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Perth is the most isolated capital city in the world. That
might help explain why its citizens live in a strange time warp.
Concurrent with the state election on 26 February, 2005, West
Australian electors were asked to vote on their attitude to the
state's archaic, restrictive, race-based trading laws.
The nanny government of Geoff Gallop didn't want to shock the
local yokels by asking if they wanted unrestricted shopping hours like
the rest of the world. They were simply asked whether they would like the
opportunity to shop until 9 pm on weekdays and for six hours on
Sundays.
This was far too radical an idea for the good citizens of
Western Australia - they voted against the proposed changes.
The enlightened citizens of WA have no problem with nightclubs
selling alcohol all through the night to hordes of drunken louts.
And they are quite happy with Kerry Packer's casino,
perched on the edge of the central city, selling prodigious
quantities of alcohol while
stripping the wages from mug punters twenty four hours a day, seven days
a week.
But they find it is pushing the boundary too far to allow a family
to shop for a refrigerator after dark.
One of the privileged supermarket owners allowed to trade on
Sundays put his business on the market. He received an offer just
before the vote. He stalled on accepting the offer. As soon as the
referendum was was won (for him) he jacked up the asking price of
his store by $300,000, confident in the knowledge that his
government-enforced monopoly would continue.
T
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