In recent months growth in the Australian retail sector has slowed to a crawl, as shop owners struggle with the worst retail sales growth since the famed last recession ofover 28 years ago. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident, than the strip of shops surrounding the local electorate office of Prime Minister Scott Morrison in Cronulla. 

Rather than being the hive of activity one would expect in a relatively prosperous area like the Shire, four out of five of the shops surrounding the PM’s office are empty, marked by with the same ‘For Lease’ signs sitting in the window that have become...