Canberra Liberals call for more investment into neglected suburbs

Canberra Liberals Leader Elizabeth Lee has highlighted the deteriorating state of Canberra’s suburbs and called on the Labor-Greens government to return more of ACT taxpayers’ money back into their neighbourhoods.

Ms Lee, who will move a motion in the Legislative Assembly today, said in the last decade since Andrew Barr announced his tax reform agenda, revenue collected by his  government from ACT taxpayers through rates and charges has more than doubled to over $1.3 billion.

“Canberrans are feeling let down and neglected as they look around their neighbourhoods and see broken footpaths, overgrown verges and parks, roads riddled with potholes, overflowing rubbish bins, playgrounds broken and lacking shade, and neglected waterways,” Ms Lee said.

“Every day, I receive complaints from members of the community who are fed up with the state of their suburbs, fed up with waiting weeks, months and even years for things to be fixed and fed up with being neglected by this Labor-Greens government.

“Our suburbs and local neighbourhoods are the bedrock of our city. They are not just buildings but the places where we live, where we bring up our children, where we socialise with friends and family; and where we create our community.

“The extra hundreds of millions of dollars Andrew Barr is collecting from Canberra ratepayers year after year is not going back into our neighbourhoods. It’s not going back into our suburbs and it is clearly not going into our essential local services.

“This motion is very simple.  It calls on the Labor-Greens government to invest more of Canberra ratepayers’ own money back into our neighbourhoods, and our communities,” Ms Lee concluded.

Shadow Minister for City Services City Nicole Lawder moved a motion in the Legislative Assembly last month to develop a suburban maintenance strategy aimed at improving Canberra suburbs that was voted down by every member of Labor and the Greens.

“It has become very clear that this government has no interest in addressing our declining suburbs which is why we have gone from a city befitting of the Nation’s capital to a city that looks tired and neglected,” Ms Lawder said.

“Despite repeated community complaints, the Labor-Greens government has continually failed to adequately prioritise this issue and as a result basic local services only get minor additional investment,” Ms Lawder concluded.