Liberal Candidate for Isaacs, Garry Spencer, recently met with the congregations of the Russian Orthodox Church and Sakie Albanian Mosque as part of his inclusive campaign for Isaacs.
“Isaacs is a diverse community and I want to work with all sections of the community to enhance our cohesive and vibrant community,” Mr Spencer said.
Issues highlighted by both congregations demonstrate how Isaacs is being taken for granted by its current Parliamentary representatives, both at a federal and state level.
“There is enormous frustration in the community at the lip service is being paid by local Labor MPs to our area,” Mr Spencer said.
“When I met with these two great congregations it became clear that even the simplest problems, in this instance, car park availability, are not being addressed.”
Garry said the church and the mosque’s popularity had resulted in traffic problems and inconvenience in the neighbourhood for some years.
“Money is not needed to fix this problem, all that is needed is leadership. If several groups are brought together a simple solution could be achieved,” Mr Spencer said.
“Local leadership is lacking because the current group of representatives live some distance away, don’t appreciate or care about the issues and treat the Isaacs electorate area more like absentee landlords.”
Fr Michael from the Russian Orthodox Church and Imam Ismail from the Sakie Albanian Mosque were equally adamant that action was well overdue.
“Since we have been operating from this site, we have been requesting support from Governments at all levels to solve this parking problem. It is especially busy at non-scheduled events like weddings and funerals but can also be a problem at our normal Sunday morning service which runs for over 2 hours. But always we get excuses and no action”, Fr Michael said.
Garry says it is high time for local leadership and common sense solutions.
“It is time for some common sense and local leadership. I am a local, I live here and it is time we had some action and local solutions were found for long standing local problems,” Mr Spencer said.