The ACT government's supermarket competition policy ''failed'' the people of Giralang by leaving them without local shops for eight years, according to the chairperson of a Legislative Assembly committee.
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Elsewhere around Canberra, the policy aimed at breaking the grip of Woolworths and Coles has delivered a ''mixed bag of results'' for shoppers, according to the chair of the select committee on supermarket policy, Greens MLA Caroline Le Couteur.
The committee's report, published yesterday, calls on the government to clarify the policy to end uncertainty about the retail ''hierarchy'' of suburban shops.
But the government, which has been trying to use the planning system and ''direct sales'' of land to bring other supermarket operators into the market, signalled yesterday that it was determined to pursue its competition policy.
Ms le Couteur said the regulations for supermarkets were not clear enough and were creating major uncertainty for businesses and local communities. ''The ACT has planning powers obviously, but planning powers regulate the size and how the shopping centre looks, it doesn't regulate who runs the supermarket,'' she said.
''The ACT cannot do the job entirely with planning powers and that's why we said clearly that the ACT government needs to approach the ACCC [Australian Competition and Consumer Commission] and ask them to look at competition issues in supermarkets in the ACT.
''We could certainly say that it needs to be made a lot clearer as to what the policy is, what it means in practice, what it means for individual shopping centres and what the gross floor area of a supermarket actually means.''
The Greens MLA said the policy had failed to achieve a key goal of one of its main architects, the late John Martin. ''We've had to have call-ins of supermarkets and that's not the way we should be having our policy,'' Ms Le Couteur said.
''The major recommendation of the John Martin report, a Supabarn supermarket at Kingston, has still not happened, so the … policy is not working as well as it should be.''
She said the policy had had mixed results but the Belconnen suburb of Giralang had been left without local shops for eight years as legal disputes raged over the redevelopment of the complex.
Treasurer Andrew Barr said that the committee had ''largely'' backed the government approach and signaled his intention to make changes to the policy.
''In the end, the committee report reflects the fact that this is a complex area of policy, but the committee report largely backs the government policy approach and seeks some further information,'' he said.
