Page 1130 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 May 2020
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support our local businesses. It is all very well for politicians to use this rhetoric in campaigns to support locals, but unless those in charge actually do something about it, the talk means nothing.
I hear from business owners regularly—small, local, usually family run businesses—who have used their own ingenuity and resilience to get themselves through these strange times. During the shutdown period some have worked quietly behind the scenes, revamping their businesses and their business models. Others have emerged boldly with left-field ideas and have succeeded. But this has been done in spite of a lack of tangible support from the Barr government. In comparison to other states, we have a distinct lack of policies now in place, or that were in place prior to this crisis, to back and support our local businesses.
It has taken a pandemic for the ACT government to utilise the valuable and successful locally grown business of Aspen Medical, one of the most highly visible examples recently. There are countless examples of other companies, such as those in the ICT space and local business suppliers, that have seen more success outside Canberra than in Canberra, despite calling themselves a Canberra success story.
It is the simple things that will help—being more flexible and agile with government procurement, in the procurement of goods and services, providing rebates and incentives that give back to local businesses, and having a genuine forum to listen to what our local businesses need to be competitive in the market.
In contrast, here in the ACT, the Barr Labor-Greens government have presented law after law in this parliament, all ideologically driven, all adding another layer of red tape cost to local businesses. Now that is coming home to roost, at a time when they can least afford it.
The fact that we have overlooked a small local business here in the ACT in favour of a Victorian business to provide, of all things, hand sanitiser to the ACT government—at a cost that is 25 per cent higher than could be provided by a Canberra local business that employs Canberrans—says it all.
Inflexibility of government should not stand in the way of the engine room of our economy. Now, more than ever, we need to support local businesses in a tangible way as they continue to provide jobs for Canberrans and continue to be an integral part of our recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.
Mr Noel Bissett—tribute
MS BERRY (Ginninderra—Deputy Chief Minister, Minister for Education and Early Childhood Development, Minister for Housing and Suburban Development, Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence, Minister for Sport and Recreation and Minister for Women) (5.44): Today it is my honour to put on the public record the contributions Noel “Bisso” Bissett OAM, AFSM has made to the Canberra community in his service as a firefighter and to his beloved rugby league.
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