20 April 2016

Chief Minister seeks more small business advice

| johnboy
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Comrade Stanhope has put out a media release calling for nominees for his latest fig leaf for inaction, the Government’s Small and Micro Business Advisory Council.

In a project that has been running since 2002 they are now coming to the point of advertising for members of the Council.

Rather than recruiting a pack of spivs with which to counter any suggestions that come from the actual business community, why not save that money and spend it on something the ACT Government can actually do?

Reduce all fees and charges for all businesses with turnover under $500,000 to a flat $1.

And just watch the buggers bloom. If they really wanted to turbo-charge it a rebate scheme for ASIC fees for small ACT based businesses and legal-aid style accounting advice would also do very nicely.

Or a quick trip down to the chamber of commerce with a note pad, take down their wish list (they’ll have one) and strike out the stuff that you don’t want to give them.

Doesn’t take years Chief Minister.

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And you think they launched on that crusade for jollies? They did it because their members were screaming at them.

You think a goverment that brought in those laws doesn’t have the same bridges to rebuild with anyone who might be responsible as an employer?

As is usual both sides had some merit to their points in that debate but having won the day the government needs to start acting like a government and less like a gang of thugs.

I have no inside knowledge on this at all, but I felt the peek body was on a political crusade against me I’d bypass them entirely and talk to the stakeholders themselves. Now you could say that Howard did this when it set up the youth round table, but AYPAC was representing an underrepresented powerless group, of which business owners are not and the ACT government hasn’t forced the CoC to close, they’re just getting other points of view.

The Queanbeyan yellow pages seems a lot thicker than it was when Mr. Stanhope came to power. Right now Canberra isn’t a place anyone would choose to do business unless they had compelling reasons.

The ALP can accuse the chamber of commerce of being their “enemies” until the cows come home (with some justification I’ll grant you), but at some point if you want to encourage business in this town it’ll be time to act like adults for once in your lives.

Yes you’ll disagree on some things, but that doesn’t preclude being able to work on the things you do agree on.

I’d say that the Chamber of Commerce lost any friends they had in the current government after they ran that stupid partisan scare campaign on industrial manslaughter. it’s been in force for a while now and I don’t know of any businesses fleeing over the border as predicted by Chris Peters.

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