Fairfax published a comment piece today by Michael Pascoe, BusinessDay Contributing Editor, about the decision being faced by the NSW government on where Tatts lottery products can be sold and the lobbying by NSW newsagents for continued protection.
While I agree with some of what Pascoe writes on this topic, his commentary is ignorant in some areas. For example:
Newsagencies are blighted businesses, hundreds joining the thousands of newspaper company employees who have lost their jobs. That’s capitalism for you – things changes, markets are disrupted, opportunities arise and fall. Like the local Blockbuster store, they are collateral damage of our technological evolution. They are no more special than every other business that is special in its way.
I’d prefer Pascoe to have commented that there are newsagents with growing businesses, newsagents who saw the changes coming and fundamentally changed their businesses. In the hands of a good retailer, a newsagency is not a blighted business.
For a long time, the newsagencies were a protected species – as pharmacies still are. They enjoyed a monopoly on newspaper distribution that was eventually broken down by the newspaper publishers. That the business of publishing physical newspapers also is rapidly breaking down is immaterial.
I’d prefer Pascoe to note: deregulation of print media left newsagents disadvantaged, with less control over supply than those they now compete with. We have gone from being protected to being deliberately disadvantaged.
Newsagents used to be a powerful little lobby group, as pharmacy owners still are. They’re not any more, but might be worth a few votes for a policy as vague as an “extended moratorium”.
Pascoe could have noted: attention newsagents have attracted on this issue is more than achieved in recent years.
On the central issue in Pascoe’s piece, I agree – lottery sales need to be considered in the context of a tax, revenue raising for the government. Governments will ultimately choose revenue.
Seems that he has pharmacies in the gun too.