Page 200 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 13 February 2019
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Here, today, we had the opportunity to do something good. We had the opportunity to implement practical strategies to help local businesses weather a storm that has been created by this government. We had the opportunity to show that government reports and bureaucratic reviews are not just an academic exercise or a waste of time, that we listen, we understand and we act. But no, no surprises here from this government. They promise the world and deliver nothing.
The amendment put forward by Minister Steel is nothing but a slap in the face to local businesses. Noting that light rail stage 1 has provided economic benefit to the community is a simplistic way to describe the two-sided impact of this project. Certainly there has been an increase in construction and engineering jobs associated with this project but the impact on traders, retail businesses and service providers has been extreme. And we are not talking about a short-lived disruption. We are talking about two years of noise, dirt and dust that has driven away the custom of so many businesses. Telling us you have made significant progress is yet another smack to local residents and businesses. We know how far the project has come. We have to drive past it every day.
The amended motion says that you will continue to update the community. The update should be simple. We all want to know when the project will be completed and business can start to return to some kind of normality.
The amendment also mentions specific government-funded communication. In your own report, 68 per cent of businesses rated the communication to date as not useful at all. That is damming. Again, the government’s own report highlights that 84 per cent of respondents said their own adjustments were of better value than the so-called specific communications and industry collaboration provided by the government. Again, what does this say about this government’s ability to support business?
Business wants practical steps to be taken for the things that government can control: the roadworks, construction scheduling, rates and fees. And here the amended motion from Mr Steel points to changes implemented on other infrastructure projects and points to the way the Sydney and Melbourne buildings in the city have had naked fencing and bespoke signage, window cleaning and social media videos. That all sounds good and we hope that those businesses are seeing some benefit from those efforts. But with all due respect, the targeted efforts for an inner city project do not help the traders in my electorate. Perhaps if Mr Steel and his colleagues visited the businesses in the Gungahlin town centre on Franklin Road and in Mitchell they would understand that naked fencing and bespoke signage or whatever other hipster words they want to use are too little, too late for businesses in Yerrabi.
The Labor-Greens government may want to pretend that they are doing what is required, but this could not be further from the truth. They can stand here and say they are implementing the lessons. I am sorry, but that is not true. Businesses all along the light rail corridor want them to prioritise business districts and actually finish the area. Why, after months of empty promises, is the Gungahlin town centre still a construction site? Why are there still bollards, closed streets and dug-up pathways?
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