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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-02-25 Daily Xml
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Business Closures

The Hon. J.S. LEE (14:46): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Business Services and Consumers a question about business insolvency.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.S. LEE: According to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, South Australia has had a high number of businesses fall into insolvency due to court wind-ups or creditor wind-ups. Many jobs have been lost from businesses that close their doors, and a number of these businesses attributed their closures to the high cost of doing business in South Australia. My questions to the minister are:

1. Does the minister know how many businesses have entered into insolvency over the last 12 months?

2. With businesses stating that the cost of business is very high in South Australia, when will the minister address these problems for South Australian businesses?

3. How many jobs have been lost due to the closures of these small businesses, and how does that tie in to reaching the jobs target set by the government?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills, Minister for Science and Information Economy, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Business Services and Consumers) (14:47): I thank the honourable member for her most important question. Indeed, the marketplace is a very open and competitive one, and one of the features of that marketplace, and the freedom that businesses have to enter it, is that some are, unfortunately, not successful.

This government has done a great deal to help support business growth. I know I have spoken about this in this place before; in fact, I think the last time was yesterday, when I reminded members that this government has assisted businesses with payroll tax concessions and with reforms to WorkCover. We estimate that $180 million worth of savings to businesses will come from those reforms.

We are building a skilled workforce, we are providing more help for businesses to win government work through initiatives such as Tender Ready, in collaboration with Business SA. We have just recently announced a tax reform agenda in the Governor's speech, which will be a comprehensive review of our taxation system, a bold and brave thing. So we have certainly indicated that we are prepared to look at further reforms in relation to tax.

I have spoken in this place before about the Small Business Roundtable that has been established to provide greater collaboration and communication between the state government and particularly the small business community. The round table will help assist in fixing up unnecessary barriers to business growth and ensure that our regulations promote innovation and speed up approval processes, as well as act as a sounding board on policy issues where appropriate. Members will be well aware—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: I do not want to interrupt your caucus meeting here, but the minister is trying to answer a question from the Hon. Ms Lee, so I think it is important that we can all hear what is being said. Minister.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: Thank you, Mr President. Honourable members will also, I am sure, be aware of initiatives—because I have spoken about them in this place before—in relation to our voucher system, which is mainly targeted at small enterprises to help them build new innovative developments into commercial activities. There is a grant program that also assists particularly small businesses to be able to grow and develop their businesses.

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