stopped work at dusk to down a few pink gins, lobbied the government of the day to bring in the original restrictions under what became known as the Early Closing Act.

Speaking to the 1897 bill, MLC Frederick Crowder backed the shopkeepers' ploy of using the state to outlaw competition, when he said: "The true reason for bringing forward this bill is the desire of the large shopkeepers to stifle competition and stop the Chinese trading."

"Asiatics no doubt should not compete with Europeans."

Other speakers referred to the "unfair" competition posed by the Chinese because could "live on a bowl of rice a day and the smell of an oily rag".

The original law has evolved into a bureaucratic nightmare of regulations. The law does not apply above the 26th parallel nor does it apply to areas designated as holiday resorts. Another regulation allows shops to open if they have not more than ten staff in the shop.

Hence while most Perth shops are forced to close on Sunday, shops in Perth's southern suburb of Rockingham have unrestricted trading because it is a designated holiday area.

The result today of this mess is that a small number of traders, particularly independent supermarket owners, are making a healthy profit out of a government-enforced monopoly. 

This vocal minority has engaged some high-profile lobbyists to trumpet how they will be flattened by the "big boys" if their monopoly is taken away.

But Coles and Woolworths have between them around 740,000 shareholders with less than 5,000 shares (the so-called mum and dad investors) while on the other hand  the independent supermarkets are quietly being bought out by a group of wealthy business migrants. 

In a superb irony one of Kenya's richest businessmen, an "Asiatic", now owns five Perth supermarkets that enjoy a government licence to trade on Sundays, while two public companies, largely owned by ordinary Australian workers via superannuation funds and direct investment, face heavy penalties if they open their doors. All thanks to the Early Closing Act that sought to restrict the "Asiatics" from trading while favouring the locals.