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Policy, Advocacy & Industry Engagement
The National Retail Association Policy Team exists to help retail businesses succeed and grow within an ever-changing regulatory environment.
Our team works with a wide range of industry stakeholders – retailers, government, law enforcement, regulatory bodies, shopping centres, community groups, supporting associations and many more – to develop industry-wide policy platforms or positions on issues of importance to the Australian retail sector.
We work with all retailers across the retail and foodservice industry – regardless of size, category or business model – from the largest department chains to family-run pizza shops. Similar issues affect all retailers every day – such as retail crime, product safety and environmental legislation – and we all benefit from sharing intelligence and real-world experience.
We work actively with governments at international, federal, state and local levels to ensure the interests and needs of the Australian retail and services sectors are protected and promoted. Rather than running from inevitable regulatory change, we provide a bridge between retailers and government – facilitating the exchange of ideas and information which ultimately leads to more informed, commercially-aware outcomes for all parties.
We place real-world insight above all else, so we actively engage with retailers in stores, strip precincts and shopping centres.
The National Retail Association Policy Team are in-house experts with industry-specific knowledge and experience, focused on innovative solutions and positive outcomes for retailers.
We tackle the issues you can’t tackle alone.
Current Activity
Submission: ACT Single-Use Plastics Round 2
The NRA supports the ACT Government’s proposal to ban single-use plastic straws, cotton bud sticks and fragmentable additives, however banning fruit and vegetable produce bags is premature given ACT lacks composting collection, alternatives are limited, hygiene concerns are at a high, and the cost to ACT citizens and farmers could be significant.
Update: QLD Waste Levy increase in effect
To assist businesses in dealing with the financial impacts of COVID-19, the Queensland Government deferred the increase of waste levy rates originally scheduled to take effect from 1 July 2020. A six month deferral to 1 January 2021 was approved. For further information about the waste levy, please visit the Queensland Government website at www.qld.gov.au/wastedisposallevy.
2020-21 Christmas & New Year Trading Hours
The National Retail Association has compiled a factsheet outlining Christmas and New Years trading hours for 2020-21.
Extended Trade: Queen’s Birthday (WA)
The Western Australia Government has approved extended trading hours for general retail stores in Perth metropolitan area for the Queen’s Birthday public holiday on Monday 28 September 2020. These stores will be allowed to open from 8am to 6pm. Normal trading hours for these public holidays are 11am to 5pm. Retailers holding small shop certificates […]
Jopkeeper payment period ends
The JobKeeper Payment will be available from 30 March 2020 until 27 September 2020.
Engaging Real Retailers
The Policy & Advocacy Team
The NRA is currently involved in a wide range of projects, partnerships, working groups and task forces to represent retailer interests:
- Founder of the National Retail Sustainability Committee
- Partnership with the QLD Government to assist retailers to manage and comply with the QLD bag ban (since 2017)
- Partnership with the WA Government to assist retailers to manage and comply with the WA bag ban (since 2018)
- Partnership with the VIC Government to assist retailers to manage and comply with the VIC bag ban
– Department of Environment, Land, Water & Planning (DELWP) (since early 2019)
– Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) Victoria (since Nov 2019) - Partnership with the Department of Health to deliver a retailer engagement and education campaign and online consumer awareness campaign on the ban on cosmetic testing on animals (since July 2020)
- Partnership with the Brisbane City Council to increase reporting of retail crime with the SafeCity Network (since 2018)
- Partnership with Department of Home Affairs to increase shared intelligence, collaboration and vigilance with the Safe Retail Precincts project (since mid-2019)
- Partnership with Maybo to combat retail violence (since June 2020)
- Industry Association Members of the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO)
- Member of 2020 APCO Design Working Group
- Scheme Initiator and Associate Member of the Battery Stewardship Council
- Industry Member of SA Single-Use Plastics Industry Reference Group
- Industry Member of ACT Single-Use Plastics Industry Reference Group
- Industry Member of Qld Single-Use Plastic Stakeholder Advisory Group
- Industry Member of VIC EPA Small Business and Manufacturing Reference Group
- Industry Supporter of Moving the Needle (reduce textile waste) program
- Industry Member of WA Container Deposit Scheme Advisory Group
- Industry Member of TAS Container Deposit Scheme Advisory Group
- Industry Member of VIC Container Deposit Scheme Advisory Group
- Industry Member of past NSW and QLD Container Deposit Scheme Advisory Groups
- Industry Member of Organics Industry Advisory Group
- Industry Member of Organics Industry Standards and Certification Council
- Founder of the National Retail Crime Committee, including 4 state-based committees
- Founder of the National Retail Technical Standards Committee
- Founder of the National Retail Leasing Committee
- Representation on multiple Standards Australia standard working groups eg. button battery safety, fashion labelling
- Industry representative on Federal Home Affairs taskforces eg. COVID Essential Services, TISN
David Stout
Director Policy
National Retail Association
David is a highly-respected senior executive across a wide range of retail sectors including corporate affairs, operations, customer insights, finance, procurement, risk and regulation, stakeholder engagement, community and supply chain. He is favourably regarded as a bipartisan and ethical operative in best practice across retail and corporate industry, regional and urban councils, local and state governments, and is currently involved in multiple advisory groups / committees.
Email: [email protected]ra.net.au
Ebony Johnson
Project Manager, Policy
National Retail Association
As Project Manager in the Policy team, Ebony brings a strong background across the retail, textile, and hospitality sectors in project management, stakeholder relations, marketing and communications. Ebony provides project management expertise to multiple projects, including sustainability, product safety, retail crime and committees.
Email: [email protected]
Lily Charlton
Senior Policy Officer
National Retail Association
Lily Charlton is an experienced policy officer who provides a high level of professionalism and organisation. Lily’s remit oversees the delivery of policy submissions to government, industry committees, industrial commission trading hour applications and supporting government relations. Lily ensures the policy team consistently meets or exceeds key deliverables on a range of NRA projects across sustainability, retail crime, product safety and trading hours.
Email: [email protected]
Bonnie Marshall
Policy Officer
National Retail Association
Before joining the team, Bonnie served 12 years in the Australian Federal Parliament as a Chief of Staff, campaign lead, policy adviser and media and communications manager. She has provided advice on key legislative areas including advanced manufacturing, energy policy, STEM and education, international relations, regional job creation, agriculture and dairy and social issues such as homelessness and women's safety. Currently, alongside her invaluable work for the NRA Bonnie is undertaking a Bachelor of Science, mentoring with Country to Canberra and volunteering with Raise Foundation and Zoe's Organisation.
Email: [email protected]
Lauren McGinty
Policy Officer
National Retail Association
Lauren provides administrative support to the policy department by ensuring data integrity and assisting the team with the strategic integration of project data to achieve high level objectives.
Matt Powers
Policy Officer
National Retail Association
As a specialist in retail, business and operations management, Matt is passionate about fostering centre relationships and engaging in solutions to represent the interests of retailers through excellent communication skills, working collaboratively with the dynamic needs of each business and coordinating best match engagement officers to match these requirements.
Email: [email protected]
Lorna Taylor
Policy Officer
National Retail Association
Lorna Taylor is highly motivated in providing support to retailers. Lorna draws upon her background of legal experience to employ her professional communication and problem-solving skills to various projects within the Policy Team. She is responsible for ensuring that the NRA are across the vast range of grants available to businesses nationally and is working […]
Email: [email protected]
Gail Greatorex
Advisor
National Retail Association
As a specialist product safety advisor, Gail works with our Technical Standards Committee on policy and advocacy. Gail has extensive experience in consumer product safety, as a consultant and with the ACCC, and runs her own business Product Safety Solutions in Melbourne.
Email: [email protected]
Dr Alan Barclay
Health and Nutrition Advisor
National Retail Association
Dr Alan Barclay, the National Retail Association Health and Nutrition Advisor, is an invaluable part of the Policy team and provides evidence-based advocacy in the nutrition space.
Email: [email protected]