Caroline Le Couteur, ACT Greens business spokesperson, is astounded that the Government has issued notices for small businesses in Garema Place to remove their racks from outside.

“People like the diversity that the shops in Garema Place bring to the city, and to Canberra generally,” Ms Le Couteur said today.

“It’s shocking that the Government would think it appropriate to serve up a ‘final notice’ without one iota of consultation with the businesses themselves beforehand.

“Does this mean that the Government would like all businesses in the city to be “mall-ified”, even when they are in our open pedestrian mall areas, which have ample space for pedestrians?

“It is ironic that it is Canberra CBD Ltd which collects a levy from all Civic retailers (via landlords) which is complaining about the ‘clutter’. This ‘clutter’ is what makes Civic a bit more interactive, and brings life out onto the streets.

“This is compounding the problems that traders in the area have already been experiencing with the replacement street furniture in the area, which made the place look uninviting and like a construction site for almost 2 months.

“It is also disturbing that some of these same businesses have attempted to gain approval to display products outside, but the Government were unable to find a way of approving this.

“Does the Government have any understanding at all about the challenges for small businesses to compete with the larger chain stores in malls as it is, without the Government making it more difficult?”

“This is an appropriate issue to raise with small businesses at the Small Business Consultative Forum which the Government is organising next month as a delivery item of the ACT Labor-Greens Parliamentary Agreement and I will be writing to the Minster requesting an invitation to the forum and the inclusion of this issue on the agenda.” Ms Le Couteur said.

Greens MLA for Molonglo, Caroline Le Couteur has again joined Kingston businesses to call for the watering and maintenance of the Green Square lawn to be considered a basic service.

“Green Square has been part of Kingston Shops for a long time. But suddenly the Government had a plan to change things, and when the people of the area object, the businesses of Kingston are told they are the ones who will have to pay every cent of its up-keep,” Ms Le Couteur said.

“TAMS has slowly been handing over basic services like looking after the planter boxes in Civic, and we have even heard that there are moves to hand over essential services like street cleaning to CBD Ltd to pay for. We don’t want to see this extended to Kingston, the businesses of Kingston should not have to pay for a useable lawn for the community to share.

“We don’t agree with Mr Stanhope’s suggestion that pebbles and spiky dry grasses are a suitable replacement for a communal lawn and think the Government should maintain grass for appropriate and popular public amenity, and in this case, it’s very little water for two small grass areas.

“Perhaps the $10,000 a year could be found by taking a tiny portion of the seemingly endless funding for Mr Stanhope’s Arboretum,”

“But it would be more appropriate to give the businesses free water tanks for their rooves than expecting them to continually pay for water tankers to drive around with water.

“It’s also worth mentioning that the Government has agreed to put a new Library in Kingston, and we think that maintaining the grass for kids to play on as well would be appropriate.” Ms Le Couteur said.

The ACT Greens successfully led a motion through the Assembly this week calling on the Government to ensure its planning and supermarket policies will protect small businesses from an expanding supermarket oligopoly. The motion, with a minor amendment by the Government, gained unanimous support.

“The Greens strongly support small and local businesses.” ACT Greens Spokesperson for Business and Economic Development, Caroline Le Couteur MLA, said today.

“Locally owned small businesses give back to the community in ways that big businesses just can’t, yet there is a serious danger in Canberra that they will be squeezed out by supermarket giants. This would have a bad impact on all of us.”

“The Government needs to rapidly implement the ACCC recommendations, which state that consideration of good competition principles should be part of planning decisions.”

The Government has agreed to expedite the release of its updated Supermarket Policy.

This issue is highlighted by the current situation at Giralang, where residents are stuck in limbo without any shops. The site owner has applied to build a large new supermarket expected to be leased to Woolworths. This proposal is too large for a local centre and would lead to major traffic problems for Giralang. It could also lead to the slow death of other shops in Belconnen.

“The Government needs to make a clear statement on its policy so the right development is able to progress.”

“The Greens want Giralang residents to have a working shopping centre and we know that a number of small retailers would like to establish new shops there, but the property owner is holding out to sell the property to a larger developer.”

“We want to see a win/win scenario for the residents of Giralang and the rest of Belconnen.” said Ms Le Couteur.