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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Thursday, 26 August 2004) . . Page.. 4416 ..

In our experience, bureaucrats and the bureaucracy should perform these types of functions. If the bureaucracy is not aware of these types of issues it will not be in a position to prepare appropriate advice for the government. It seems reasonable to expect that the outcome of this process of consultation will identify issues and assist in resolving issues and impediments facing the business community. Moreover, we also have the government’s economic white paper to reinforce those points. I quote from page 41 of that paper, which states:

The Government will enhance the role of BusinessACT to focus on, inter alia

• providing policy advice to the Government on business-related issues, including the Government’s regulatory reform and red tape reduction agenda …

• the management of the Government’s program of business-related regulatory reform …

• the provision of a dedicated small business unit responsible for case managing small and micro businesses ...

We have been told ad nauseam by this government that the ACT is business friendly, irrespective of how the ACT economy might be performing. The evidence indicates otherwise. A declining small business base is not a sign that the ACT is business friendly. There is much policy work to complete before we even turn our minds to the question of a Small Business Commissioner. Let me be quite clear: where there are problems, the government should clean up failings in existing agencies. A solution based on more bureaucracy will not work. The Opposition opposes this bill.

MS TUCKER (9.47): This has been a hard call. The Greens have not had much time to look at this legislation, so we hope that we are doing the right thing. We support this bill but, as other people have already said, we will be moving an amendment to enable a review to be conducted after a period of three years. I think Mr Smyth intends to move a similar amendment. We will support this legislation only if those amendments are agreed to. This proposal for a Small Business Commissioner was a key feature of the government’s policies in the economic white paper. Only now, in the last sitting weeks of this parliament, are we debating legislation to enable the creation of the position of commissioner.

In this legislation one of the main functions of the commissioner is to improve small business to government relationships, that is, to assist small businesses in their dealings with government departments as customers, and with government in a more general sense in relation to other small business and government interactions. As stated in the legislation, this includes managing the process of establishing small business service charters within relevant ACT government agencies. The commissioner will also be able to facilitate dispute mediation involving small businesses. This would avoid the requirement of formal court action and be available at a low cost to small businesses.

Other functions include: to evaluate the operations and performances of ACT government agencies; to encourage fair treatment of small businesses in the marketplace; and to advise the minister on issues relating to small business. It is interesting to reflect

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