by When did Sunday trading start in Victoria? More recently than you might think, and largely due to one stubborn hardware store owner.
From the present day, it is hard to imagine how much activity used to be banned on Sunday.
Until quite recently, nearly everything was closed. Some exemptions were given for businesses deemed crucial, like chemists and petrol stations, but even these often operated on a rotating roster, with only a handful open each weekend.
Outside of that, there was little commercial activity.
And it wasn’t just shops. In the first half of the twentieth century, supermarkets, bars, restaurants, cinemas, and even public buildings like libraries were closed. Footy was only played on Saturday afternoon; in summer, cricket matches had a ‘rest day’ on Sunday, with no play.
This forced inactivity reflects the Christian roots of many western countries, and dates back to the earliest days of the religion.
The Christian Bible begins with the Book of Genesis, where God creates the Heaven and the Earth.
God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.
Genesis, 2:2-3
This set the seventh day of the Christian week, Sunday, as a holy day. Devout Christians would attend church, but would otherwise do little else.
A key moment in the history of Christianity arrived in 312 CE, when the Roman Emperor Constantine converted. Constantine was then the most powerful ruler in the world, his conversion would help transform the religion from a minor cult, to a powerful institution.
The emperor would use his position to remove restrictions on Christian worship, and promote the faith. Among his reforms, in 321 CE he declared Sunday to be a day of rest.
In an era where most common people had few rights, this was gratefully received. Everyone would get a day off.
For many Christians, Sunday inactivity came naturally, as part of their religious practice. But communities would also move to enshrine the principle in law.
In the United States, the first legislation came as early as 1619, when the Jamestown Colony in Virginia made Sunday church attendance compulsory, and drinking and gambling illegal.
Other colonies, and countries, would follow suit, and a growing number of activities would be prohibited. These restrictions came to be known as ‘Blue Laws’, although the origin of the term has been lost.
The first Australian colony to enact a Blue Law was Western Australia, who in 1833 restricted the hours pubs could operate on Sunday. Other states would follow.
By the time of Federation in 1901, most business and organised sporting activities were barred.
The push to ease Blue Laws would come in the second half of the 20th century.
A range of factors was responsible, including the decline of organised religion, greater demand for individual rights, and the desire for more leisure time. And after World War II, society generally became more permissive.
In Victoria, the rollback of Blue Laws would come in stages, with individual restrictions debated, fought over, and eventually removed.
The first major institution to gain permission to open on Sunday was the State Library. Trials of Sunday opening were held in 1904, 1906 and 1944, and were successful, with thousands of people attending.
But these trials only ran for limited periods. Officially they were curtailed due to staff shortages, people did not want to work on Sunday, but the government also had little enthusiasm.
The library would not gain the permanent right to open on Sundays until 1973.
Other changes would progress in the meantime. The service of alcohol had been banned in Victoria on Sunday; this was eased in 1960, when restaurants were allowed to serve it with a meal (bars serving alcohol without food remained prohibited until 1988).
In 1967, cinemas were allowed to trade on Sundays after lunch; across 1969 and 1970 cricket, and then football, was also allowed in the afternoon. The graphic above gives a timeline of the major changes.
One of the last remaining restrictions was Sunday trading, which endured until the 1990s. Enter, hardware store owner Frank Penhalluriack.
Penhalluriack was a local Melbourne man, who had grown up in the city’s eastern suburbs.
He studied construction at Melbourne University, graduating in 1962, then worked in building consultancy, eventually opening his own business. He also dabbled in politics, running unsuccessfully as an Australia Party candidate in Chisholm, in 1974.
Afterwards he visited America, and was greatly impressed by the retail culture he saw there. Particularly ‘big box’ stores, that sold a seemingly limitless number of items, and would usually trade 7 days a week.
America was ahead of Australia in repealing its Sunday restrictions, having started in the early 1960s.
Penhalluriack returned to Melbourne wanting to replicate what he had seen locally. Although he did not have any retail experience, in December 1975 he started a second business: ‘Handyman Supa Mart’, a hardware store at 343–345 Hawthorn Road, Caulfield.
He hoped to cash in on the expanding DIY market, for people working on home repairs and renovations themselves.
The store was initially modest in scale. To help it expand, Penhalluriack opened 7 days a week.
This was not totally unknown at the time, particularly in the hardware business. As most people worked on their DIY projects on the weekend, this was a peak time for sales.
A report in ‘The Age’ newspaper from the mid-1970s noted ‘about 20’ hardware stores across Melbourne, that regularly opened on Sundays. But they normally did this discretely, without drawing attention to themselves.
This was not Penhalluriack’s approach. He felt Sunday trade restrictions were wrong, and was determined to flaunt the rules, promoting his store and advertising its hours.
Shortly after he began, he was fined for violating the state’s trade laws. Penhalluriack ignored the infringement.
Over the ensuing years, Penhalluriack continued to open on Sundays, and would periodically be fined. By January 1982, these had accumulated to a value of $4,000.
Interviewed in The Age he said, ‘I haven’t paid any fines, and I never will’.
While public sentiment regarding Sunday restrictions was shifting, powerful lobby groups still supported the ban. The Catholic Church was opposed to Sunday trading, as were the major unions, fearing employees could be forced to work against their wishes.
The government decided to take a firm line with Penhalluriack.
As he refused to pay his fines, the authorities turned to other means to force compliance. Under the law, police were allowed to seize goods from Penhalluriack’s store, and auction these to the value of his penalties.
They attempted this in early 1982. But while the goods were taken as planned, the resulting auction was a fiasco.
The driveway of the local police station was the site of the craziest auction seen in Melbourne for many years. Someone paid $100 for sandwich plates worth only $17. A jigsaw drill attachment worth only $19.99 was sold for $1,000. Friends and supporters spent up so that most of the stock could be returned to the store.
ABC News
Penhalluriack’s fines were paid, and most of his goods returned to him.
His stance had built quite a following, first among his customers, then the wider community. Penhalluriack noted, when he was open on Sundays, he did more business than the rest of the week combined.
The standoff between the government and the rogue hardware store owner continued over the next two years. Penhalluriack opened on Sundays, the government issued ever larger fines.
He received so many infringement notices, he used them to spell out ‘OPEN WEEKENDS’ on his store front window.
By mid-1984, total infringements and additional penalties had reached $500,000. The police than issued Penhalluriack with a final notice: pay what was owed, or surrender himself to the nearest station.
He chose the latter. Arrested at Caulfield Police Station, he was transferred to Pentridge Prison, and would spend 19 days behind bars.
A cheering crowd of supporters greeted him, when he was released on May 6.
Penhallurick had been to court before, but now focussed on his legal options, lodging an appeal against his fines with the Industrial Court of Victoria.
This would take more than four years to work its way through hearings and appeals, and brought its own controversy. At one point, the President of the court was seen taking tea with industrial inspectors, witnesses in the case, and had to be excused due to a conflict of interest.
The court would eventually find the half million dollar penalty excessive, and quash the associated infringements.
By this time, the government had tired of the fight, finding it embarrassing. Instead, they began to look at amending the law, to allow limited Sunday trading.
Early in 1991, the Kirner Labor government announced that they would trial Sunday trading on 10 weekends, spread throughout the year.
This was slated to start in July, but at the last minute there was a problem. The easing of restrictions was initially based on a government ‘proclamation’, that the rules had changed; a week before this went into effect, the state Supreme Court ruled it invalid.
Sunday trading would have to wait until new legislation passed Parliament.
Many retailers had already prepared to open on Sunday, hiring extra staff and adding more stock. Major names including Myer and Kmart said they would now go ahead and open on Sunday, whether the rules were changed or not.
Legislation was rushed through Parliament, to avoid any further conflict. Sunday trading officially began in Victoria, on 1 September 1991.
As opponents feared, the 10 day trial would just be the beginning.
The following year, stores in the CBD were permitted to open most Sundays. This was further expanded to ‘tourist precincts’ in 1993.
In 1996, Sunday trading was fully legalised, with the exception of select public holidays, including Easter Friday and Christmas Day.
In the present day, Sunday trading is a fixture in modern life: for businesses and punters, the biggest shopping day of the week.
In 2003, the Bracks Labor government reinstated one part of the old bans, outlawing trading on Easter Sunday for businesses with less than 20 employees. The rationale was to ensure workers got an Easter break.
Businesses protested the change. Among these was Frank Penhalluriack, who opened his hardware store on Easter Sunday the following year; he was fined $5000.
