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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Thursday, 26 August 2004) . . Page.. 4415 ..

shout from the rooftop that this government has far more important work to do to make the ACT business-friendly rather than creating a Small Business Commissioner.

Those are the latest results available for small business and home-based business operators. To use the words of the Treasurer, that result is not based on unreliable statistics. If they were unreliable the bureau would not have published them. Let me refer in detail to the ABS bulletin on small business that I am talking about. The bulletin, which is 104-pages long, contains a large amount of data on small businesses in Australia. Surveys were conducted in 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001 and 2003 to provide the data for this and earlier bulletins. In addition, a survey was planned for June 2004 and an expanded survey is planned for 2005. The June 2003 survey, which was based on a sample of 30,000 private dwellings, covered about 0.5 per cent of the Australian population, which is a relatively large survey in any context.

The reason I am providing this insight into the bulletin is to demonstrate that it is not a flash in the pan; it is not some half-baked output from the ABS. We do not need a Small Business Commissioner in the ACT; we need a government that is fair dinkum about creating an environment in which small business can start, prosper and grow and become the larger businesses of tomorrow operating across the diversity of the business base in the ACT. The Treasurer might be aware that recently my office had a meeting with Mark Brennan, Victorian Small Business Commissioner, and Jane Kelly, a member of his senior staff. It was fascinating to learn about the achievements of the Victorian commissioner over a relatively short period.

Mr Brennan was only appointed in May 2003. Of all the matters that have been brought before the commissioner, around 70 per cent of them had been resolved satisfactorily within the ambit of the commissioner’s office. Clearly, if some or all of these matters had been dealt with otherwise, they would have had to go to an array of tribunals, courts and other mechanisms that already exist to resolve disputes and consequently they would have been added to the extensive list of matters that are already before many of these appeal organisations. On the face of it, it appears as though the Victorian Small Business Commissioner has been able to achieve some positive outcomes with minimal cost to the parties to various matters.

That might be seen as the good news but, as I said a moment ago, it begs the question: if 70 per cent of these things can be resolved so easily, why is the commissioner needed in the first place? Perhaps we should ask: are there other areas within the bureaucracy that should be reviewed as their faults or poor performance gave rise to the perceived need for a commissioner? Perhaps those areas of bureaucracy became unnecessary, given the role of the commissioner.

This bill raises further questions about the role and activity of existing organisations. It seems to me that the functions set out in clause 11, such as reporting on emerging trends in market practice that may have an adverse effect on small business, monitoring the effectiveness of small business charters, monitoring the impact of legislation, government procedures and administration on small businesses, should be undertaken either by existing bureaucracy or by the array of advisory bodies that have been established.

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