New Royal Adelaide Hospital

[mshagg]

For a short period of time I had a job in the transport industry where I would occasionally meet tourists. There was one guy I met from Sydney who had a whinge about the supermarkets closing early on the weekends. A couple of months later I met another male from the gold coast who was in Adelaide for work. He was pretty negative about Adelaide and one of his complaints was regarding the supermakets closing early.

Lol, it's the go-to pot shot for eastern staters who want to bitch about Adelaide but cant actually come up with any legitimate problems having visited here.

"Oh... yeah... well... um... your retail trading hours suck!"

Just spent a weekend in Sydney and was disappointed to find it wasn't the 24 hour grocery shopping extravaganza that some here had lead me to believe. In fact it's predominantly serviced by quickie-marts during weekend evenings/mornings where thankfully I could afford a few necessities, being from the chardonnay set and all.

Yeah the hours need to change and I hope the ALP and the SDA come to their senses on the matter, but it's hardly something which is holding Adelaide back in any significant way. Marshall and the libs have adopted deregulation as party policy. Not sure that's a great deal all things considered.

[OlympusAnt]

Supermarkets used to close at 7pm on every weekday except Thursday, then only be open to 12pm on Saturday and not open on Sunday!!

[bits]

2 minute drive from my house I have a brilliant Drakes supermarket open 7:30am-10pm 7 days a week. I have 2 more good 7 day supermarkets within 5 minute drive of my house open 7am-9pm.

I have an Aldi plus several Woolworth and Foodland stores within 5 minutes drive. They are open the normal 7am-9pm mon-fri 7am-5pm sat and currently 9am-5pm Sun.
If I go for a 10 minute adventure I gather another Aldi and a bunch more Woolworths, Foodland and even finally some Coles stores!

Countless 24/7 service stations with supermarket stock everywhere.

There is just no way I or anyone else require more shopping options because the current options are limiting.
What are people working 14 hour days 7 days a week and need fresh truffles and pureblood wagyu beef every day? Or do they just not realize all the options already surrounding them?
The shop hours are not at all limiting. If I were a tourist, or as normal local, I can go buy any basic item at 3am in the middle of the boring outter suburbs within a very short drive.

Why ruin the social lives and family time of countless workers just for a potential tiny gain in economic growth. Of course at the cost of every small business. Gone is the idea of a weekend and that being a nice time to meet friends and family, as everyone will be at work like a current Monday. Every day is Monday, 7 days a week.

Sounds like the normal arguments for why trade restrictions and penalty rates should be removed. As they are a barrier to slavelike employment and the ability to impulse buy things 24/7 from a large retailer.

Remember when bbc pub thought it was their right to open on a public holiday and profit at the expense of their workers lives? They could just close on public holidays but they open because public holidays are so busy, turns out everyone else has the day off, but they only want everyone else in the state to have the day off not their staff.
Then they couldn't even math right and assumed their elect, gas, water, rates, taxes, insurance, profit margins, food, licensing etc also got paid overtime on public holidays.

[Llessur2002]

Having worked in a supermarket for a few years a decade or so ago I would say that, management aside, at least 50% of evening and weekend workers (and 100% of night replenishment staff - but that's another story) did not work the standard 9-5 Monday-Friday shifts because they couldn't. A lot of the checkout staff were parents working outside of childcare hours, people working second jobs to earn extra cash and students who couldn't work during the day for study reasons. We even had a few retirees who wanted to keep working and socially active.

In fact, I don't remember anyone being told they had to work certain shifts - normally there was enough spread of working hours requested by individual staff to cover all shifts (and this was in a 24 hour store back in the UK). Some people were even contracted to work a mere 2 or 3 hours a day, two or three days per week. Maybe I worked in an unusually flexible store but I don't think it's the dictatorial industry that many opponents of longer opening hours make it out to be.

The only exception to the rule were staff who were contracted on a permanent full-time (i.e. 35 or whatever it was hours per week) basis. I think the only stipulation there was that it was strongly suggested that their working week should include either a Saturday or a Sunday - but never both unless they requested, which some did - with a midweek day off being given in lieu. But I think weekend working is fairly standard for any full-time retail professional.

My point is that even in the evil supermarket industry, very few people are forced to work hours which don't suit them. Extending opening hours would, from my experience, provide additional employment opportunities whose lifestyles, childcare arrangements, study patterns etc would not fit in with the current opening hours.

That aside, I do agree that despite large supermarkets being closed there are still many places to buy all but the more specialist groceries outside of current trading hours. Backpackers and other tourists who arrive late at night shouldn't find much of a problem in purchasing a meal and basic supplies whilst waiting for the supermarket to open again the next day.

[ghs]

I've setup a new thread in the pub section for discussion of shop trading hours. There's a poll
on the thread which allows you to vote on whether trading hours should be deregulated. If
any of the moderators see this post then it would be good to have the recent posts on this thread
moved into the new thread which I've created.

[crawf]

Good!... now let's get on opening up the NRAH

Builders of new Royal Adelaide Hospital face legal bill after losing bitter Supreme Court dispute
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/sout ... 3c5ec26a24

Andrew Hough, The Advertiser

THE builders behind the troubled new Royal Adelaide Hospital face paying millions of dollars extra to fix defects after losing one of its bitter legal disputes with the State Government.

The Government successfully sued the $2.3 billion project’s consortium, SA Health Partnerships, and an independent expert, Steven Goldstein, over four defects and subsequent delays.

The Supreme Court row had centred on whether SAHP or the Government was responsible for deciding when the state’s biggest, and most expensive, major project, was ready to be handed over.

While senior Government sources tonight insisted the judgment would not affect the “technical completion”, the builder now faces having to fix the defects.


The builders behind the new Royal Adelaide Hospital face paying millions of dollars extra to fix defects after losing one of its bitter legal disputes with the State Government.
The defects, including a loading dock 70cm too short, dozens of rooms built the wrong size and incorrect “data” pipes installed, were estimated to cost $10 million to fix.

In its legal victory on Thursday in a case that has triggered a war of words between the parties, SA Health officials successfully sought an injunction against Mr Goldstein, a Sydney building lawyer.

In his 75-page judgment, Justice Malcolm Blue — who banned public viewing of the site during trial — found Mr Goldstein had “no jurisdiction” to adjudicate on the row and ruled his decisions “null and void”.

The builders also face a hefty legal bill after Dick Whitington QC, for the Government, on Thursday sought costs.

He told the court his clients had won every the legal argument bar one point. A hearing will occur next month.

The victory places the Government in a strong position to win its other legal dispute with the consortium, who had sought an urgent injunction to avoid having its contract “terminated”. Justice Blue on Thursday ordered the parties face a trial in February.

Health Minister Jack Snelling tonight welcomed the defect judgment as a “very encouraging step forward”, adding: “(The) ruling confirms what we’ve always said and that is that the contract protects South Australian tax payers”.

An SAHP spokeswoman declined comment.

[rev]

I hate to tell you Crawf but it won't be open any time soon. We'll be lucky if it's open by the end of 2017.

[The Scooter Guy]

I hate to tell you Crawf but it won't be open any time soon. We'll be lucky if it's open by the end of 2017.

Possibly when HQ Complex closes. The sound baffles within the hospital walls probably aren't dense enough to curb the loud rave music.

[rev]

I hate to tell you Crawf but it won't be open any time soon. We'll be lucky if it's open by the end of 2017.

Possibly when HQ Complex closes. The sound baffles within the hospital walls probably aren't dense enough to curb the loud rave music.

You actually can't hear the music from HQ within the hospital.
And HQ closes on January 28(next month).

The hospital wont be open to the public until 2018..very late 2017 at the earliest. Mark my words.

[OlympusAnt]

2018: How convenient