Page 987 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 21 March 2012
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MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (11.10): I thank members for their support today. In closing the debate I might start by acknowledging that Chris Faulks, the CEO of the Canberra Business Council, is here. Of course, the Canberra Business Council has a significant and a long-term interest in the growth of family businesses in the ACT. Ms Faulks, your presence is most welcome. I think that highlights the importance of this motion today. The national CEO would have been here but for the fog. We have got the local chairman of Family Business in the ACT and a representative of another significant business organisation in the gallery with us as well.
In many ways the future of Canberra may well be the future of family businesses in Canberra. It is about those entrepreneurs who have a go. It is about those with innovation in mind who are looking for solutions not just to Canberra’s problems but the world’s problems. Many of our local family businesses, although still small in size, are international in stature and are offering solutions around the world to the problems that face the world. That is a great future for a territory like the ACT to have—a vibrant, active business community, particularly a family business community, that is willing to do the job.
I think the point needs to be made that family businesses are putting it all on the line. When mum comes home and says, “I’m sick of being a public servant; I’m going to go off and do this,” or dad comes home and says, “I’m sick of working for him; I’m going to start my own business,” it is not just about their job. It is the entire family livelihood; it is the bread on the table. At the end of the day, it is the shoes on the kids’ feet and the ability to feed the family that stemmed from what those who are tied up in family business do.
Let us acknowledge that, almost by definition, most, if not all, family businesses must start as a small entity. Lang Hancock was a farmer who happened to find a great big lump of iron ore on his property. It is a huge business now, but it is still a family business. I am not sure how much iron ore family businesses are going to find in the ACT, but if they find that metaphoric lump of iron ore that might be a new program or an industrial process or whatever it is that the ACT can benefit from as a community, that would be a good thing. Just remember that when a family business starts off, everything is on the line. It is not just dad’s dream or mum’s ambition. It is the future of the kids and the future of that household as well. Matt Power can testify to this because I know he has done it.
We used to work for very small amounts on a Saturday morning running the shop with dad. My father got to this country 63 years ago from his native Northern Ireland and not long after he took out his first loan. He borrowed £5,000 and the rest of the family told him he was mad. Nobody borrowed £5,000 in 1954. Dad borrowed the lot. It led to three service stations and a newsagency in Sydney. When we moved here we had Lyons, then Fisher and then Cooleman Court newsagency as a family.
It was not just dad; mum ran the family. Mum did all the things that mothers normally do, particularly when you are raising 10 kids at home. She freed up dad’s time so that dad could leave early in the morning, often at 4 o’clock, and get home late at night because he was running the family business. Mum was the active partner; it could not
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