Page 5152 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 27 October 2010

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MS GALLAGHER: Sorry?

Mr Smyth interjecting—

MR SPEAKER: Mr Smyth, this is not a forum to debate the point with the Treasurer.

MS GALLAGHER: So I do not see the change in BusinessPoint as being a reduction in support provided to the business community. The government have had frequent roundtables with industry—with the business council, the chamber of commerce, the Housing Industry Association and with a whole range of other industry organisations—on any range of matters over the last 12 months where we have worked hard to improve our own services across government and make sure that, where we are implementing investments, they are targeted in a way that supports business across the ACT. I have not had any complaints around that. In fact, all I have had when we have held the roundtables is acknowledgment of the efforts the government is going to around its own processes to improve our support for business across the ACT.

MR SPEAKER: Mr Seselja, a supplementary question?

MR SESELJA: Minister, why did the ACT record one of the two highest rates of closing of businesses in the year to June 2009?

MS GALLAGHER: I would want to take some further advice on this data. I have a feeling it would relate to the size and the fluctuations that we sometimes see in ABS data, but I will come back to the Assembly on that. I do not think, if you look at all of the measures that this government has put in place, particularly since 2008, targeted at supporting business, and you see the performance of the economy and all the good news that is coming out around this, that it is fair to talk down the private sector in the ACT, which is what the opposition are doing.

Mr Seselja: Oh!

MR SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mr Seselja?

Ms Gallagher: Well, you are. You have searched and searched for some bad news—

MR SESELJA: I am asking you questions that you do not know the answers to. Minister, why did the ACT have one of the two lowest rates of survival of business that were operating in June 2007?

MS GALLAGHER: I will come back to the Assembly, Mr Speaker.

Mr Smyth: She doesn’t know.

MS GALLAGHER: I have not seen the report.


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