AMMA chief executive Steve Knott has welcomed the end of the Fair Work Commission controversy.
"Like many organisations heavily engaged with Australia’s workplace relations system, AMMA has noted with interest the circumstances involving former Fair Work Commission (FWC) Vice President Michael Lawler and has held concerns about the potential damage the controversy was causing the Commission’s integrity and credibility," Mr Knott said.
"Following Minister for Employment Michaelia Cash’s statement yesterday announcing Mr Lawler’s resignation from the FWC, AMMA welcomes the conclusion of this matter. While this has generated a lot of interest in various quarters, we should not lose sight of the fact that these issues may involve individuals dealing with serious mental health challenges," he said.
"AMMA trusts that persons making public commentary on this matter remain cognisant of this, and that the necessary support mechanisms are available to the individuals concerned."
Committee Chair, Mr John Alexander MP, said the Committee is very interested in exploring the need to promote transport connectivity to stimulate economic development and options to finance transport infrastructure, especially value capture.
“Value capture covers a range of mechanisms by which governments can capture increases in asset values brought about by improvements in transport infrastructure in order to pay for those improvements,” Mr Alexander said.
Mr Alexander highlighted the importance of transport connectivity to the productivity of the Australian economy, the liveability of Australia’s cities and the development of regional Australia.
“I believe that better transport connectivity, especially in the form of High Speed Rail, will promote the integrated development of Australia’s cities and regions, bringing them much closer together by drastically reducing travel times,” he said.
“Finding the right mechanism to finance this—such as value capture—is essential to our future development.”
In its submission, the Committee for Sydney stated that it is vital to use value capture in public transport, because without it there is a financing gap in the ongoing operations of public transport, and that, the other benefit of value capture is that it encourages integration of land use and transport planning.
Hearing details
Date: Monday, 7 March 2016 Time: 9:00am–4:15pm Witnesses:
The Committee for Sydney (Submission 25)
Strategex Pty Ltd (Submission 5)
Shopping Centre Council of Australia (Submission 44)
Financial-Architects Asia (Submission 27)
Transport Associates (Submission 38)
Consult Australia (Submission 13)
Property Council of Australia (Submission 61)
Bus Industry Confederation of Australia (Submission 4)
Associate Professor Philip Laird (Submission 15)
LUTI Consulting (Submission 7)
Venue: Meeting Room 1, Commonwealth Parliament Offices, Level 21, 1 Bligh St Sydney The public hearing will be webcast live at http://www.aph.gov.au/live
Due to the security arrangements in place at these offices, members of the media and public interested in attending this hearing should register their interest with the secretariat before midday on Friday 4 March on (02) 6277 2352 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Further background information on the inquiry, including the full terms of reference and how to prepare a submission, can be obtained from the Committee’s website at www.aph.gov.au/itc or from the Secretariat on (02) 6277 2352 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
AUSTRALIA's GDP, in seasonally adjusted chain volume terms, grew 0.6 percent in the December quarter 2015, according to figures released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
The growth in expenditure was driven by a rise of 0.8 percent in Household final consumption expenditure and a rise of 6.0 percent in Public gross fixed capital formation. These were partially offset by a fall in private business investment (-3.3 percent), driven by a fall in new engineering construction (-12.3 percent).
The growth in Household final consumption was reflected in the service industries of Information, media and telecommunications (2.7 percent), and Retail trade (1.0 percent). Other industries that had significant growth were Rental, hiring and real estate (2.8 percent) and Wholesale trade (1.6 percent).
The December quarter saw the Terms of trade decrease 3.2 percent in seasonally adjusted terms.
INTERNATIONAL co-operative business leaders, representing a US$3 trillion global market met in Sydney on March 2 to discuss the sector’s opportunities and challenges into the future.
The International Co-operative Alliance (ICA), the peak body for co-operatives globally meets in Sydney this week for the first time in the organisation’s 120 year history.
“Globally, co-operative firms represent a billion members, three million business and 250 million jobs which signifies the power of this business sector," said Melina Morrison, CEO of the Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals.
“The co-operative sector plays a vital economic and social role in communities, towns and cities across the world and here in Australia. Following the financial crisis, diversification of economies is key to stabilising economies in periods of market volatility.”
The Alliance is headed by Monique Leroux, CEO of Desjardin Group, Canada’s largest financial co-operative with $229 billion in assets and over 7 million members.
Other members of the ICA Board include the leaders of the largest co-operative medical system in the world (Unimed – Brazil) and a peak body providing 12 percent of the US with energy (National Rural Electric Cooperative Association) and a Chinese organisation representing 160 million households (All China Federation of Supply and Marketing Co-operatives).
In an interview with the ABC’s The Business programme, Ms Leroux identified major growth opportunities for the co-operative sector in banking, insurance, agri-food and energy sectors.
Greg Wall, Group CEO of automotive co-operative Capricorn Society also sits on the global board as the first Australian representative.
“As the national peak body for the sector here in Australia, we are delighted to welcome the International Co-operative Alliance delegation to Australia," Ms Morrison said.
WHILE acknowledging the Government’s Innovation Statement, the Institute of Public Accountants (IPA) is using its 2016 pre-Budget submission to encourage the Government to support innovative small to medium enterprises (SMEs).
“Australia needs sound public policy to be developed to encourage innovation amongst small to medium enterprises (SMEs), said IPA chief executive officer, Andrew Conway.
“Around 10 per cent of Australian businesses produce innovative goods and services, while between 16 and 21 per cent innovate in their underlying business processes.
“Even if Australian SMEs are not the initial investors or innovators, they can still capture some of the value of innovations developed elsewhere.
“New-to-country, and particularly new-to-firm, innovations are often more economically important for improving national productivity. Innovation policy should include measures to encourage the diffusion and uptake of existing innovations to a broad range of firms, as well as encouraging new innovations.
“Firms that can adopt continuous improvement methods to imbed incremental innovation can generate large productivity improvements.
“SMEs are an excellent starting point. Large firms often find it hard to change their business model to capture value, but SMEs can change them more easily.
“Accordingly, public innovation policy should encourage value capture and business model innovation more generally. It is important that regulation helps firms capture value while balancing the benefits other firms receive from the wider diffusion of value.
“Talent not technology is the key. Without addressing wider skills requirements, research indicates it is likely to create bottlenecks downstream in the innovation process.
“We believe that government plays an important role. They can provide strong research and development support, enabling better linkages between cutting edge universities and industry; provide support to firms to adapt existing technologies and innovation; and, encourage firms to develop their ability to search for new options, evaluate them and successfully implement and adapt them to their specific context,” said Mr Conway.
For further detail refer to the IPA’s pre-Budget submission for 2016-17 on the IPA website at http://bit.ly/1PVGJX7
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