I spent the best part of the morning at the Melbourne hearing of the Productivity Commission Inquiry into Retail Tenancies in Australia. My presentation was one of four scheduled for today. I covered, in part, the follow-up submission provided to the Commission earlier this week. While this has been put on behalf of newsXpress, I’d expect it to reflect what newsagents more broadly would want put.
I’d note that the ANF, NANA, QNF and VANA have all actively participated in the process. Plenty of newsagent voices are being heard.
I was particularly heartened by the questions from the Inquiry. I felt a genuine effort to understand the challenges faced by newsagents with current shopping centre lease arrangements. I look forward to the next draft report from the Commission on this matter.
For a brief moment this morning I got to touch on a topic dear to my heart, Australia Post. This was in response to a question and my departure from the terms of relevant to answering the question. The more we seize opportunities to tell the story of how this government owned retail network is stalking newsagents the better.
It is not too late for newsagents to seek to make in-person submissions. If you have a lease store which is relevant to other newsagents, consider applying to be heard at a public hearing. The details are on the PC website.
Thanks Mark for doing this. In Qld we can of course look at the other shops leases but this requires us to spend time and money getting them pulled from files. It still pains me that the PO (privately owned) gets a rent rebate. It still pains me that after 12 months we cant stop the rain from falling inside our shop! Ah the joys of small business versus big. I took the liberty of emnailing the Federal; Minister on this topic the other day when the results were announced. I’ll let you know what if anything he says.
Cheers