Trevor Evans (Brisbane, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last year the Brisbane community came together to campaign to Love Our Shops and to fight for some capital improvements to help some key local shopping strips around Brisbane that are in need of some love to help them remain attractive, special and unique places to visit for both local residents and interstate and international visitors. These are places that are at the heart of our local community, where locals come together for a coffee, a family meal or a special occasion. They buy their groceries and other products there. They get a haircut there. And they attend a host of local community events there. These shopping villages are also the economic heart of our local communities, home to scores of small businesses which do so much to provide the character and identity of each local area, in addition to the services they provide and in addition to giving many young local people the very first job experiences that they'll have—the first foot in the door of the job market.

My background in small business means that I appreciate just how hard small businesses work and how important they are to the success of our local communities. So it was heartening to me that there was such an overwhelmingly positive response from local residents and groups to the campaign to support our local shops. Locals made it very clear that they want to support their local shopping strips and that they greatly value the direct and indirect roles they play in our community.

I was therefore very pleased in recent weeks to be able to announce that the campaign ultimately has been successful. The government's committed a total of $550,000 towards capital improvements for the urban renewal of local shopping strips along the Paddington terraces, the Wilston shops at Kedron Brook Road, and the iconic Racecourse Road precinct in Hamilton and Ascot. This is a big win for local communities in these areas of Brisbane's inner north.

I want to congratulate the local business groups who've worked with me and have proven to be strong advocates for this campaign and for their local communities. They'll serve on the steering committees to deliver these capital improvements, working in conjunction with the Brisbane City Council. I'm talking about the Paddington 4064 business group, the Racecourse Road Business Group and the Kedron Brook Business Group. Similarly, I want to congratulate local councillors Peter Matic, David McLachlan and Andrew Wines for their strong support. Their support and collaboration were an essential part of securing this campaign outcome.

It is really important for different levels of government to be able to work together ultimately to deliver real outcomes for our local communities. These are the kinds of local infrastructure projects that are needed if we're to continue to boost economic growth, create jobs and improve local facilities community by community across our electorates. I look forward to seeing the completion of these projects in the months ahead and the positive impact that they'll have both for local businesses and for our community.