Next meeting: General Meeting
Tuesday 4 June 2013, 7:30pm

Guest speaker, Mr John Mulhall, ABC News Director, Canberra

Venue: Southern Cross Club, Tuggeranong (upstairs)
Cnr Pitman and Holwell Streets, Tuggeranong Town Centre
Click for map of venue

L to R: Tuggeranong Hyperdome Manager, Jodie Marques, Federal Member for Canberra, Gai Brodtmann MP, TCC President, Nick Tsoulias and TCC Treasurer, Franks Vrins at the launch of the Tuggeranong Public Servants Petition.

Federal Member for Canberra, Gai Brodtmann, will introduce a petition into parliament calling for the retention of the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs in Tuggeranong. The department has announced it is looking for new space for its national office as part of a plan to consolidate more than 2700 staff into one or two buildings. It says it will consider remaining in Tuggeranong or moving to Woden. The Tuggeranong Community Council (TCC), Hyperdome shopping centre and Communities@Work are collecting signatures on the petition calling for the federal government to ”locate in Tuggeranong CBD the required 40,000 to 42,000 square metres of space that is needed to house the newly consolidated Commonwealth Government Department of Families, Housing and Indigenous Affairs.”. The petition calls on the government to ”maintain and improve” existing public service jobs in Tuggeranong. Ms Brodtmann said she supports the petition and has spoken to the secretary about keeping the department in the town centre, and will approach the relevant ministers to discuss the issue. “I am making the petition available for people to sign on her website and I will present it in Parliament during the next sitting,” Ms Brodtmann told the Canberra Times. ”There’s a number of different positions that are attached to the department, and it’s very important that you have jobs in various parts of Canberra so you keep each pocket of Canberra alive and keep the economy alive, and it’s a particularly important part of Tuggeranong,” she told journalists while launching the petition. Lynne Harwood, chief executive of Communities@Work, said it would do great harm to an area already disadvantaged if the department was relocated. ”To take away a workforce of that size from an area, you’re also taking away the buying power and the spending power of the area, so it’s not just about the immediate jobs, it’s about the whole impact that would have,” she told the Canberra Times. Hyperdome centre manager, Jodie Marques, said Tuggeranong was experiencing stagnant population growth and a decline in public service jobs in the town centre could see existing residents leave the area. She told the Canberra Times the Hyperdome had good business from department employees and she expected strong support for the petition when she distributed it within the centre and to other local businesses. The TCC is encouraging Tuggeranong residents to add their signatures to the petition by visiting;   http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/tuggeranong-community-council-save-our-public-service-petition.html

Tuggeranong Community Council (TCC) and the Tuggeranong Lake Carers (TLC) group hosted the annual Clean Up Australia campaign around the shores of Lake Tuggeranong on Sunday 3, March 2013.  Volunteers were joined by the Federal Member for Canberra, Gai Brodtmann MP, and ACT Greens Senate Candidate, Simon Sheikh. More than 30 bags of rubbish, shopping  trollies and a computer were collected. Volunteers also reported a lounge dumped on the lake foreshores and retrieved a stolen handbag. The TCC wishes to thank everyone who took part in the campaign, Bunnings Tuggeranong Hardware Store and the TLC. We look forward to an even bigger effort next year.

To view images from the day, please visit out “Photo Album” page.

Recent housing developments around some of Australia’s busiest airports, and
further proposals for such developments have been the catalyst for some heated
debate about the impacts of aircraft noise. Unfortunately the heat in the debate often
comes at the expense of clarity, leaving the public with little understanding of what
the noise will be like. Worse, those buying in these new estates often do so in
ignorance of the noise that they will or might have to bear.

Click on the link to read more. The Truth About Aircraft Noise