Bev McArthur MP, Liberal Member for Western Victoria Region, Media Release, 23 August 2022
The Minister for Small Business, Ballarat based, Jaala Pulford, has tried to downplay her refusal to support Sebastopol businesses that her Government is destroying.
Since February, state roadworks in Albert Street have effectively cut off access to the businesses. Some have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Many are now in rent arrears, have had expensive equipment damaged, lost long-term customers and have been forced to put off staff.
The traders have met three times with Minister Pulford, with the Department of Transport Regional Director attending the meetings twice.
While the Minister discussed compensation at one of the meetings – she then denied it at the next meeting.
Local ALP Members, Michaela Settle and Juliana Addison, have been virtually invisible, lacking any fight for their constituents, and hiding behind November’s electoral boundary changes.
Member for Western Victoria, and Shadow Assistant Minister for Government Scrutiny, Bev McArthur, raised the traders’ disgraceful treatment in the Victorian Parliament last week via Questions Without Notice, Constituency Questions and in the tabling of a petition with 1392 signatures.
“Ahead of the November election, the Minister has cynically offered the community coffee and car wash vouchers,” Mrs McArthur said.
“These have nothing to do with recovering the massive losses and debt caused to businesses by this Government’s disgraceful management of the project – and everything to do with votes in November.”
Minister Pulford obfuscated her role in the dilemma by handballing the question of business compensation to the Roads Minister.
However, in doing so, she made it brutally apparent that the ‘…position on compensation from the Department of Transport has been clear from the onset.’
The position is that compensation will not be paid, because it is ‘maintaining access’.
Mrs McArthur said the ‘access’ is a joke.
“Anyone in Ballarat using Albert Street, and those side streets impacted by the road works, know what this ‘access’ has been: it is a series of dirt goat tracks hidden behind concrete barriers.
“The entrances have been either closed or minimised for months and there are months more to go. No road works have even happened for three weeks, extending the finish date.
“Customers are just driving-by, they are avoiding the area altogether. People know to stay away and spend their money elsewhere.
“In the meantime, these businesses are left to rot, with State Government ministers pointing fingers in every other direction, but their own. This Government is solely responsible for financially crucifying these innocent businesses.
“Imagine if these sites weren’t private enterprises and were, instead, full of nurses, teachers, ambulance drivers or the CFMMEU. Do you think Minister Pulford would say ‘Oh – it’s okay – turn up to work this year, but you won’t get paid?”
“No – there would be an outcry. There would be angry rallies in the streets. There would be mayhem.
“Instead, these businesses are forced to take legal action to seek compensation for losses entirely caused by the Victorian Government.
“It is a terrible condemnation of the project, of the complaint management, that these citizens may be forced to sue their own government to get a fair hearing.”
