Page 193 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 13 February 2019
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managed over the past two years has resulted in significant losses and downturn for local traders and service providers.
The time for talk is over and it is now time for action, not a half-baked marketing campaign or street party. We do not want a website or social media blitz because businesses can do and are doing that stuff themselves. We want real measures. Clear lessons learnt were offered by the businesses and now it is time to implement them before it is too late. Too many businesses have already suffered, and they are unlikely to recoup what they have lost. We cannot let this drag on any longer. I urge all members of this place to support this motion and implement the lessons learnt from the government’s own business impact report.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (5.02): I got up too soon, because my intention is to support an ALP amendment. I believe there may be one; I am prejudging. However, what I am talking about is generally still relevant.
The issues that Mr Milligan has raised are real ones. When governments deliver infrastructure there is almost always, except at totally greenfield sites, an impact on the businesses that are around the work sites. The light rail is a big project but far from a unique project. The financial impact on the most impacted businesses can be very large. That is absolutely so. The usual pattern is that the biggest impacts happen to those businesses that lose visibility or passing trade. In other cases it is a temporary reduction in parking that causes the impact.
The scale of the works is important but it is not the only thing. Small works like paving upgrades can still have a big impact on those businesses. Many of us remember Tosolini’s, which used to be on Bailey’s Corner. It closed. Then another business took over. I think that other business only opened its doors for about one day. They did a whole fit-out. What sank them, it would appear to me, was the fact that the ACT government was doing what has turned out to be a very nice pavement improvement in front of them, which meant that you certainly were not going to get into their premises by accident.
All I am saying is that the problem of light rail stage 1 is a real problem but a far from unique problem; it is a problem all round Australia. Mr Milligan’s motion raises the case of Sydney’s light rail project. On top of that, a quick Google search by my office highlighted the following other interstate examples over only the last three months: business disruption caused by major rail and road projects in Melbourne, business disruption caused by the North Terrace light rail extension in Adelaide, and business disruption in Tenterfield in rural New South Wales caused by sewerage works partly closing a road.
Mr Milligan’s motion argues that the government should pay compensation to the affected business. The problem with compensation is that, if the government pays compensation for one project, it sets a precedent for other projects. This could quickly become unaffordable and make it very hard for governments to deliver infrastructure and public realm upgrades. This is certainly the view of the New South Wales Liberal government. A Sydney Morning Herald article from 10 December last year quotes the Liberal transport minister as saying about their infrastructure program:
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