Griffith's first Indian-born councillor to run for second term

Businessman and Sikh community leader Manjit Singh Lally became Griffith’s first Indian-born councillor when he was elected in 2020. He’s hoping to serve a second term after nominating to run again at the October 2024 elections. He’ll be standing on a ticket with fellow councillor Chris Sutton and newcomer Darshna Surana, who owns grocery store Surana Enterprises with her husband.

Region caught up with Mr Lally to find out his thoughts on his first four years, his goals for his second term if elected, why he voted for a substantial council rate hike and how Griffith can deal with its housing crisis and retail downturn.

What was your first term of council like?

It was a big learning curve for me. There’s so much to do and read. But we got through it and made some good decisions. Griffith Council is in a strong position, especially compared to other councils. There are lots of new projects and money coming into town.

What are you hoping to achieve if you’re elected for a second term?

We want to have more engagement with the other multicultural communities. I want to make them aware of what you can get from council, what services there are and how council works.

I want to improve services, to make sure they’re more available. If you’re having trouble, we need to inform people where they can get assistance.

We now have international country flags being raised in our community gardens. Your group can book your date and time you’d like to see the flag raised. In August, we saw the flags raised for the Pakistan community and for Indian Independence Day.

A lot of young people are leaving town. We want to get them to stay. I’m glad we have the Country Universities Centre (CUC) here; you can enrol in university and study in Griffith free of cost. If your course is available online, you can stay here and study and use the facilities of the CUC.

Some people weren’t happy that you voted for a special rates variation (SRV) that increased rates substantially. What do you say to them?

So many of our costs have gone up. Electricity has gone up so much in the last three years. The council is not a producer, it’s a service provider. We buy things and sell them to the community. We have to pay for those costs.

The SRV has put us in a strong position. Sometimes, we have to make a hard decision, but that’s not for today; that’s for tomorrow.

The cost of living is hitting us all. You can now walk on the main street and park wherever you want. Retail is really struggling.

Why is retail struggling in Griffith and what can we do about it?

A lot of people are going online instead of buying local. I encourage people to shop locally and keep our young people in a job. If everyone buys online, there’ll be no shops, so where will our young people work?

How can we deal with the housing crisis in town?

I went to the local government national conference on housing; it’s not just a Griffith problem. It’s nationwide. Our population is growing, lots of migrants are coming to the country, but housing isn’t keeping up. All the essential workers are being left out.

Griffith City Council are doing what we can, like Griffin Green [affordable housing development]. There’s an empty block opposite that is ready for the next project. There’s also more units planned for Wakaden Street.

What do you do in your free time?

I don’t have much free time; I work on weekends. I’m involved a lot with the Sikh temple and we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of our community. I’m pleased that a new roundabout on Kidman Way has been named in honour of our community – Khalsa Chowk, which means pure roundabout in Punjabi.

Would you like to see more multicultural voices on council?

Yeah, good luck to everyone running. We need new blood and a different way of thinking. We need positive thinking people rather than negative.