Ms CARTER - 2001-07-05
Minister, Territory Business Centres are becoming more and more convenient for businesses requiring information, assistance and special licences. I believe the TBC’s have recently introduced another function to help Territorians even further. Could you provide some details?
ANSWER
Good question. These Territory Business Centres are very popular with our Territory businesses and Territorians as individuals, and they are located in all of our major regional centres, Alice Springs, Tennant Creek, Katherine and one in the member’s own electorate, in Darwin. They have been dealing with a huge amount of inquiries over the couple of years that they have been set up, and are proving to be a very convenient location to provide all of the services that the Department of Industries and Business offer.
Just to give you an idea, the Territory Business Centres have had in excess of 30 000 applications for licences and registrations and permits in each of those years. That is an incredible amount of inquiries about applications and applications themselves. To give you more of an idea, additional to the walk-in trade and the telephone trade, on the Internet site that the Department of Industries and Business conducts for business inquiries of all of the services, including investing in the Northern Territory and such like, in the 2000-01 financial year that has just finished, the Territory Business Centre website received over 599 000 hits for inquiries coming from all over Australia and internationally as well. That is an extraordinary amount of information that has been provided out there, so that is a great thing.
My Department of Industries and Business, through the Territory Business Centres, administers approximately 149 licences and permits to Territory businesses and individuals. There has been a project that we have been working on to streamline the efficiency of the application of those licenses. To give you an idea, for the last 18 months to register a business name - once upon a time, it used to take about a month to process and used to cost somewhere in the order of $90 - you can walk into any Territory Business Centre, apply on-line, it takes about 15 minutes and it costs zero dollars to register. So that is just to give you an idea of the streamlining.
This latest project that we have been working on is in conjunction with the Northern Territory police. Of those 149 licences, there are about 50 of those licences that require a police name check, so when a business or an individual requires a police name check - and this is where you do not have to have fingerprinting and all of that sort of thing - the new project will allow you to come into a Territory Business Centre and have that name check conducted there and then, as you are applying for your other kinds of licences.
Just to give you an idea of the type of people who will use this new benefit conducted through the Territory Business Centre, it applies to people like real estate agents, conveyancing agents, auctioneers, motor vehicle dealers, travel agents, pawnbrokers, people renewing liquor licences, people renewing their bookmaker and bookmaker’s clerks’ licences, renewing private security licences and crowd controllers licences, and shot firing licences.
Now when they come in to do their renewal applications - before they had to go off to the police station to do their criminal name checks - they can do it all in that one convenient location. This is another example of this government catering to the needs of business, cutting out the red tape for businesses and individuals so that they can get on with what they know best, and that is doing business. I am proud that they are offering this new streamlined service.
ANSWER
Good question. These Territory Business Centres are very popular with our Territory businesses and Territorians as individuals, and they are located in all of our major regional centres, Alice Springs, Tennant Creek, Katherine and one in the member’s own electorate, in Darwin. They have been dealing with a huge amount of inquiries over the couple of years that they have been set up, and are proving to be a very convenient location to provide all of the services that the Department of Industries and Business offer.
Just to give you an idea, the Territory Business Centres have had in excess of 30 000 applications for licences and registrations and permits in each of those years. That is an incredible amount of inquiries about applications and applications themselves. To give you more of an idea, additional to the walk-in trade and the telephone trade, on the Internet site that the Department of Industries and Business conducts for business inquiries of all of the services, including investing in the Northern Territory and such like, in the 2000-01 financial year that has just finished, the Territory Business Centre website received over 599 000 hits for inquiries coming from all over Australia and internationally as well. That is an extraordinary amount of information that has been provided out there, so that is a great thing.
My Department of Industries and Business, through the Territory Business Centres, administers approximately 149 licences and permits to Territory businesses and individuals. There has been a project that we have been working on to streamline the efficiency of the application of those licenses. To give you an idea, for the last 18 months to register a business name - once upon a time, it used to take about a month to process and used to cost somewhere in the order of $90 - you can walk into any Territory Business Centre, apply on-line, it takes about 15 minutes and it costs zero dollars to register. So that is just to give you an idea of the streamlining.
This latest project that we have been working on is in conjunction with the Northern Territory police. Of those 149 licences, there are about 50 of those licences that require a police name check, so when a business or an individual requires a police name check - and this is where you do not have to have fingerprinting and all of that sort of thing - the new project will allow you to come into a Territory Business Centre and have that name check conducted there and then, as you are applying for your other kinds of licences.
Just to give you an idea of the type of people who will use this new benefit conducted through the Territory Business Centre, it applies to people like real estate agents, conveyancing agents, auctioneers, motor vehicle dealers, travel agents, pawnbrokers, people renewing liquor licences, people renewing their bookmaker and bookmaker’s clerks’ licences, renewing private security licences and crowd controllers licences, and shot firing licences.
Now when they come in to do their renewal applications - before they had to go off to the police station to do their criminal name checks - they can do it all in that one convenient location. This is another example of this government catering to the needs of business, cutting out the red tape for businesses and individuals so that they can get on with what they know best, and that is doing business. I am proud that they are offering this new streamlined service.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016