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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 9 Hansard (4 September) . . Page.. 2919 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

The Canberra Business Centre currently operates business incubators in ACT government premises in Downer and Kingston. The Canberra Business Centre approached the ACT Government to lease the John Knight Centre, enabling them to start a business incubator service in the Tuggeranong Valley. The offer of a lease was made and a lease will be issued shortly.

Members of the business community have made representations to the Government, as I have said, requesting that the lease not be issued. They have argued that the Canberra Business Centre was competing for tenants with commercial serviced office providers and the ability of the Canberra Business Centre to attract businesses was enhanced by the provision of free ACT government-owned premises. Additionally, the Government has also been mindful of the support for business incubators within the Canberra community. For example, the Tuggeranong Community Council has expressed its strong support for the incubator to be established in the John Knight Centre.

The Government has examined the arguments with the full cooperation of the Canberra Business Centre. While believing that the Government has a role and a commitment to support business incubators, particularly as they develop and support start-up and emerging business, the Government, nevertheless, needs to be absolutely confident that there is no possible or perceived unfair commercial advantage for the support that is provided. In other words, Mr Speaker, we believe, as I know Mr Moore and others in this Assembly do, that it is absolutely essential that the businesses that are using these incubators are doing so for short periods of time and during their start-up periods.

Because of that we set in place a number of conditions. There are three of them. The first one is a stipulation that existing businesses are not allowed to be tenants. The second is a provision stating that businesses which have been established for more than three years must graduate from the incubator, or, alternatively CBC must provide advice from an independent external source which confirms that the business is not yet ready for graduation. The third is a provision which states that a representative of the ACT Government will be included in the decision-making process in relation to tenant entry and exit.

Mr Speaker, I understand that those - - -

Mr Moore: Yes, I am listening.

Ms McRae: I was not talking to you. I was not interjecting. It is all right, Mrs Carnell. Don't have a nervous breakdown.

MRS CARNELL: She is being very loud. Mr Speaker, I think this is a really important issue. I think the complaints that were raised by a number of businesses did have some validity and the ACT Government did mount a review of the whole business incubator service. As a result, we set up these three conditions for the John Knight Centre lease. Mr Speaker, the problem that we have is that the lease that was signed under the previous Government for the other two sites did not have any real stipulation.

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