Thursday, 28 November 2024

Ringwood East Traders Association

Nick McGOWAN (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (10:43): Recently remarks were aired in this place with respect to a meeting I was invited to attend as a support person for Helen Johnston, the president of the Ringwood East Traders Association. This is her statement in response:

[QUOTE AWAITING VERIFICATION]

For 18 months, I volunteered with the traders association to push for CCTV reinstalment on Railway Avenue, despite LXRP’s clear resistance. After extensive delays, a meeting was arranged to work out the bumps, but the draft agreement was incomplete. My solicitors advised me to attend solo, confident I could discuss the traders’ requested amendments. Knowing time was critical, I attended alone with no other committee members, as they were not available. To provide support I invited Nick McGowan, who has shown active interest in Ringwood East.

However, in the foyer LXRP started to express their frustration that I had not brought my solicitor. Nick intervened at some point because, and he said, it was not ‘stacks on Helen’, advocating for fairness and a calm approach. I am unsure which member of your staff felt threatened. The other female party of this discussion was a solicitor who was more than comfortable having a discussion with Nick. At no time did I see him become aggressive. He was disappointed and surprised by their adversarial behaviour towards me. In fact, after the meeting, he stood outside with me to calm me down, encouraging me not to do a live social media post detailing my frustrations working with your government’s Big Build project.