Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Finance Minister on Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

I will not withdraw the previous remarks. You thought it was mirthful when I said that we support BECs. That is a matter of record. In relation to the location of BECs, I will go through them for the benefit of the member for Moncrieff. In New South Wales, the first BEC on my list is the Murray-Hume BEC, which is located in Albury and I think also relates to Wodonga; the Northern Rivers BEC; the Penrith Valley BEC; the Macarthur BEC in Campbelltown; the Clearly Business BEC, in the eastern suburbs of Sydney; Capital Region BEC, which is based in Queanbeyan; the Central West BEC, which covers a number of locations but the electorates are Parkes, Calare and Macquarie; the Central Coast Business Mentor Services at Ourimbah; the St George and Sutherland BEC; and the Hunter Region BEC. In Queensland, they are the Ipswich BEC, the Townsville BEC and the Caboolture BEC. In Victoria, they are the Box Hill BEC and the Ballarat Business Incubator. In Western Australia, they are the Bunbury-Wellington BEC, the Stirling BEC, the South-East Metro BEC, the Belmont BEC, the East Metro BEC, the South-West Metro BEC and the Coastal Business Centre BEC in Fremantle. In South Australia, they are the Tea Tree Gully BEC, the Inner Southern BEC, Eastside BEC, the Southern Success BEC, the Salisbury Business and Export Centre, the Northern Adelaide BEC, the North West Business Development Centre and the Inner West BEC. In the Northern Territory, it is the Darwin BEC. In Tasmania, they are the Launceston BEC, Business and Employment at Mersey, the Break O’Day Business Enterprise Centre at Saint Helens and the Meander Valley Enterprise Centre at Deloraine. They are all set out in a press release that was issued on budget night. The member could have saved a lot of time if he had bothered to have a look at that press release.

In relation to whether we are funding any BECs that do not exist: no, we have not adopted the practices of the coalition in the ‘regional rorts’ program—where the coalition did, in fact, fund a number of projects that did not exist. We only fund projects that do exist, and all the business enterprise centres that we are funding are existing business enterprise centres. We did operate, for the benefit of the member, on the basis that it would help in the decision making if they were members of the BEC network. I think the member himself could have a look at where business enterprise centres network. I think probably since the election some extra BECs have become members of that network. But that was a guide to us in opposition as to how we determined which ones would receive funding. I think the member himself could have a look at where these are located. I think it is a bit of a waste of time to go through all that.

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