Page 1871 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 22 June 2021

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two days it was forced to shut it down with the Minister saying the Government had underestimated demand and there were problems with the system’s database and capacity;

(d) pressure tests were conducted to check if the crashed scheme could be revived;

(e) businesses pulled out of the scheme saying the system was unreliable and had caused too much distress for staff and customers;

(f) just 24 hours after ChooseCBR was relaunched last Friday, the allocated funds were exhausted;

(g) serious questions have been raised about the scheme’s integrity such as how it was monitored to ensure vouchers were not misused and people were doing the right thing;

(h) before the launch, the Canberra Liberals raised concerns with the Minister’s office about how auditing would be conducted so Canberrans could have confidence in the scheme’s integrity;

(i) it is unclear if the $2 million went to businesses that genuinely needed support;

(j) some businesses put in more than 15 hours of work to be eligible for the scheme only to receive $20 or $50 benefit; and

(k) the Canberra Liberals support measures that genuinely help our 30 000 small businesses which employ one in four Canberrans, but the Minister must be upfront with the community about how the scheme operated; and

(3) calls on the ACT Legislative Assembly to write to the ACT Auditor-General by the end of this sitting week requesting he conduct a comprehensive audit of ChooseCBR including but not limited to:

(a) which businesses benefitted and by how much;

(b) how many people benefitted and by how much;

(d) what times of the day and night vouchers were redeemed; and

(e) administrative and marketing costs as well as the costs of designing the website and fixing the raft of technical problems.

Mr Assistant Speaker, with apologies to Charles Dickens, the tale of ChooseCBR reads like a tale of two schemes—one last December, the failed trial, and one this month, the apparent success story. When you reflect on what we know, with a healthy dollop of government spin thrown in, it does not pass the sniff test, as some might say.

Let us start with last December’s trial. I labelled it a dud and a harebrained scheme when only 336 businesses signed up for the program, and with just $310,000 redeemed, even though the government had allocated half a million dollars over three weeks. You cannot accuse the government of not promoting the scheme, given the spend on administration and marketing costs was a staggering $123,000.

Fast forward to June 2021 and you have the government’s revamped ChooseCBR scheme, which the government would have Canberrans believe was a raging success.

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