Neil Mitchell
Okay, I’m worried about small business in this. We’re getting calls from small businesses already, Bill Lang as director of the Small Business Australia of small business advocacy organisation, Bill Lang. Good morning.
Bill Lang
G’day Neil
Neil Mitchell
What’s your reaction?
Bill Lang
Look, this is, this is just a disgrace like we have in the CBD of Melbourne, the hardest hit small businesses in the country. So amongst all of our members, and the people that interact with us, those businesses in there are the hardest hit. We’ve had, I think just yesterday was probably the busiest day we’ve seen in the city for 12 months. It’s just starting to come back the life, the footy back and then these people, I’ve just be looking at the website in terms of what they’ve got there. They’ve got people roles where you can volunteer to help arrestees. Now, I recall a time when, you know, a young family of a pregnant mum up near Ballarat was arrested for putting something on Facebook, with respect to how she was feeling about the lockdown. The other police were up there and arresting her.
Neil Mitchell
So all you want the police to be tougher on this?
Bill Lang
I want you to speak to the commissioner with police Neil and find out what are they going to do about this to speak to the Lord Mayor of Melbourne. Because apparently they’re going to camp up in the Carlton gardens, have they got a permit from the City of Melbourne to do that? Where are the authorities on this in terms of enforcing the laws to ensure that people can be confident about going back into the city as opposed to sort of the fear of missing out campaign? Let’s get people back in there. Let’s get the law applied to what’s going on here Neill.
Neil Mitchell
Okay, thank you. We will. We’re trying to do that, we’re trying to talk to Lord Mayor’s Office. We’re trying to talk to the police and we have a statement from the police saying ‘oh don’t worry, we’ll warn you about the traffic disruptions’.
