Page 978 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 21 March 2012
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Looking at Mr Barr’s amendments, some of these programs that the government has, I have to say, are very good ideas and have been very useful. Lighthouse and BusinessPoint, I understand, have been very useful to quite a few fledgling and growing businesses. This includes family businesses and others.
I would also like to mention, as Mr Barr did, the NBN. This is an improved internet communication. This is potentially—I have to say more than potentially, it is a real game changer for small businesses. It means that they can have the sorts of facilities that in the past only big businesses could have. I am particularly reminded of the small business that I happen to live with which has just changed itself to no longer having a physical fax machine but to having a fax by the wire due to the fact that we have better communications than we used to have. We do not have to have the fax machines that we once upon a time had.
I do thank Mr Smyth for introducing a motion about business. We should spend more time talking about it. The Greens are happy to support Mr Barr’s amendments, and I will speak about mine shortly, having been organised so by the Speaker.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (10.41): I thank Mr Smyth for bringing this forward. I thank other members for their broad support for this motion. I think that Mr Smyth has taken the lead on this because it is important to him and it is important to the Canberra Liberals that we support business. We are big supporters of business. We are supporters of small business. And in this case we are expressing our support for family business.
As Mr Smyth has pointed out, family business goes across the spectrum in terms of size. There are some micro family businesses, there are some small, there are some medium and there are some large family businesses. What today’s motion, very pleasingly I think, highlights is the uniqueness of family businesses and the great work that is done by Family Business Australia. In that light, I would like to acknowledge Matthew Power, who is in the gallery today, for the wonderful work he does for local family businesses. I would acknowledge Philippa Taylor, who is hoping to be here as well, the national CEO, as well as Kylie Kovac, who does wonderful work for the local branch of Family Business Australia.
I think it is safe to say that in our city family businesses are represented in every aspect of our economy. From the coffee shop around the corner to an engineering firm, family businesses play a front-and-centre role in driving employment and innovation in Canberra. And when you think family business, several established Canberra names come to mind. Mr Smyth has touched on some of these. Bink cement, the oldest family-run concrete manufacturer in Canberra, for over 50 years, is headed by John Bink. There are also—and my pronunciation will not be great on this, but no doubt Hansard will fix it when I give them my notes—the Sciannimanica family’s coffee business, Cosmorex, and Mike Houston’s Canberra motorcycles, what is believed to be the largest bike showroom in the country.
Second generation businesses include National Capital Motors, founded by Campbell Brede, Tariq Jabal’s Jabal Halal Market, specialising in halal meats to our Canberra
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