City must welcome innovative business

If the Bunbury City Council is truly set on having a believable reputation as one that is innovative, progressive and willing to roll out the red carpet, then it cannot spend half an hour debating simple applications for businesses to establish themselves in town. Last week, the owners of a well-respected budget funeral service were left twiddling their thumbs in the audience while our elected members went back and forth for 25 minutes about tedious elements of their proposal to expand their existing services in Perth to Spencer Street in our CBD. While most were pushing to get the motion through as swiftly as possible, a select few publicly aired laughable concerns ranging from customers taking up too many parking bays to obstructing the shared driveway with current outlets in the area. One councillor even went as far to say the application should have been denied because a child visiting the area could potentially see a deceased person. Throughout this ridiculous debate, I saw the look on the face of Mayor Gary Brennan, a leader who has stuck to the pro-development attitude that got him elected in the first place. It was one of frustration and, perhaps, even embarrassment, at how a handful of his colleagues were handling what should have been a straightforward item on the agenda. And having worked in Bunbury for the past two years and attended roughly 30 meetings in my time, it is certainly fair to say this is not the first time it has happened. Over the last few months the Bunbury City Council has announced a bunch of multimillion-dollar council-funded projects from the Youth Precinct to a Splash Park and sporting redevelopments. So when the decision to allow a new business to establish itself in the city comes up at council, why are councillors still debating against one another? These debates shift towards the threat of innovation and away from the benefits these businesses bring to the local economy. If businesses are having to continuously go up against the city’s watchmen and fight for their right to establish themselves in the region, eventually they will concede and Bunbury can kiss the hopes of becoming the next “digital city” goodbye.