Page 1960 - Week 05 - Thursday, 3 May 2012
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a weighting against whether the tenderer is local or has involvement with local businesses. This is a show of faith with Canberra businesses and will encourage further creation of local jobs. It will provide opportunities for our local SMEs to grow and to gain valuable experience in government work, giving them the opportunity to win tenders with other governments both in Australia and overseas.
To encourage all Canberrans to follow this lead and support our local businesses, the government will embark on a social media buy local campaign. This campaign, which I will be kicking off very shortly, will encourage Canberrans to look first to their local retailers and businesses when making purchase decisions. It is about prompting people to invest in our own quality goods and services and to invest in our city’s ongoing growth and prosperity.
The government will also be expanding a range of existing services such as Canberra Business Point and establishing programs within the Economic Development Directorate to help small businesses to have a continuing and meaningful dialogue with government. It is essential that government and businesses work together and that businesses have a visible point within government to go to for help and advice. The government is getting on with the job of assisting Canberra businesses to create more jobs for Canberrans.
MR SPEAKER: A supplementary, Mr Hargreaves.
MR HARGREAVES: Yes, Mr Speaker. Minister, can you please expand on what COAG and the ACT government are doing to reduce red tape?
MR BARR: The government have announced that we will be forming a red tape reduction panel to look at business regulation in the territory. The focus of the panel will be on municipal regulatory issues. This is an important piece of work and one that has been called for specifically by the chamber of commerce. We know that there are regulations that can be reformed to make life easier for business and, indeed, easier for government. Over the coming weeks the government will be making further announcements in relation to this piece of work.
At the micro level work will be done in addition to the extensive program of reform that the ACT has already successfully progressed with the commonwealth and, of course, the new reform directions that were agreed to at the 13 April meeting of COAG.
In relation to the seamless national economy agenda, 27 deregulation priorities have been progressed, such as occupational health and safety, eight areas of competition reform, including energy markets and national transport policy, and a range of additional regulatory reforms have been undertaken.
Jurisdictional progress is reported publicly and also attracts milestone and completion payments to the states and territories. The ACT is eligible for commonwealth reward payments of approximately $3 million in the 2011-12 fiscal year, rising to $4 million in 2012-13, subject to the completion of the scheduled milestones around the 27 deregulation priorities.
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