Teresa Gambaro (Brisbane, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship and Settlement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to welcome and congratulate the Brisbane City Council on their plans to upgrade the Brunswick Street Mall in Fortitude Valley to promote a greater daytime economy in this suburb. Currently the daytime economy is being kept alive by a few food stores and small retailers catering to tradesmen and office workers in their lunchtime breaks. In May 2012 a survey of business showed Brisbane was not maximising either its night or day economy.

Robin Maini, President of the Valley Chamber of Commerce and Co-chair of the Fortitude Valley Economic Development Board, said today that major anchor tenants had already been identified to set up shop in the revamped mall to help boost the daytime economy. Current businesses located in the mall would be asked to make improvements particularly to awnings, advertising signs and their facades and they will be offered new leases based on the revamped mall proposals. The bronze plaques honouring bands of generations past—the Saints, the Go-Betweens, Blowhard, Regurgitator, Powderfinger right through to the Hungry Kids of Hungary—will be temporarily removed and then returned after the changes.

This is a great plan by the Brisbane City Council which will make sure that we are making the most of the area both during the daytime and night-time, as currently it is an underutilised space in the inner-city Brisbane area. By doing this, we will be able to revitalise the old image of the Fortitude Valley, particularly from the era of the 1980s and 1990s as grungy, dirty and seedy to an upcoming economic hub of the inner-city Brisbane. (Time expired)