Page 4145 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 21 September 2011
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MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Leader, ACT Greens) (10.59): It is unfortunate, I believe, that Ms Le Couteur’s motion will be not be supported by the opposition or the government. There are just a couple of matters to address from Mr Seselja’s speech when he tried to make out that this was all the fault of the supermarket policy. The supermarket policy is irrelevant in this debate as it has not been implemented. This is a motion about Giralang, and I do not think I heard Mr Seselja mention Giralang at all. As we know, Giralang has been an issue for seven years.
Mr Seselja: Yes, I did. You weren’t listening. You’ve got to tell the truth, Meredith.
MS HUNTER: Well, if you did, it was in passing because you were—
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Mr Hargreaves): Excuse me, Ms Hunter. Stop the clock, please. Mr Seselja, can I invite you to reflect on your suggestion that Ms Hunter might like to tell the truth? I think that is bordering on something in the unparliamentary comment list. I am not going to call you for it but I would just like to remind you that you are skating very close to the ice. Ms Hunter, you have the floor.
MS HUNTER: As I said, this is about Giralang and what is happening at Giralang. We know that it has been a very sad, sorry tale for seven years. It has been a derelict site. We also, I think, would agree on, and certainly the Greens are out there pushing to get, a good outcome for the people of Giralang. They deserve local shops. Of course, we need to look at that in the context of other shops that are around and that we need to ensure do not suffer because of what may end up happening at Giralang.
We also need to look at the retail hierarchy that the minister spoke about. What does that mean? “Local shops” used to mean a smaller supermarket with maybe a few other businesses alongside. We seem to be moving to a new era which has not taken the community along with us and which seems to lack any consultation with people in those neighbourhoods.
Mr Seselja talked about his motion tomorrow about a select committee, as though he was leading the charge. As we all know, Ms Le Couteur had a motion on the notice paper last month to set up a select committee. So the Greens have not come to this at the last minute. We have been working very hard, and Ms Le Couteur has been working very hard on this issue for a long time now, because the Greens do understand the importance of small business in our community. And we will continue to stand by and work with small businesses—businesses such as the IGAs. These seem to be businesses that Mr Seselja and the Canberra Liberals have abandoned.
As the Greens member for Ginninderra I would like to raise a few issues which have been raised in my electorate relating to the Giralang development proposal. It is clear that the Giralang community is quite split over this issue, which can be easily seen by the fact that there are two residents groups which are vocal on the shops but which fall on different sides of the fence as to whether or not they support this recent proposal.
Both positions are completely understandable. Everyone wants to have a fully functional local shopping centre, one which includes a supermarket, a cafe or a
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