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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-09-28 Daily Xml
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National Family Business Day

Ms HOOD (Adelaide) (12:18): I move:

That this house—

(a) recognises National Family Business Day on 19 September 2022;

(b) notes the significant contribution made by family businesses to the South Australian economy and the South Australian community; and

(c) recognises National Family Business Day as a time to acknowledge the significant role family businesses play, accounting for up to 70 per cent of Australian businesses and employing around half of Australia's workforce.

I rise to speak on this incredibly important motion which recognises that 19 September is National Family Business Day. The role that family businesses play in our community is incredibly significant. They employ 55 per cent of Australia's workforce and represent up to 70 per cent of Australian businesses. Some of these are well-known household names like Beerenberg and Coopers and Haigh's, but I also want to take a moment to acknowledge the family businesses that are household names in local communities, those nestled in our neighbourhoods who are the heartbeat of our cities and towns, who form the identity of our suburbs and who constantly give back to their local area.

They are the family businesses that offer so much more than a product or a service. They are the businesses that keep our communities alive, like Liam and Jo West at my local butcher. I also want to mention Matt and Monique Pallister at Sideways; the Schinellas family at Schinellas Market; Franz and Barbara Knoll and their sons at Barossa Fine Foods; Maria and Athena Aslineedis from Parthenon Boutique; Jimmy, Scotty, Mick and Aaron at Muratti Cakes; Anita and Maria at Cibo Prospect; Helen and Jason at Indy Love; Aaron and One from Sunny's Shop and Rosemont Hall, which will soon be rebuilt; Harsh and Sneha from Coffylosophy; Danny and Leila from Biga Café; and John and George from John and George's Barbers. There are just too many to mention, but these are just some of the incredible family businesses in my local community.

I know from listening to local business owners in my community that running a small or family business is not without challenges, persistence and hard work, in particular given the extraordinary challenges of the last two years during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a government it is so important that we ensure that we are checking in on these businesses—

Members interjecting:

Ms HOOD: —and offering our support. Recently, I had the pleasure of taking our Minister for Small and Family Business to visit iconic main streets within the Adelaide electorate—

Members interjecting:

Ms HOOD: —such as Prospect Road and Hutt Street, to talk to local family businesses. I want to thank the minister for her support of these businesses in my electorate.

I also want to give a shout-out to a particular family business in my community, Cafe Komodo off Prospect Road run by Andrew and Bronwyn Taylor. You will not just find Andrew and Bronwyn at the cafe working hard but you will often find them out and about in their mobile coffee caravan at community events, at Roosters' games and at so many other community functions. They are huge supporters of local sport—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Adelaide, can you just take a seat. Member for Chaffey, I have let a few comments go. The next time you comment out of place you will be leaving the chamber.

Ms HOOD: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. They are huge supporters of local sport, as well as local artists and the live music scene. Along with the Minister for Family and Small Business, who is also the arts minister, I was proud to visit Cafe Komodo recently to deliver the good news that they had received a $5,000 Venue Improvement Grant to continue supporting emerging and established live music artists.

I also want to commend the minister not just for those grants but also for recently establishing the Office for Small and Family Business, where there is a development of strategy and extensive statewide engagement. I also look forward to the minister launching the Women in Business Program. I commend this important motion to the house.

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (12:22): I would like to support this motion. I think it is a very important motion. As a former business owner and proprietor, I have seen only too well the importance of not only what family businesses mean to South Australia and to the nation but what they also mean to communities and the contribution they make in terms driving an economy and also employing people and supporting particularly regional communities when it comes to the buoyancy of those smaller communities in particular.

There are many small businesses here in South Australia—too many to name—but I do think it gives me the opportunity not only to speak about family businesses but also to speak about how government has been able to play a role in giving them some level of support over many decades, if not further. The 40 per cent of South Australia's workforce that is employed by family businesses is a $40 billion annual economy. They make significant contributions not only to the economy but also particularly to the sustainability of communities, whether it is a metropolitan community or a regional community.

I will pay tribute to some South Australian businesses in a little while, but I want to acknowledge the former Marshall Liberal government and some of the benefits it introduced to support some of those small family businesses. We saw the tax threshold rise from $600,000 to $1.5 million in terms of wages, and we saw 3,200 businesses across the state become exempt from payroll tax. We have saved businesses over $44,000 a year and provided relief to a further 400 businesses with the reduction in their payroll tax liability. From 2018, the former Liberal government provided more than $500 million of payroll tax relief on top of a range of those COVID-19 relief measures.

The pandemic brought challenges for many businesses and you did not have to be isolated whether you were a family business or a publicly controlled business. What it did was test the mettle and what we have seen is that a majority of those family businesses have come out the other side of the COVID pandemic.

In relation to that payroll tax, we saw exemptions for commonwealth JobKeeper payments, we saw waivers of payroll tax from April 2020 for 14 months, we saw a six-month waiver of payroll tax from January 2021 and up to a nine-month deferral of payroll tax due from April to December 2020. They are some of the initiatives that the former government put in place to support businesses through an unprecedented level of challenge.

What I do want to touch on is some of the South Australian iconic businesses, whether they are South Australian or whether they are quarantined to some of the smaller regional communities. If we look at some of the big businesses in South Australia, we look at the Detmold Group. The Detmold family, through packaging paper products and the PPE products that have come about through the pandemic, has seen their family business really shine.

We have seen the Beerenberg family, the Paech family—Anthony, Sally and Carol—which has been going for 100 years. Anthony, Sally and Carol are not 100 years old, but the Beerenberg name has been going for 100 years with over 100 products. We look at some of the Angove Family Winemakers, a great Riverland tradition, formed in 1910. They are fifth generation: Ted was a pioneer in the wine industry, developing bag in the box or the cask as we now call it, and then was succeeded by John and now Victoria and Richard. Today, their headquarters is not only in the Riverland but also at McLaren Vale with their famous cellar door.

We also have to remember that Angove Family Winemakers are associated with St Agnes brandy. It is a famous distillation facility in the Riverland and it has won many world awards, as well as being leading organic grape growers. Of course, Nippy's is an iconic family tradition in the Riverland right around South Australia. The Knispel family, Alic and Lyla, were the pioneers and then Jeff and Tina and now Ben have succeeded that family model.

They were established in the thirties, packing citrus into the thirties. They progressed through the war and they were once leaders at the East End Market selling citrus. Alic was known as the 'orange king' and then later came into Adelaide, squeezing juice at the kitchen table. As we now know, it adorns many of our freezers in some of those retail shops. I was speaking to Jeff this morning and he tells me that their business model has been quite diversified. He is still paying between $13 million and $14 million in wages annually and, sadly, the public holiday to commemorate Queen Elizabeth II cost that small business $60,000.

They are great community supporters, just like the Mitolo group in the Riverland and at Virginia. Bruno and Angela were the pioneers of the Mitolo group, succeeded by Frank and John and their families, growing potatoes, onions, olives, wine grapes, and they have that famous cellar door at McLaren Vale, Little Wolf Osteria. That business employs over 1,500 South Australians and is a significant employer. Parilla Premium Potatoes, another great family tradition by the Pye family, are large broadacre horticulture growers: potatoes, onions, carrots, particularly broadacre and livestock to further vertically integrate that business model.

Both the Mitolos and Parilla are reinventing the common potato. We now look at different potatoes for different reasons and low-carb products, and they are now exporting globally. We look around the Riverland to the Moularadellis family, Kingston Estates, one of the great wine producers and winemakers in South Australia. Bill is the managing director of Kingston Estates, and they are selling bulk wine to the world.

We have to remember that the bulk wine product is an essential part of the wine industry and an essential part of the engine room in the wine industry here in South Australia. I was having a chat with Bill recently, and he said it is about how do we actually get 20 of the larger wine companies in Australia to increase their exports by 30 per cent. That is the challenge.

Again, I had the opportunity this morning to speak to the CEO of Food SA, Catherine Sayer. She is doing an outstanding job for those family-related businesses, those food businesses here in South Australia. We talked about the Food SA Hall of Fame recipients. If we look around South Australia, there are some great names. We have the Crotti family, Maurice and David, of the famous San Remo brand. I am sure all of us have had a plate of San Remo pasta at some stage, and I am sure we have all had a green frog cake too. They are also the proud owners of Balfours, who are doing a great job.

The Kotses family, Angelo and Mary, are the managing directors of Bickford's. That is a great success story here in South Australia. They continue to go from strength to strength with diversity in their business model, now not only building accommodation and providing cellar-door experiences but putting great beverage products into the marketplace that are second to none.

We think of Thomas Foods. Darren and Chris Thomas are great South Australians. They are passionate South Australians who employ a significant workforce through their abattoirs, livestock and now new business ventures. It really is a credit to them.

Alister and Simon are doing a great job at Haigh's. When we think chocolate, we think Haigh's, and it is a great institution. There is the Macro Group of companies where Ray Borda and his family are doing an outstanding job with meat products and leather products nowadays. We look at Coopers Brewery—Tim, Glenn and their families—one of the great traditions of South Australia. At Drakes Supermarkets, Roger and John-Paul are doing a really good job with succession planning. I have talked about Nippy's, I have talked about Mitolo's, but there is also the Menz family. Phil, Grantley and Richard are doing an outstanding job.

At Barossa Fine Foods, we cannot forget Franz, Barbara and the four boys. They are all doing a very good job putting some of the finest smallgoods on our plates. Of course, Maggie Beer has now become a publicly listed company, and both Maggie and Colin were great pioneers in the food space. Of course, Almondco is another great Riverland success story. It is very much a family-backed business in South Australia. I cannot express how important family businesses are, not only to South Australia's economy but to the institution of providing food and services to the world.

The Hon. A. MICHAELS (Enfield—Minister for Small and Family Business, Minister for Consumer and Business Affairs, Minister for Arts) (12:32): I want to thank the member for Adelaide for bringing this motion to the house in support of National Family Business Day on 19 September. I also want to thank the member for Chaffey for his support of this motion as well.

We did celebrate National Family Business Day on the 19th here in Parliament House. I had the pleasure of hosting Family Business Australia for a luncheon with a number of their members, which was a fantastic opportunity to recognise the invaluable contribution family businesses make to the South Australian economy.

I was raised in a family business myself. My dad was a cabinet-maker, and we all grew up sandpapering doors on weekends and school holidays. My mother worked in the business as well. I then had the pleasure of starting my own small business, a law firm, which has turned into a family business in the last couple of years, so I know the joys and challenges of running a family business. It is a real pleasure to be the Minister for Small and Family Business. From everything I have researched, I am the first family business minister in South Australia, which I am very proud of.

A number of the household names that we know, which many members have just mentioned, were represented here on 19th for National Family Business Day. We had representatives from Ahrens and Gerard McCabe. We had Ken Hall from Ken Hall Plumbers. We also had a representative from the McBride family, so I want to thank the member for MacKillop for that attendance from one of his representatives. It is a fantastic South-East family business.

It is just as important, though, to recognise the names we do not necessarily know. Obviously, we have some great, very well-known South Australian family businesses, but there are a number of small family businesses that we do not necessarily know the names of—the accountants, the architects, the lawyers, the cafes. The member for Adelaide took me down to her electorate to visit a number of businesses, as she mentioned, many of which are family businesses. They keep the South Australian economy alive.

In particular, I want to acknowledge the work that Family Business Australia does in supporting South Australian family businesses. I acknowledge Brett Miller, the State Regional Director, and Diana Thoeny, who is the State Manager for FBA, for facilitating that luncheon that we had here at Parliament House last Monday. I was very proud at that function to be able to share with everyone the work we have been doing as a government to demonstrate our commitment to the business community.

We know small and family businesses are the backbone of the South Australian economy. They make up almost 98 per cent of all businesses in South Australia and contribute $40 billion to our economy. They are also a critical employer in South Australia. But it is not just about the economics, and some of the stories we have already touched on this morning demonstrate that. Family businesses make an incredible contribution to our communities. We cannot measure that necessarily in a dollar figure, but we all know that family businesses will jump up and help out when their community is in need, and I thank them for that.

We know that the last couple of years have been pretty tough for family businesses, particularly in certain sectors. It is not that easy right now with skill shortages and inflation cost pressures. We are hearing that loud and clear through the engagement we are undertaking at the moment.

I am really pleased that the first thing we did upon first coming to government was the Support Small Business campaign. We launched that within three months of coming in, and that featured a number of South Australian family-owned businesses, with a real message to support local and buy local, and that was fantastic campaign that feeds into us bringing back Brand SA as well, which will be a huge support for family businesses in South Australia to help market South Australian businesses, not only within the state but interstate and overseas. Some of the names we have already mentioned—Haigh's, Beerenberg—are on a national and international scale, so it is great to bring that back to support them.

The member for Adelaide also mentioned the See It Live program, supporting hospitality businesses and bringing back the live music industry. We went to Cafe Komodo to celebrate their success in a venue improvement grant, which was fantastic. We also, I am very pleased to say, have opened an Office for Small and Family Business. It is really going to be a central port of call in the state government to support small and family businesses, and I am really pleased that we opened that on 16 August. We are doing a really extensive consultation phase. As with any business, to work out the right business model you ask your customers, and that is what we are doing: we are asking our small and family business community what they want to see from that Office for Small and Family Business.

The round tables have been a huge success so far. We are doing 20 overall in metro and regional, and we are doing industry sectors as well. There is one at Port Lincoln today, which I was due to be at; unfortunately, I cannot be because of the rescheduling of the dates. I have been at almost all of them, they have gone really well, and we have had over 1,000 businesses respond to our online survey, which has been a huge success in only a matter of weeks.

I encourage any family business or small business listening in—and they probably are not because they do not have the time—to go online to business.sa.gov.au and complete that survey, to really help us shape that Office for Small and Family Business to be able to provide the right supports that they need. I know from my background that a number of supports would be useful coming from the state government in terms of building capabilities within small businesses, whether it be financial literacy or networking.

A lot of the round tables are picking up on the need for mentoring for business owners as well, so we will feed that through and come up with a statewide strategy early next year and set the tone for what that office will do, which I hope will be very useful for the business community in South Australia. We are also using that office to implement the Women in Business program. As a female business owner, I know the challenges that that particular segment has, and so we are wanting to build capability for female-owned businesses and female business owners to support them in starting and growing their businesses successfully in South Australia.

With that, I again want to commend the member for Adelaide for this wonderful motion. I want to wish every family business in South Australia a happy National Family Business Day for last week, and we continue to celebrate our family businesses throughout the state.

Motion carried.

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