Mrs AAGAARD - 2004-08-19
The government has put in place many initiatives to help small business get ahead. How are reforms within the Justice portfolio helping Territory business operators?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for her question. Our government’s commitment to business is exemplified by the fact that Carole Frost is now a major adviser to our minister for business, which I believe is indicative of the fact that one very key member in the business community is seeing that we are doing a good job for business. She has joined the winners.
In my area of Justice, I bring a lot of legislation through this House, but it is particularly satisfying when I can see the impact of legislation on our business community, as we have with a number of the initiatives that I have brought through here.
Regarding uncollected goods, I was at a bike repair shop, Penny Farthing, in Alice Springs the other day, talking to Yvonne. She asked me about this legislation on one of my visits there, and I briefed her on how it works. The next time I went there, she said she had got rid of all of those old bikes that were cluttering up the storage areas at the back of the business. She has been able to give a lot of them away, actually, to kids around town and to charitable organisations. However, the point was that she can now do that and write them off properly under the new legislative arrangements. I have talked in the past about repairers of whitegoods and motor repairers. Right through the Territory, we are seeing terrific reaction to this legislation. People are now starting to clear the decks of all these old vehicles, whitegoods, bikes, and all sorts of things.
Briefing sessions have been held all over the Territory on this legislation. The act was described as ‘better than sliced bread’, and that does it for me. Occasionally, you can really see very tangible results of legislation enacted.
With retail tenancies, in every shopping centre in the Northern Territory there is now much more certainty between landlord and tenant. This is for small businesses where, what they pay in rent, and their rights within the tenancy arrangement are critical to their viability and sustainability as a business. That new legislation has now given everyone certainty about what their rights are under their tenancy arrangement. It gives them a much more streamlined process for resolving any difficulties with the landlord under the tenancy agreement. Therefore, it is very good news for small businesses in our retail sector.
We are helping motor traders along. We are not only cleaning up some of the shonky operators within that industry sector through our Consumer Affairs enforcement, but we are providing a new on-line transfer of registration arrangements, which will make it so much easier for motor traders to operate their businesses by being able to streamline the transaction that they have to do with our government to transfer the ownership of vehicles.
This is all good news for business, and I am proud to be able to add to our government’s enormous efforts that we are making in support of business.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for her question. Our government’s commitment to business is exemplified by the fact that Carole Frost is now a major adviser to our minister for business, which I believe is indicative of the fact that one very key member in the business community is seeing that we are doing a good job for business. She has joined the winners.
In my area of Justice, I bring a lot of legislation through this House, but it is particularly satisfying when I can see the impact of legislation on our business community, as we have with a number of the initiatives that I have brought through here.
Regarding uncollected goods, I was at a bike repair shop, Penny Farthing, in Alice Springs the other day, talking to Yvonne. She asked me about this legislation on one of my visits there, and I briefed her on how it works. The next time I went there, she said she had got rid of all of those old bikes that were cluttering up the storage areas at the back of the business. She has been able to give a lot of them away, actually, to kids around town and to charitable organisations. However, the point was that she can now do that and write them off properly under the new legislative arrangements. I have talked in the past about repairers of whitegoods and motor repairers. Right through the Territory, we are seeing terrific reaction to this legislation. People are now starting to clear the decks of all these old vehicles, whitegoods, bikes, and all sorts of things.
Briefing sessions have been held all over the Territory on this legislation. The act was described as ‘better than sliced bread’, and that does it for me. Occasionally, you can really see very tangible results of legislation enacted.
With retail tenancies, in every shopping centre in the Northern Territory there is now much more certainty between landlord and tenant. This is for small businesses where, what they pay in rent, and their rights within the tenancy arrangement are critical to their viability and sustainability as a business. That new legislation has now given everyone certainty about what their rights are under their tenancy arrangement. It gives them a much more streamlined process for resolving any difficulties with the landlord under the tenancy agreement. Therefore, it is very good news for small businesses in our retail sector.
We are helping motor traders along. We are not only cleaning up some of the shonky operators within that industry sector through our Consumer Affairs enforcement, but we are providing a new on-line transfer of registration arrangements, which will make it so much easier for motor traders to operate their businesses by being able to streamline the transaction that they have to do with our government to transfer the ownership of vehicles.
This is all good news for business, and I am proud to be able to add to our government’s enormous efforts that we are making in support of business.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016