Page 988 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 21 March 2012
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have happened without mum. I certainly acknowledge my older sisters. The early morning wake-up calls when dad would come and get you at 6 o’clock on a Saturday morning and say, “It’s time to go to work,” after a school dance or whatever often were not welcome. But it was done as a family and for the family’s long-term benefit. I acknowledge dad’s role and mum’s role in it, and certainly all of the brothers and sisters who did their part.
We learned our skills there at the family business. One of the things dad would never let us do was use the calculator ability in the old cash registers. That was long before the electronic cash registers. He made us do it in our heads or do long multiplication or division on a bit of paper. He taught us how to deal with people, how to assist people and how to be part of the community. There were those calls when Mrs Jones would ring and say, “I can’t get down; can you run something up?” Small business, but particularly family business, I think go out of their way to answer those calls. You see it today in the chemists with the service they provide. It is still there in the newsagencies. It is in all those small businesses that are willing to come to you and offer that little bit extra.
First and foremost, I think we need to remember that when you get into family business it is all on the line. Everybody is involved; there are no freeloaders. The second point, of course, is that often these decisions are made around the kitchen table and it is about the family doing things together. It is one of the great strengths of family business that families do it together. In a way, it may also be one of the liabilities when you talk about succession and moving on and control. As dad was getting on we were saying to him, “You need to take it easier.” Dad’s idea of taking it easier was not doing 80 or 90 hours a week but cutting back to 60 or 70 hours a week. There are so many families like that. The demands on their time and their inability to get out of the business make it very hard, because the founders in particular are the linchpins of those businesses. (1) it is all on the line and (2) it is all set around the kitchen table.
Those are some of the points that I wanted to make about the importance of family business and why they are different from other businesses. They cut through that entire segment. They are large, they are medium, they are small, they are micro and they are home based.
I thank members for their contributions today. I think the overwhelming support for the motion says that this place does understand the need to support family business. It certainly notes the role that Family Business Australia plays in supporting and advocating for family businesses in Australia. I would be interested in hearing when the minister gets a response to his letters because I have also written to Mr O’Connor and the Assistant Treasurer specifically saying, “Can we include family business?” I hope in the minister’s letter the reference made was not just to family business; there is a lot of data collected on small and medium businesses. The problem is that it is not disaggregated down into whether or not they are a family business and what problems family businesses particularly face.
I thank Family Business Australia for their attendance here. Members may or may not know that the search is currently on for the longest running family business in the
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