Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I find it a great pleasure to stand and support the Tax Laws Amendment (Small Business) Bill 2007. The changes in this bill, together with the new small business entity framework, significantly increase the ability of the small businesses in my electorate of Riverina to access various small business concessions and to reduce the compliance costs, which is a major factor for businesses wishing to access these concessions. The government is recognising some of the challenges that are associated with starting a business and has initiated some sensible changes to make it easier for those businesses to access these concessions.

When one decides to start a business, it is a very big decision in life. You have to address all of the issues, hassles and efforts that are associated with developing a business plan, finding finance, locating premises, sourcing equipment and lining up stock and suppliers. Most importantly, it is about accessing and employing local staff. One of the most important and often most daunting activities that new small business people must tackle is determining exactly what laws and regulations must be complied with and what licences are needed to start up a business. Under the new small business framework, eligibility for the small business concessions will be based on a turnover threshold. Small businesses that meet the turnover threshold will be able to access a range of small business concessions, provided that they satisfy the existing additional conditions that are specific to each concession, which are not really related to business size.

When people decide to set up a small business they are also confronted by council planning issues. It can be extremely daunting to have to put in a development application, to understand the whole process of the DA, and to then have to track the DA and respond to all of the issues of independent town planning: council planning, environmental planning rules, the local environmental plan and the local development control plan. This is sometimes very foreign language to a person who has merely a fabulous initiative and wants to set up a business and start to operate it. The Minister for Small Business and Tourism, Fran Bailey, was herself a small business person and was on a local council. She understands all of the issues that confront an individual or a group of people when they want to start up a family business or a one-man business. Just recently we have had a small business initiative that has seen two important projects launched in my electorate of Riverina. They are demonstrating innovation in doing exactly what the minister has consistently tried to support in her tenure, which is reducing red tape wherever possible when it comes to getting started in a small business.

I have had two projects funded under federal government funding. These projects will go a long way towards assisting the establishment of more small businesses, which are the engine room of the nation and really do represent the real employment opportunities in our nation but, more particularly, in rural and regional areas. One is the Coolamon Shire Council, which was leading 13 other councils, which received a $200,000 grant under the Regulation Reduction Incentive Fund for the Start Your Business Here project. In addition, the Wagga Wagga City Council then did a very sensible thing by co-partnering with 37 other councils—not only city councils but also councils right across New South Wales—and forming a consortium, which was led by the Rockdale City Council. They were allocated $6.1 million for e-planning solutions to assist businesses when they are trying to track development applications but, more importantly, to make it easier for a business to lodge DAs.

The Minister for Small Business and Tourism, the Hon. Fran Bailey, came to Wagga Wagga in August late last year to discuss local issues at a roundtable discussion. The minister also attended a breakfast to reaffirm the benefits of the funding provided in the region and the Regulation Reduction Incentive Fund. The Coolamon Shire Council project, which I have just mentioned, is the Start Your Business Here website. That is designed to make, amend or standardise regulations across the Riverina. This will reduce the time spent travelling to councils in order to seek advice about establishing a business and, through the rationalisation of regulations, reduce the time spent on compliance with council regulation.

The Riverina Business Enterprise Centre estimates that, from this project alone, there will be likely savings for businesses—based on a $25 per hour cost and an average 30 hours per business—of more than $600,000 per annum. But, in addition to benefiting businesses, it frees up council officers who assess development applications because it means that they are not making or receiving countless phone calls and trying to explain to an aspiring small business operator where the process is up to or giving advice on a continual basis. With the website, you now log in and you can submit your form online. You can pull up any business and see what the dynamics, criteria and guidelines are and see what paperwork and approvals need to be processed in order to develop that business at the particular address you seeking. How simple is that? It is such a fantastic initiative and it could not have happened without this particular program. It will be one of the many great initiatives for small business. The project that delivers Start Your Business Here is a self-guided computer program. You start up your business and determine, as I have said, all of the issues associated with the regulations and planning controls that you must comply with.

This project is for the benefit of the Riverina Eastern Regional Organisation of Councils. As part of the program development, participating councils will audit and review their regulations. They will determine whether they need to change or amend their standardised regulations right across the Riverina. This will preclude countless trips to council offices and endless hours of waiting in queues; they will be things of the past. To make sure your business gets the most out of the program, workshops will be held targeting those in business and advising people, such as accountants, solicitors and others who generally give these people advice, so that they can direct their clients into a system that is much easier to access. The Riverina Eastern Regional Organisation of Councils is a voluntary strategic alliance of 13 general-purpose councils and two water county councils, and they have done a fabulous job with this project.

In addition, the Regulation Reduction Incentive Program funded the Wagga Wagga City Council project. That project has been directed towards e-planning solutions related to council’s development application process. It was aimed at enhancing the capacity of council to deliver online tracking, assessment and compliance facilities. So, once you lodge your DA, you should be able to track it on an online facility and thereby know at what stage it is and whose hands it has been in. Everyone in the department will have had to have signed off showing when they have seen that DA. You will know whether your application is with the health inspector, the sewage and draining area or the works department; you will know at what stage your application is. Again, this will save countless phone calls and your working time, but it will also free up the time of council officers and enable them to apply themselves absolutely to getting these DAs done in a much enhanced time frame.

The project that we have just spoken of is just one step in council’s commitment to improving service delivery, especially regarding technological advances. Community members are now able to determine exactly what they are required to do. With the aid of these two programs that have been funded by the Regulation Reduction Incentive Program and the associated websites, people will now have this ability and a process for red-tape busting is actually in place.

I congratulate the minister for the simplified systems that she has enabled to take place simply by putting up this funding program that people can apply for and for putting in place real-term measurements to encourage real-term businesses. As I have said, small businesses are the engine room of the nation and you do not want them discouraged. You do not want people throwing their hands in the air and saying, ‘I’ve tried to find out all the guidelines and criteria that I need to set up my business in this area. It’s so convoluted and complicated that I find it very difficult. I think I’ll just give up my grand idea of being my own boss and running my own business.’ But this will simplify the whole process and enable those people far better access and to overcome many of those red-tape situations that I have spoken about during this speech. Once again, I would like to congratulate this government on its initiatives—

Debate interrupted.