GREENS MLA and business spokesperson Johnathan Davis has got Braddon’s United Retailers & Traders fuming following an interview on radio this morning (February 17).
BURT has accused the first-term MLA of “making the most offensive statement to business owners in two years of the pandemic” following a roundtable discussion with 2CC’s Stephen Cenatiempo and Liberal business spokesperson Leanne Castley.
Davis said: “It’s not that government hasn’t been listening to business. It’s that business hasn’t got what they asked for.”
BURT says he has displayed a “complete lack of empathy for the heartache being suffered by owners and staff” and “being completely out of touch with his portfolio responsibilities”.
Fearful of the ACT government making a remote workforce permanent, BURT says this will “kill town centre businesses as they lose the majority of their trade” and that thousands of jobs will be lost.
It says many businesses in the Braddon precinct are reporting trade levels around 70 per cent down and that 15 businesses have closed in Lonsdale Street within the last 12 months.
“Johnathan Davis is welcome to leave his air-conditioned office and six-figure desk job, where he doesn’t pay any overheads, for five minutes and meet with BURT or any other trader groups so he can actually get an insight into the people he is supposed to represent,” the traders’ group says.
News all day, every day at CityNews.com.au.
Who can be trusted?
In a world of spin and confusion, there’s never been a more important time to support independent journalism in Canberra.
If you trust our work online and want to enforce the power of independent voices, I invite you to make a small contribution.
Every dollar of support is invested back into our journalism to help keep citynews.com.au strong and free.
Thank you,
Ian Meikle, editor
Leave a Reply