Page 3136 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 15 September 1993
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that in our ongoing consultations with business in Canberra, and with just about everybody else, virtually nobody knows anything about it. It seems that Mr Berry thinks his job is over once he puts up legislation. He does not seem to think it important to actually go out and tell anybody about it. But, so be it.
Small business continually tells us that there is far too much red tape required to get established in the ACT. There is a huge number of different government departments that they have to deal with just to do the jobs that they are set up to do, the reason that they are employing people. I think everybody who is involved in the building industry finds that the number of licences that they require to perform a job is quite remarkable. This is at a time when the people who are actually doing the job are tradespeople and therefore are trained and licensed to do that job. Small business gets bogged down in paperwork every day of the week.
Mr Berry: Oh, bogged down in paperwork, red tape and bureaucracy.
MRS CARNELL: That is right.
Mr Connolly: Liberal Party rhetoric manual, volume I.
Mr Berry: Page 22.
MRS CARNELL: It is not. It is actually interesting. If you go out there and talk to people in business they will tell you how much of their time is taken up by these sorts of problems - filling out application forms, filling out statistical forms and so on. Their story goes on. The ACT Government regularly also goes out of Canberra to contract - for consultants, for printing, for software, and the list goes on. Often local firms are superior. They are familiar with the system, they have local knowledge, they can provide local service and, of course, they employ local people. Often these contracts are not even put out to tender, which means that local companies do not even get a chance.
Mr Berry: How often?
Mr Humphries: Very often.
Mr Berry: Oh, get out!
MRS CARNELL: Do you want to come out with us? No, I am sure that you do not. ACT payroll tax is another great problem for business in Canberra. It is amongst the highest and it has one of the lowest levels of exemption. If this Government really wanted to stimulate business in the ACT, there is one obvious and simple way to go. We have also of recent days seen quite dramatic increases in land tax, which at the end of the day is just another impost on business.
The Chief Minister's comments, and I think Mr Berry's comments too, regrettably demonstrate their total ignorance of business and the environment that we need to make business flourish. It is not good enough just to form advisory bodies, to produce videos or to print glossy brochures, often outside the ACT; the Government actually has to do something. I know that you get quite upset about the idea of having to do something. A lot of obvious things could be done.
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