14 September 2016

Another kick in the guts for Giralang

| Andrew Zed
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Giralang shops

Now the cat is out of the bag it’s clear that the whole debacle of the Giralang shops has been a win for business owners at the expense of Giralang residents.

Metchash (owners of IGA Evatt) and the previous owners of Supabarn Kaleen (current owners of Supabarn Crace) have benefited from 12 years of no nearby supermarket competition. Even better for them, this situation will continue indefinitely and at least for another year as there are still no shops in place.

Former site of bench seats

Whilst the shops are the most obvious example, the neglect of the Giralang suburb extends to many other areas. Maintaining the suburb has been ignored to the point where in the whole suburb there is now not one single bench and table to picnic at, the public phone has been removed, sports seating has been removed and there have been no new trees planted in the last year. Removal of dangerous trees has now been reduced to lopping all limbs off and leaving the trunks in place. There’s more but I have probably got the point across. ACT government data exists and confirms these points.

Unrepaired cover

The ACT Government’s way of doing things has been reprehensible leaving the whole suburb in a continued state of neglect for the last 12 years. The average time for responses to emails, calls and letters is THREE MONTHS. Many points of contact have not got any response. Reply letters have included contrary statements and Andrew Barr has gone from publicly stating that he supports the outcome from the courts i.e. the current DA, to supporting a compromise outcome.

The compromise outcome which is yet to be revealed to Giralang residents was the result of private meetings that Mick Gentlemen set up between the developers and opposing businesses. They’re all happy now but Giralang residents are still in the dark.

After being left to rot there’s not much hope that change will come soon. Considering the years of rates increases for degrading services, local anger at the ACT Government and Labor is now RED HOT!

graffiti

It’s no wonder that in the whole of Giralang all Labor candidate signs have gone missing.

This situation would not have been tolerated in any affluent suburb but once again the battlers just get a kick in the guts.

Giralang bus shelter

The upside is that soon Giralang residents will be able deliver their verdict. Labor has been giving us the cold shoulder for a looooooooong time. I hope they are paying attention and won’t miss the message from Giralang’s residents, rate payers and tax payers.

Pictured from top, the Giralang shops; former bench seat site: “We used to have bench seats here. You can see them on Google maps images,” Andrew Zed says; an unrepaired cover: “This dangerous cover is unrepaired after 5 months.”; graffiti in Giralang: “This graffiti has not been removed and it’s now 8 years old. There plenty more around the suburb too.”; a bus shelter at Giralang: “When other suburbs had all their turret-style bus shelters replaced we go this. It was missing panels and has remained filthy since installation. TAMS acknowledge this and have left it unrepaired for 5 years.”; and below, “non-removal” of dangerous trees. “TAMS data shows no new tree planting have occurred in the last year and only 50 trees have been planted in the last 6 years. No data exists for plantings before 6 years back but there is no evidence of plantings in the prior 6 years.”

Limbs removed from dangerous tree Limbs removed from dangerous tree

Andrew Zed is a Giralang resident/rates payer/taxpayer.

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JC said :

What exactly do you want the government to do about the Giralang shops? They have bent over backwards in support of the original proposal (even been accused by the opposition of wrong doing in that process), they and the developer have been taken to the high court by neighbouring shops (one of which has since sold out to Coles) and now they have won the case the planned major tenant is in corporate strife and has decided not to go ahead with the lease, doubly so now that the closest supermarket is now a Coles. (kind of shows how concerned about competition the previous owner was hey?). I frankly fail to see how much more support the government could actually legally give.

Yes originally the ACT Govt did support the 1,500m2 centre using their call in powers. They have since done a complete backflip (after the centre was already half built). They have even gone to the extent of bringing in a special law to target Giralang such that ANY changes to the original DA require it be downsized to 1,000m2. I have it in writing from Barr that their government OPPOSES our approved 1,500m2 centre and wants it downsized to 1,000m2. Thus ensuring a viable tenant unlikely.

So, what do I expect Labor to do about the Giralang shops? Stop opposing our approved DA, just for starters, and repeal or amend the 1,000m2 law intended to target Giralang (many many other surrounding suburbs have had much larger local shops pop up in the time being).

And the ACT Government was NOT taken to court by the opponents, according to the many letters I have from Barr etc, which state that they were not a party to the court proceedings and therefore claimed to be helpless. The ACT Government did nothing to help Giralang in the legal process; if you are relying on Jayson Hinder’s recent letter that the ACT Govt had “won” the court case for Giralang that is a lie according to Barr. The court process was between the developer and the competing commercial interests and the ACT Government chose not to intervene (eg amend legislation to throw out the challenge) for reasons unknown to Giralang residents. Perhaps it was something related to why the ACT Government favoured Supabarn, opponents of our shops, when granting new sites in the north?

What exactly do you want the government to do about the Giralang shops? They have bent over backwards in support of the original proposal (even been accused by the opposition of wrong doing in that process), they and the developer have been taken to the high court by neighbouring shops (one of which has since sold out to Coles) and now they have won the case the planned major tenant is in corporate strife and has decided not to go ahead with the lease, doubly so now that the closest supermarket is now a Coles. (kind of shows how concerned about competition the previous owner was hey?). I frankly fail to see how much more support the government could actually legally give.

Word from our local “representative” who is Missing In Action, #JaysonHinderMIA, he has had plenty of meetings with the developer and now we have to wait for a new DA for the shops. That’s some sorta help that he is working behind the scenes to get a new DA that will be smaller and less viable. He really has our interests at heart.

He also has come up with $200,000 for refurbishing the community after it appears that the ONLY people he talked to were the Giralang PS community. Not a single community consultation has been publicly convened apart from this afternoon- 4 days before the election. How convenient that its being held at 3pm- 6pm. That’s really accessible for people traveling home from their job- like me.

The pork barrelling is set aside for a new park and playground which I have no doubt will only cater to 0-3 year old kids. I made formal submissions for a park which went unanswered and theres also interest for a skate park. Some of the money is being allocated to fix footpaths and cycle paths. HELLO I’m already paying rates for this so am I supposed to be enthused an announcement that I will receive the services that have been neglected for over 12 years? Some cash also goes to making Girlang PS children safer when walking to school when most children can get to school not crossing a single road as theres lots of underpasses and previously Giralang PS had the biggest Walking School Bus in the ACT!

It’s no surprise that as Labor candidate signs in Giralang get put up, they are quickly taken down.

What a joke. 12 years of neglect and we are thrown a biscuit one week before the election. #JaysonHinderMIA expect that your hand is gonna get bitten cause the reek of corruption is worse than smelly old socks AND THEY NEED TO BE CHANGED!!!!!!!

Andrew Zed said :

Maya123 said :

If the residents will support the local shops they do okay. Look to the inner suburban shops as proof of that. Griffith is a case in point. Even more down market (lower) Narrabundah (where the shops are) is doing relatively okay. And remember these shops have Manuka and Kingston shops not far away as competition, but they have survived. But if the local residents think a mall is better to go to then the local shops won’t do okay, and I suspect that in some suburbs too many residents do prefer the mall and bypass the local shops. It has a lot to do with attitude of the people living in the area. Even if ‘you’ want to go to local shops and will support them, the shops need more than a few people with this attitude to survive.

That may seem appropriate however its a different kettle of fish when the supermarket is owned by the lesee/ developer. The previous shopping centre was operated by Nikias who allowed the centre to become run down whilst jacking up rents for shop tenants. When the tenants were granted no lease extensions or moved out as rent was too high then this is used as justification that the shops are not viable and units are the only appropriate development. This is the road we are traveling once again. A small supermarket will fail and be used as justification to be converted to units.

This all has been flagged by Giralang residents to the ACT government but they have done ZERO to prevent it happening.

Meanwhile the suburb is neglected of maintenance of basic services/ infrastructure and even the Minster for Urban Renewal, Andrew Barr, has no plan for the suburb. Rates keep going up, services are down, Jayson Hinder is MIA and Barr smiles like a clown.

Good points, and this is likely the Giralang experience, but I was making a more generic reply to the comments about many shopping centres failing in so called ‘older’ (all is relative 🙂 ) suburbs. I failed to make this clear though. I don’t know who owns the shops in my examples of Griffith and Narrabundah, but I do know it isn’t necessarily always the shop operator.

Maya123 said :

If the residents will support the local shops they do okay. Look to the inner suburban shops as proof of that. Griffith is a case in point. Even more down market (lower) Narrabundah (where the shops are) is doing relatively okay. And remember these shops have Manuka and Kingston shops not far away as competition, but they have survived. But if the local residents think a mall is better to go to then the local shops won’t do okay, and I suspect that in some suburbs too many residents do prefer the mall and bypass the local shops. It has a lot to do with attitude of the people living in the area. Even if ‘you’ want to go to local shops and will support them, the shops need more than a few people with this attitude to survive.

That may seem appropriate however its a different kettle of fish when the supermarket is owned by the lesee/ developer. The previous shopping centre was operated by Nikias who allowed the centre to become run down whilst jacking up rents for shop tenants. When the tenants were granted no lease extensions or moved out as rent was too high then this is used as justification that the shops are not viable and units are the only appropriate development. This is the road we are traveling once again. A small supermarket will fail and be used as justification to be converted to units.

This all has been flagged by Giralang residents to the ACT government but they have done ZERO to prevent it happening.

Meanwhile the suburb is neglected of maintenance of basic services/ infrastructure and even the Minster for Urban Renewal, Andrew Barr, has no plan for the suburb. Rates keep going up, services are down, Jayson Hinder is MIA and Barr smiles like a clown.

Jayson Hinder, Labor MLA and resident of Giralang, has chosen this time to display political signage near the Kaleen group centre that he is “Better for Kaleen”. No Giralang supportive signs have been sighted.

If the residents will support the local shops they do okay. Look to the inner suburban shops as proof of that. Griffith is a case in point. Even more down market (lower) Narrabundah (where the shops are) is doing relatively okay. And remember these shops have Manuka and Kingston shops not far away as competition, but they have survived. But if the local residents think a mall is better to go to then the local shops won’t do okay, and I suspect that in some suburbs too many residents do prefer the mall and bypass the local shops. It has a lot to do with attitude of the people living in the area. Even if ‘you’ want to go to local shops and will support them, the shops need more than a few people with this attitude to survive.

The hits just keep coming as the prophecy come true…..now Nikkias has said they want smaller shops. This will be the same tactic as the last shops- make them unviable and then look to replace the lot with shops.

MLA Jason Hinder lives in Giralang and his silence and lack of representation during this whole saga shows he is either crap at his job or really doesn’t give a flying f@ck about the suburb he lives in.
#JasonHinderMIA
#JasonHinderNOTBetter For Giralang
#DontVoteLabor

Robert Issell said :

This neglect of older established suburbs is going on all over Canberra. Ask the question why? The government focus is purely on the new suburbs and looking after the tourist, and not the people who count, those who live in the suburbs and pay ever increasing rates to keep this city going. Now they want more elected representatives to promise more and deliver less. Wake up Canberra. Your Vote does count. Pick any older established suburb and you will find the same issues of neglect.

I can see this neglect in plenty of suburbs so I have no llusion that Giralang is an exception in this case.

Giralang is exceptional in that the the neglect has coincided with a development process that has been corrupted. The ACT government has dropped the ball on many occasions, the back room deals that have happened have worked counter to completion of the shops.

The situation really shows that the ACT government does NOT always work in the best interests of rate payers/ tax payers. Business interests and old mates get specials deals. The rest of us, especially if you’re not in well heeled suburbs, get mushroom treatment at best and long term neglect at worst. The ACT government should be held accountable. There’s plenty of options apart from the major parties and each vote they don’t get means they get less tax payers money.

Grail said :

There are no “savings” from not building the light rail, sorry. It produces income, hospitals do not.

Only produces income if it’s got decent patronage, and looking at the low level of public transport use throughout the ACT, it won’t be producing income, it will just be offsetting substantial expenses.

Hospitals don’t generate income (or revenue offsets), but have probably got a more reliable demand. I can choose my method of transport, but if I suffer a significant injury? I know where I’d prefer my money to be going. If anyone could provide an estimate of when the light rail income compared to the investment will break even, I’d be keen to hear about it.

@TuggLife – thanks for the feedback. I like shirts.

pajs said :

Robert Issell said :

This neglect of older established suburbs is going on all over Canberra. Ask the question why? The government focus is purely on the new suburbs and looking after the tourist, and not the people who count, those who live in the suburbs and pay ever increasing rates to keep this city going. Now they want more elected representatives to promise more and deliver less. Wake up Canberra. Your Vote does count. Pick any older established suburb and you will find the same issues of neglect.

Pretty easy to refute this claim by pointing to examples of Government-funded revitalisation of local shops in established suburbs. For example, this year, the shops at Cook.

Nice word that, “revitilasiation”. Is that a facelift ? Not many in Tuggeranong that I can remember being “revitalised”.

Oh, except a few years back, Chisholm shops was revitalised with a few plants (now mostly dead because they were not maintained), some mulch (which has now mostly blown away) and they put some varnished wooden boards around the metal poles that support the awning. Unfortunately, the varnish has degenerated because it was not been maintained. A pretty cheap and nasty “revitalisation” by the ACT Labor/Greens Govt.

Robert Issell said :

This neglect of older established suburbs is going on all over Canberra. Ask the question why? The government focus is purely on the new suburbs and looking after the tourist, and not the people who count, those who live in the suburbs and pay ever increasing rates to keep this city going. Now they want more elected representatives to promise more and deliver less. Wake up Canberra. Your Vote does count. Pick any older established suburb and you will find the same issues of neglect.

Pretty easy to refute this claim by pointing to examples of Government-funded revitalisation of local shops in established suburbs. For example, this year, the shops at Cook.

Robert Issell2:45 pm 16 Sep 16

This neglect of older established suburbs is going on all over Canberra. Ask the question why? The government focus is purely on the new suburbs and looking after the tourist, and not the people who count, those who live in the suburbs and pay ever increasing rates to keep this city going. Now they want more elected representatives to promise more and deliver less. Wake up Canberra. Your Vote does count. Pick any older established suburb and you will find the same issues of neglect.

I lived in Giralang for 10 years and have kids at the school for another 5 years. To be honest I’ve changed my mind on the shops several times. For the first few years it was about the right shops and right sort of development. As time wore on it became a case of any shops would do, so long as the mess was cleaned up and we had some sort of amenity.

It’s a shame that Woolies have pulled out – but these days, from a purely selfish point of view, I don’t want apartments literally on the school grounds…

Grail said :

There are no “savings” from not building the light rail, sorry. It produces income, hospitals do not. Spend $700M on light rail, you get a steady income. Spend $700M on two hospitals (how much of a hospital do you get for $350M?), you get a steady cost added to the health budget.

Re savings. Correct. Rather, I suppose what the Libs are saying is that they will redirect those notional “savings: into Health.

But, as well as the b$1.78 over the life of the tram stage 1 contract, ACT Labor/Greens will outlay another m$650 on the Hospital. Where is that $ coming from.

Additionally, trams stage 2 has not been costed so voters can assess budget impact.

So, just on those 2 Labor/Greens promises alone (Hospital spending and Tram stage 2), the Libs are light years behind ACT Labor/Greens in spending Ratepayers $. Someone has to pay for the promises by both parties. Guess who…….

rommeldog56 said :

Grail said :

Just be aware that if you vote Liberal they will be taking even more money from the budget to fund two new private hospitals.

I thought the Libs said that the 2 new “hospitals” are to be funded from savings from not proceeding with stage 1 of the Tram.

Also, they are public, not private.

So, wrong on both counts.

Where will ACT Labor/Greens get the cost of Tram stage 2 to Woden (what ever that is – they haven’t even said how much that election “promise” will cost) as well as fund their expansion of Canberra Hospital ?

Answer : Your back pocket.

There are no “savings” from not building the light rail, sorry. It produces income, hospitals do not. Spend $700M on light rail, you get a steady income. Spend $700M on two hospitals (how much of a hospital do you get for $350M?), you get a steady cost added to the health budget.

If you believe the hospitals will actually be public instead of built with public money and then run by private management, you have rocks in your head. The Liberals will want to balance the budget, and cutting health is one of the first things they always do. It’s as reliable as clockwork: Liberals get in, health, education and welfare suffer.

The ACT government has been invited to respond to this article but it is no surprise that they have not.

I would be interested to know what former MLA John Hargreaves thinks of the situation. He is a regular contributor to the RiotACT site. Surely now that he is not part of the ACT government he would be able to provide an objective unbiased opinion…….

devils_advocate9:37 am 15 Sep 16

dungfungus said :

Masquara said :

Andrew Zed said :

I’ve sent over 20 group emails which included Andrew Barr, Mick Gentleman, Shane Rattenbury…

Ba ha ha – you didn’t expect Mr Shane “David Feeney” Rattenbury to take an interest in street accoutrements outside the light rail negatively-geared investment corridor did you?

I see Bob Brown (the one who used to receive a generous tax free MP travel allowance that Joe Hockey was attacked about) is defending Rattenbury in today’s Canberra Times.

It’s one thing to make investments along the ‘light rail corridor’ based on publicly available information. But it’s altogether another to be influencing judgements on land zoning in an area where one holds properties.

Just calling it now so that later on it won’t be seen as the wisdom of hindsight.

Masquara said :

Andrew Zed said :

I’ve sent over 20 group emails which included Andrew Barr, Mick Gentleman, Shane Rattenbury…

Ba ha ha – you didn’t expect Mr Shane “David Feeney” Rattenbury to take an interest in street accoutrements outside the light rail negatively-geared investment corridor did you?

I see Bob Brown (the one who used to receive a generous tax free MP travel allowance that Joe Hockey was attacked about) is defending Rattenbury in today’s Canberra Times.

Andrew Zed said :

I’ve sent over 20 group emails which included Andrew Barr, Mick Gentleman, Shane Rattenbury…

Ba ha ha – you didn’t expect Mr Shane “David Feeney” Rattenbury to take an interest in street accoutrements outside the light rail negatively-geared investment corridor did you?

Paul Costigan said :

Dear Andrew Zed,

Good on you for putting your (and the suburb’s) frustration out there in a public forum.

This mess goes back to a fight caused by the then chief planner who made a curious decision to favour Woolworths despite the then government policy on introducing new supermarkets – and all ministers and chief planners since have continued to shift this around without any care for the local community.

This is a clear case study of how planning has become dysfunctional. There needs to be a total clean out of those responsible for this and so many other planning/development shambles.

The planning system is beyond any simple repair and no more patches could make any difference – it needs to be thrown out (ministers and all the bathwater) and a new simpler and transparent one put in place.

So this problem was caused by Woolworths being “favoured”?

Giralang residents wanted a supermarket and shops. Developer wanted to put in flats.

As far I know, Supabarn or the like didn’t step up and offer the developer a viable tenancy option from them for Giralang shops if the developer rebuilt them. There was no favouritism. Woolies was the only option for Giralang.

So the option was, Woolworths or no shops. No shops = big lose for Giralang. And less supermarket competition in the surrounding suburbs. The Woolworths proposal was the only reasonable resolution for everyone, it has now failed because the situation has been allowed to drag on so long by the ACT Government by court action from competing commercial interests.

If you want to talk about favouritism, why not talk about how the ACT Government prohibited Coles and Woolies from bidding on certain largish new supermarket sites in the name of competition. Those sites were purchased by Supabarn, who then tried to sell said sites to Coles and were only stopped by the ACCC.

If you want to talk about favouritism, why not talk about the ACT Governments supposed 1,000m2 shops restriction for “local centres” which appears to be applied in a completely random manner to different suburbs? Since the Giralang shops closed, shops have opened or been approved in Crace (supabarn), Casey (2 supermarkets plus option for third), an Aldi granted for Dickson in addition to current shops, Lawson has been granted a decent size supermarket and shops, Harrison and Amaroo and Bonner got new shops. DFO has been granted a change in the planning laws to have a supermarket of 1,000m2 in an area not previously permitted to have supermarkets, to save it’s business despite the impact on other surrounding businesses. Many more examples of more and bigger shops opening up everywhere, apart from Giralang. I believe that all of the above shops mentioned are larger and mostly much larger even for the supermarkets alone than 1,000m2 TOTAL floor space that I have been told in writing that is Government policy (ie, not total supermarket space, total shop space). Current DA for Giralang is 1,500m2 TOTAL that must be downsized to 1,000m2 shop space if an amended DA is submitted for any reason. I am not sure that this is correct and it may be that the 1,000m2 only applies to the supermarket size, but if that is the case Barr does not know his own laws and is opposing the size of the Giralang centres shops floor space against his own policies. I anyone has any real facts and figures regarding shops sizes I am open to any correction of anything I may have said noting that Barr has told me clearly in writing that they believe Giralang should be limited to 1,000m2 TOTAL shops space.

Grail said :

Just be aware that if you vote Liberal they will be taking even more money from the budget to fund two new private hospitals.

have you submitted a request for explanation about the tree lopping and lack of maintenance of private infrastructure (it’s adShell, not ACT Government responsible for bus shelters, and Telstra or other responsible for communications and electrical infrastructure).

A letter to Shane should get the ball rolling, the Greens are keen to win votes after all.

Expressing your frustration in writing directly to a MLA is better than venting on public forums.

Hi Grail,

I am happy to be corrected if you have evidence to the contrary, but I don’t believe adShell would be responsible for this bus shelter. They are responsible for the bus shelters that contain advertising – that is how they make their money from providing the maintenance of the bus shelter vs the revenue from the advertising. This shelter does not have ads. It will never be taken over by adShell like I believe the Kaleen shops bus shelter has (it has ads) because there is too little foot traffic without shops to make advertising revenue viable.

That pit does not look like a Telstra pit. Not saying that it definitely isn’t, just saying it doesn’t look like pictures of any Telstra pit I have ever seen.

I am a resident of Giralang and have made dozens of emails to all political parties about Giralang shops, other Giralang issues such as cancellation of our city bus services under the tram, and non-Giralang specific issues. I have only once received a reply that has been personalised and anything but a canned generic response not addressing the issues. Not once so far has any actual action from the politicians resulted from my emails. I find Rattenbury to be the worst offender for non-response.

Paul Costigan4:20 pm 14 Sep 16

Dear Andrew Zed,

Good on you for putting your (and the suburb’s) frustration out there in a public forum.

This mess goes back to a fight caused by the then chief planner who made a curious decision to favour Woolworths despite the then government policy on introducing new supermarkets – and all ministers and chief planners since have continued to shift this around without any care for the local community.

This is a clear case study of how planning has become dysfunctional. There needs to be a total clean out of those responsible for this and so many other planning/development shambles.

The planning system is beyond any simple repair and no more patches could make any difference – it needs to be thrown out (ministers and all the bathwater) and a new simpler and transparent one put in place.

Here’s a link to google maps that clearly shows one of the benches that have been removed from the area that is shown in the photo of the playing field. Meghan Fitzharris told me that there is no ACT government record of these having existed. Funny how she didn’t reply to the email with this link which I sent to her……

https://www.google.com/maps/place/10+Tucana+St,+Giralang+ACT+2617,+Australia/@-35.2161203,149.0967822,3a,66.8y,318.16h,61.13t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1szcicGzws2iSFJhdH4ygjQA!2e0!4m2!3m1!1s0x6b17acd692ca3d15:0x80df43a59fadae46

Grail said :

Just be aware that if you vote Liberal they will be taking even more money from the budget to fund two new private hospitals.

I thought the Libs said that the 2 new “hospitals” are to be funded from savings from not proceeding with stage 1 of the Tram. Also, they are public, not private.

So, wrong on both counts.

Where will ACT Labor/Greens get the cost of Tram stage 2 to Woden (what ever that is – they haven’t even said how much that election “promise” will cost) as well as fund their expansion of Canberra Hospital ? Answer : Your back pocket.

Grail said :

Just be aware that if you vote Liberal they will be taking even more money from the budget to fund two new private hospitals.

“The ACT Liberals would open two local public hospitals with emergency departments in Gungahlin and Tuggeranong by late 2020, if elected at the October election.” – http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/liberals-promise-new-hospitals-in-gungahlin-and-tuggeranong-if-elected-20160902-gr7f8b.html

Grail said :

Just be aware that if you vote Liberal they will be taking even more money from the budget to fund two new private hospitals.

have you submitted a request for explanation about the tree lopping and lack of maintenance of private infrastructure (it’s adShell, not ACT Government responsible for bus shelters, and Telstra or other responsible for communications and electrical infrastructure).

A letter to Shane should get the ball rolling, the Greens are keen to win votes after all.

Expressing your frustration in writing directly to a MLA is better than venting on public forums.

I’ve sent over 20 group emails which included Andrew Barr, Mick Gentleman, Shane Rattenbury, Meghan Fitzharris and the Libs. I’ve sent letters, made calls to Andrew Barr, Mick Gentleman, TAMS and used Fix My Street. All this over an extended period.
Expressing my frustration in writing directly to MLAs is OF NO EFFECT which is why I am venting on public forums.

Thanks Grail, it seems you HAD no understanding of the situation. I hope now you are more well informed.

Tortfeaser, if I have made a mistake then I’m happy to be corrected. Maybe I should have just said it was the owners of IGA Evatt. It is quite a spray which is substantiated by ACT government data that I did not include to make the article less than a page long.

Grail said :

Just be aware that if you vote Liberal they will be taking even more money from the budget to fund two new private hospitals.

have you submitted a request for explanation about the tree lopping and lack of maintenance of private infrastructure (it’s adShell, not ACT Government responsible for bus shelters, and Telstra or other responsible for communications and electrical infrastructure).

A letter to Shane should get the ball rolling, the Greens are keen to win votes after all.

Expressing your frustration in writing directly to a MLA is better than venting on public forums.

Two new private hospitals?

Who are you going to vote for if all the parties are funding them?

Quite the spray. And wrong, at least about supermarket owners. Metcash isn’t the owner of IGA or Supabarn. Metcash is a grocery wholesaler, they just sell the stock to the IGA stores.

If everyone moves out of giralang they could probably sell it to developers for redevelopment in 10 years for high density shoe boxes.

Just be aware that if you vote Liberal they will be taking even more money from the budget to fund two new private hospitals.

have you submitted a request for explanation about the tree lopping and lack of maintenance of private infrastructure (it’s adShell, not ACT Government responsible for bus shelters, and Telstra or other responsible for communications and electrical infrastructure).

A letter to Shane should get the ball rolling, the Greens are keen to win votes after all.

Expressing your frustration in writing directly to a MLA is better than venting on public forums.

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