EXTENDING Sunday trading hours may cause “significant damage to society” according to a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Perth.
State Commerce Minister Michael Mischin is considering extending working hours on Sundays in Perth by an additional two hours last week.
Sunday trading in Perth has operated from 11am for the past year, but the Minister is weighing up whether shops should open their doors at 9am.
In a statement, the Archdiocesan spokesman said the change would have a major impact on families.
“People, and especially families, need time to rest and relax together in order to nurture and sustain strong family bonds,” he said.
“The gradual whittling away of a common time when the majority of people are able to attend to this important dimension of their lives may enable the retail sector to increase its profits, but this may come at a significant cost to our society.
“Extending Sunday trading hours has in places also diminished the rights of employees, some of whom have experienced penalties by their refusal to work longer hours.”
Full-time university student Chitalu Kapambwe, who has worked in a nursing home on weekends for the past three years, told The Record her working hours are problematic.
“It is difficult for me to attend Mass… I have university the whole week and I only get to work over the weekend,” she said.
“I had to talk to my manager to drop one Sunday so I can go to church every alternate week.”
With her family in Zambia, Ms Kapambwe has to work on weekends in order to pay for her living expenses.
State president of the National Civic Council Frank Lindsey said an extension of Sunday trading would have several undesirable effects.
“The extension to trading hours, on a Sunday in particular, would further the destruction of common time, by which I mean the time which is available to the community to participate in collective activities such as sport,” he said.
“Collective activities are, by definition, dependent upon participants having common time away from work in order to participate in them and are important to the development of social capital, especially in children.”
But Mr Lindsey said it was almost inevitable that Mr Mischin would decide in favour of extending Sunday work hours.