It’s just not fair
HOW would you feel if this happened to you?
You live in a long-wanted modest but modern suburban home having scraped-up the deposit and mortgaged the balance.
Life is often a financial struggle but good as you finally feel in charge of your own destiny.
One day, a government instrumentality advises of an essential road excavation project that will block most of your street for a few weeks, stopping vehicle access and making pedestrian access tricky.
You accept the need for the works but your family life is very inconvenienced.
Your old and uninsurable car needs to be parked on an adjoining street, a tree branch falls on it and ends up being vandalised.
You write to the relevant government agency, seeking help and compensation for your out-ofpocket losses, all of which you can document.
The response is sympathetic but conveys little genuine understanding of your situation nor offers any financial compensation.
When the works are finally over, you then find your driveway is damaged and the excavation works have caused significant collateral damage to your previously pristine brick walls.
Again, you write pleading your case only to receive a similar response. Even if you can prove it, they say, there is no legislative provision for compensation for out-ofpocket costs nor collateral damage. But, they add, a small street festival will be organised to celebrate the project’s completion.
Fine, but such festivities do nothing to cover your losses.
You can accept the inconvenience, but the financial costs incurred and likely further repair expenses seriously compromise your capacity to keep sustaining your loan repayments.
You suddenly find yourself in the excruciating position of facing a bleak future of your home ownership, caused by factors totally outside your control.
How would you feel? Frustrated, stressed, disheartened to say the very least. Or worse.
Now, while that fictional scenario may seem far-fetched, this is precisely what happens to small businesses that find themselves caught up in government infrastructure works, becoming the unwitting victims of projects aimed at the greater good.
In Geelong, the Malop St Green Spine and Lt Malop St works are among the most recent examples but there have been many others over the years.
Now, most are all in favour of infrastructure upgrades and civic enhancement projects, understanding that some disruption and inconvenience will be caused for a long-term community benefit.
But impacted businesses often suffer significant, sometimes terminal, damage.
The Malop St works have been attributed in the demise of at least one high-profile business but there are most likely others under the public radar that are only just hanging on, having suffered significant collateral damage to their trading.
Shop-front traders often find trading conditions fickle but accept this as among the many expected risks of being in business.
But, if for factors totally outside their control, their exposure is effectively nullified and customer access is difficult, people vote with their feet.
Sales will be decimated while the fixed financial costs of rent, staff wages, loan repayments, rates and other outgoings continue.
Lost sales cannot be recaptured and customers may even switch their loyalties.
Even if the relevant tier of government wants to help, there is no legislative provision for reasonable compensation.
While that has been the situation for years, this in my view is no longer acceptable if governments are serious about genuinely foster- ing small business and innovation in a contemporary economy.
In this, I am by no means suggesting open-ended compensation nor support for corporates but for the classic sole traders or small businesses, where typically everything the owners have — often including their home — is on the line.
With Green Spine works on the north side of Malop St still to be done and the proposed High St bike lane — about which Belmont traders are already raising serious concerns — this issue is very much ‘live’ in Geelong, demanding the reconsideration of relevant Victorian Government legislation.
Businesses do not expect outside support but when their very existence is threatened by public interest works, there is a legitimate and arguable case for government compensation. Developing a fair and transparent mechanism to provide some support for business costs, which can be properly documented and attributed to infrastructure works would be a huge step forward.