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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Tuesday, 24 August 2004) . . Page.. 4052 ..

strategy. This means developing a better understanding of our private sector strengths and targeting limited government resources to areas and activities that provide the greatest return.

Strategy three is leveraging our intellectual assets. It must continue to invest in the territory’s remarkable stock of human capital, but with a clearer focus on utilising this resource for improved economic outcomes. Talented people are the new currency of competition, and the ability to attract, develop and retain talented people is inexorably linked to the territory’s economic future. Strategy 4 is providing supportive planning and competitive government infrastructure. This not only means providing efficient and reliable infrastructure and services to the business community but also being much more focused on how our urban plan and indeed other government services and infrastructure can support our economic objective.

I would now like to talk briefly about the implementation activity that is occurring behind these four strategies. Supporting business we have been packaging into an important, aspirational goal. The government has set this goal of making the ACT the most small-business friendly jurisdiction in Australia. Ninety-seven per cent of private sector firms in the ACT are small and micro businesses—maybe 96 per cent if you believe Mr Smyth’s interpretation of ABS statistics. They employ over half the territory private sector workforce. They provide many points of delivery to drive the economy in sustainable new directions.

Our small business sector can be broadly grouped into two categories of firms: first, the traditional small business and micro business, those in retail, wholesale, hospitality, personal services, trades and professions, home-based business and so on; and, secondly, the technology-based firms, the start-ups, those that are driving Canberra’s burgeoning knowledge economy.

The economic white paper made us look at the mix of government services and programs and how they support the sometimes competing needs of these two groups. For the latter group, we have boosted funding to the knowledge fund to build on the program’s extraordinary early success and direct more support to our knowledge economy firms. Similarly, the $10 million commercialisation investment fund aims to draw down on the commercialisation potential contained in the leading edge resource research conducted in the territory’s universities and institutions.

In July, we announced an exciting new Canberra-California bridge program, a program that will be delivered with the assistance of our international development partners—LATA, from Los Angeles, and San Diego Connect. This program will provide accelerated and hands-on learning to ACT economies that have the product and the wherewithal to participate in the US west coast markets.

The policy and program, focusing on the sexy end of town, does not distract us from the issues confronting traditional small business. For example, the government has:

• provided $1.2 million in funding a business acceleration program;

• provided $567,000 in funding employment ready over the next four years;

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