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Being allowed to run pharmacies is something the supermarkets have been pushing for some time, and the government recently started the debate going again, in the context, perhaps, of all the other changes they are going to make with the absolute power that senate control has brought them. 'More competition' 'cheaper drugs' the supermarkets trumpet, and who could argue with that? All care will be taken, they promise, qualified pharmacists running them. 'Yeah, not', as my daughter would say.
It's all a bit like Telstra privatisation in a different form really. You make the promises, you get your way with your ideologically driven agenda, and then you find that services will be reduced in the name of cost and efficiency and profit. How long before having to have a qualified pharmacist was painted as being too much regulation for the good of business? How long before the range of stock carried was reduced to just the most profitable items? How long before prices were raised again in the name of profit? But in the mean time the local chemist shop will have followed butchers and bakers and greengrocers into oblivion. Competition to this government always seems to mean the need for big businesses to gobble up all competitors, especially the small ones.
Not so bad in the cities perhaps. But in the smaller country towns the loss of more and more small businesses is impacting on the quality of life. When I was growing up my family knew all the local shopkeepers. Their children had gone to school with me. There was time to exchange news and gossip, and if my mother didn't have enough change in her purse the butcher or greengrocer would always trust her until the next day. At the chemist shop they knew my grandmother's ailments, who her doctor was, what medicines she was taking, when she had last had a refill. Important quality control to prevent accidents all part of what we used to expect in the way of service from shopkeepers.
This government seems more interested in helping big business make ever bigger profits than in nurturing the quality of life in country towns.
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