Ms THEOPHANOUS (Northcote): On a typical afternoon local businesses along High Street in my electorate are buzzing. They run through Westgarth Village, Ruckers Hill, Northcote, Thornbury and into Preston South. So too the retail precincts in Fairfield Village, those up at Miller and Gilbert streets and so many others dotted around our community, but the days have not been typical, and so many of these traders are still struggling to get back on their feet.
Last week I had the opportunity to speak with Benita Bunting, who is president of the Northcote Business Association and runs Brown and Bunting booksellers on High Street. We spoke about the diversity and uniqueness of our local traders in Northcote, the ethical and cultural depth they bring to our area and how in a lot of cases they are women sole trading with goods they are making with their own hands. This eclectic diversity is what makes our area so special, and yet it is also what makes these businesses vulnerable to the economic impacts we are facing. The $10 000 Business Support Fund grants have been helpful, and I am pleased that so many of my local businesses have accessed them. I have been on a mission to make sure that every business in my electorate that could access the fund has accessed the fund.
JobKeeper has been good, but it could have been much better, and I have spoken about that before. Perhaps the toughest nut to crack has been in the arrangement between many businesses and their landlords. These are always complex matters, and there is no quick fix for a landscape that has largely shifted from businesses owning their shopfronts to renting their shopfronts. Government has asked a lot of the community, and I am proud of the way my community has responded.
