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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Thursday, 26 August 2004) . . Page.. 4417 ..

on that last statement, “to encourage the fair treatment of small businesses”. I was just thinking of the inquiry of the public accounts committee into the general agreement on trade and services. Those kinds of interventions can be put at risk through such trade agreements—something that would be interesting to watch.

The Greens recognise that small businesses make an important contribution to the ACT economy and that they can be innovative and responsive to Canberra’s needs. That issue is also referred to in the economic white paper. The Greens support an examination of the role of the ACT government as employer, skills trainer and facilitator of work and contracts for small business. As a major user of local business services, the ACT government should examine contracting processes to ensure that small local providers are not disadvantaged against larger corporate bidders.

The government has chosen to establish a Small Business Commissioner in response to some of the troubles that small businesses are facing in the ACT. I think it is healthy to be cynical of this move so close to the election. The Greens have considered the reasons for the establishment of a commissioner and the process leading up to the proposal. As I said earlier, while we are not entirely excited by the bill, we are willing to support it, with the inclusion of the amendments I mentioned. The commissioner was included in the initiatives in the economic white paper. I understand that the Small and Micro Business Advisory Council has been consulted with regard to the functions in the legislation and it has had some input to strengthen those functions.

My office has spoken with two members from the Small and Micro Business Advisory Council and both were pleased, interested and excited about the possibilities of the role of the commissioner, in particular, the advocacy role that the commissioner will have. Inevitably, small businesses complain about red tape and those complaints are primarily about federal tax payments. This legislation does little to address those concerns but the commissioner might be able to articulate some of them. Members of the Assembly have raised legitimate fears in debate about whether this legislation will address all the concerns of small business operators. I understand that some members believe it would be more valuable for BusinessACT to reform and deal with some of the issues for which the commissioner will have responsibility. Those are legitimate concerns, which is why we want the review to occur. We really have to determine whether this is a useful initiative.

Another function of the commissioner is the ability to facilitate the resolution of complaints by small business. This ability was one of the key operations of the Victorian Small Business Commissioner. The feedback I have received demonstrates that this is not too much of an issue in the ACT. In fact, the courts are finalising a practice direction for managing commercial tenancy disputes. I understand that that direction outlines a priority system within the courts so that less complex matters can be dealt with more efficiently and so that full judicial reflection is available for more complex disputes. The implementation of this scheme should keep the costs of disputes to a minimum for tenants. While there may be scope for dispute resolution to fit within the judicial system, we have received feedback that there is not really a great need for that service.

The Greens are not overwhelmingly convinced that the Small Business Commissioner will solve the problems of small business. I do not think the government can realistically expect that it will solve all of them either. However, following feedback from people in

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