Page 2554 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 31 July 2019
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missed, particularly those businesses that, for whatever reason, be it the light rail or some other reason, may have closed down.
I understand from the government that they believe that they have discharged the requirements of the February motion with the light rail project delivery report released in June. I can see that it does basically meet the requirements of the motion, in that it does have almost a page under the heading “Engagement with business owners”. Clearly, it does not adequately address Mr Milligan’s concerns.
Mr Milligan’s intent—and, to be frank, what I also thought the Greens were voting for in February—was that business owners would be met with again after the commencement of light rail. I also thought this would include meeting with business owners who have closed their businesses and believe that light rail was at least instrumental in that decision. But there is no indication in the light rail project delivery report that this happened.
Doing this work is important for a number of reasons. Firstly, business owners and owners of former businesses deserve being given the respect of having an opportunity to talk to someone about their concerns. Secondly, they may, and probably will, have useful suggestions that can feed into the light rail stage 2 process.
The amendment that I have negotiated with the government will, I hope, deliver what needs to be done. The review will take an extra six months, but I suspect that at this point that is unavoidable, having regard to the outcomes we are looking for. Importantly, the motion text says very explicitly that there will be proactive consultation with local businesses, including those that ceased operation after the start of construction.
It also provides a contact point for businesses who want to discuss their concerns now, so that their views can be fed in to the review. That is good, but I make the point that it is a generic email address and it is really important that somebody actually looks after this address and responds to it. I hope that it does not become a dead-letter box as, unfortunately, it would appear that some email addresses in the ACT bureaucracy and elsewhere have become. If that happens, we will end up here in September with another motion. Quite frankly, there are other matters about which we could move motions.
I have spoken about this with Minister Steel’s office. I am very hopeful that his office appreciates the issues that I am trying to raise here about how the review needs to be taken seriously, and that the email address does not become yet another dead end.
The ALP amendment retains the call from Mr Milligan about reporting back to the Assembly on the scope and methodology of the review. Given that the last go at this has not resulted in what Mr Milligan wanted, I think that is an entirely reasonable statement.
I would like to note a couple of things that the 12-month review will be looking at, as listed in paragraph (1)(f)(iii). These are the areas where we can learn detailed lessons from stage 1 and make sure that they are factored in to stage 2. These are the sorts of
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