Page 3228 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 17 September 2013
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outlines a responsible, innovative and collaborative approach to growing the local economy. It rejects the 1990s cargo-cult and cowboy approach of business development and growth. We have undertaken to promote business development by focusing on the following strategic imperatives: fostering the right business environment, supporting business investment, and accelerating business innovation.
The business development strategy implementation report, which I have tabled this morning, reports against the 26 actions set out in the strategy. I would like to highlight some of the major achievements of the last 12 months against the strategic imperatives that we set ourselves.
In fostering the right business environment we have implemented a local procurement policy. Under the policy ACT and region small and medium enterprises will receive a favourable weighting when bidding for ACT government contracts. We have raised the payroll tax threshold to $1.75 million, the highest in the country, and, as a result, 110 additional local businesses were excluded, no longer required to pay payroll tax, putting nearly $7 million back into the pockets of businesses in the territory. We will progressively raise the threshold further to $2 million over the term of this parliament which will save another 80 businesses from paying any payroll tax.
The red tape reduction panel, which I chair, has overseen the abolition of registration labels for light vehicles, has increased the majority of business licences to a three-year maximum term and is reviewing police checking and business signage processes. In addition we have established the fix my red tape website to allow businesses to bring red-tape issues to the government’s attention 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We have also been working to reduce red tape through the Australian business number and business name registration project and other COAG reforms.
The ACT integrated its business naming function with the national system last year and now delivers business licence information through a nationally coordinated Australian Business Licence and Information Service. The ACT was one of the first jurisdictions to complete the transition. Through Canberra BusinessPoint, our business advisory service, we have delivered 842 one-to-one client connections and a further 1,290 client connections via workshops, seminars and networking events last year. These outcomes exceeded the 2012-13 key performance indicators and the program continues to grow.
In supporting business investment we have established InvestACT to promote the ACT as an investment destination. Following extensive consultation, the ACT investment strategy will be launched later this year. In the meantime InvestACT has been actively working behind the scenes. The recent solar options were extensively promoted by InvestACT through the Austrade network resulting in over 150 expressions of interest.
We have obtained $1.3 million from the commonwealth to prepare businesses and residents for the NBN. The first five months of operation of the digital hub and the digital enterprise centre have provided training to more than 500 individuals and 200 businesses. Over 14,000 Gungahlin residents now have access to the NBN and the take-up rate is the highest in Australia.
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