Page 2022 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 6 May 2009
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We propose to pursue these initiatives, and I think the motion by Ms Le Couteur is timely, coincidental as it is, with work which we have in hand. It is an issue which we, as a government, have been seeking to grapple with. It is, at one level, quite complex. There are significant policy issues that do need to be grappled with, resolved, and, importantly, acted on. It is an issue we have been discussing for some time. I am at a point, as are my colleagues, where we believe we do need to translate our policy and the views and impressions of the ACCC into some practical outcomes. It is in that vein that I am very pleased that Ms Le Couteur has proposed this motion today.
The minister has suggested some amendments, which I believe are well based and are worthy of serious consideration. But I did want to just put on the record today this government’s very strong desire to work with other members of the Assembly to achieve a practical outcome, which is what I think the Greens are suggesting through this motion. They wish to achieve an outcome which I believe is an outcome we are intent on pursuing and bringing to some conclusion as soon as possible.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (5.10): I do congratulate Ms Le Couteur for bringing forward this important issue. It is an issue that has occupied my mind for some time and, as a member for Ginninderra, the specific issues in relation to Giralang have been significant and ongoing for that electorate and for that part of my electorate. I am sure that the Chief Minister and other members will remember the “no shops, no school, no vote” signs that went up in Giralang and surrounding areas in 2006.
The people of Giralang have struggled along for quite some time now without a local shop. Going back through my records of when this issue first arose, it seems to me to have been about 2003. There had been some history in the ACT of local shops going bad and falling into decline. That has caused, for local communities, considerable problems over the years, going back to the late 1990s. But in all of that it is not inevitable that the shops at local centres must go into decline and must go bad.
There are some standout examples. Mr Barr referred to his own shops at Ainslie. There are local centres which specialise in particular ways. The Griffith shops would be a great example. The Florey shops have always been very vibrant shops from the time that they were developed, even though that was at a time when we generally saw a decline in local centres.
We saw the demise of the Latham shops, which was a considerably contentious issue. But at the same time that the Latham shops were going into decline and the Giralang shops were going into decline, we saw the intervention of an innovative entrepreneur into the Melba shops, which turned it round from a burnt-out hulk, with one takeaway that had held on and held on. It had been a great set of shops when I first moved to Melba in 1981. It went into decline but somebody innovative came along. Now not only is every shop that was originally there operating and prospering but there are two extra shops that have been built by this entrepreneur.
So it is not inevitable that local shops will go into decline; it is about how they are managed. I think that this is one of the issues that have been of most concern to the people of Giralang. I think that we have not, as a community, been innovative enough in assisting communities like Giralang to maintain their shops.
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